[billbears]

It says nothing. From the ACU's website

ACU tracks a wide variety of issues before Congress, ranging from taxes to spending and national security to abortion. Accordingly, our ratings encompass three general categories: (1) economic and budget matters; (2) social and cultural issues, and (3) defense and foreign policy. ACU endeavors to analyze votes from each category in order to obtain a balanced, comprehensive picture of an individual member's ideological predisposition based upon recorded records.

Each member of the House and Senate is rated on a scale of 0 to 100.

The purpose of the "Rating" is to inform the public, in as unbiased a method as possible, exactly where individual Senators and Members of the House stand on the ideological spectrum from liberal to conservative.

So if a member of Congress votes no on an issue because that member realizes the issue is none of the federal government's business per the Framers, the ACU would mark that a 'liberal' position even when it's not.

[FreeReign]

So if a member of Congress votes no on an issue because that member realizes the issue is none of the federal government's business per the Framers, the ACU would mark that a 'liberal' position even when it's not.

There is nothing in the ACU' statement that supports your conclusion.

[Mariner]

As a simple man, I have only five issues:

National Security and the aggressive pursuit of the war against Jihad.

Seal the border and grant NO AMNESTY.

Appoint strict constructionists to the USSC.

Reduce BOTH taxes and spending.

Win, so that we have a snowballs chance for the above.

It's now a two man race in the GOP between Rudy and Fred. I could live with either based on the issues that matter to me. I believe either could win the general election as Hillary and Obama are un-electable. Perhaps Gore is un-electable now that he's a movie maker.

I have high confidence for the Presidency in 2008...but I'm really concerned about the Senate. Only about 1/2 to 2/3 of the GOP caucus is on the right side of my issues and a handful of Dims on the right side of the big ones.

I advocate we focus on these RINOs in the Senate and drive them out of town.

[ChiefBoatswain]

Excellent point, and always the problem when you try to boil an issue down to a single number.

[Designer]

"So if a member of Congress votes no on an issue because that member realizes the issue is none of the federal government's business per the Framers, the ACU would mark that a 'liberal' position even when it's not."

Absolutely correct!

I think the ACU's rating system is not without bias, and I don't mean in the "good" way, either.

I was astonished to find my stupid Congressman Tom Latham "earns" a very high rating, even though he is not working in my best interest.

There are other "indexes" to consider.