New “Freedom Index" Rates Congressmen Based on Constitution

NEW AMERICAN ^ | 28 JULY 2011 | Gary Benoit

[Quix]

Written by Gary Benoit

Thursday, 28 July 2011 00:00

The New American has published its first “Freedom Index” for the new (112th) Congress. The index, published four times each two-year congressional term, rates all members of the House and Senate based on their adherence to constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty, and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements.

. . .

Considering that every U.S. Representative and Senator takes an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution, one might expect that the Congress as a whole would score high on a congressional scorecard based on the Constitution. But this is not the case, despite the fact that it has become popular these days for candidates for public office to claim that they support the Constitution. In the House, the average score on our new index is 53 percent, and in the Senate the average score is 43 percent.

Put simply, most Congressmen earned failing grades. But not all. In the House, 24 congressmen earned 100-percent scores, including presidential candidate Ron Paul of Texas. (Two other House members running for President, Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan, earned scores of 90 percent and 89 percent respectively.) In the Senate, two lawmakers earned perfect scores — Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah.

. . .

[Quix]

SOBERING, imho.

I searched for the title and did not find anything else on FR about it.

[grobdriver]

Are there negative numbers?

[GailA]

I can tell you my commie rep rated a F, he’s a lawyer who never practiced, went straight into gov’t dem steve cohen 0 butt kisser deluxe.

[lahargis]

Seems the link to the pdf of the index within the article does not work.

[ken21]

bump

[WayneS]

In the House, the average score on our new index is 53 percent, and in the Senate the average score is 43 percent.

That high? Were you grading ona 'curve'?

[Vide]

I'm going to use Trey Gowdy of South Carolina as an example because he was on the House panel that recently voted to require ISPs to snoop on customers.

What is the value of a Freedom index that scores such a creature 90/100?

[SeekAndFind]

RE: rates all members of the House and Senate based on their adherence to constitutional principles of limited government, fiscal responsibility, national sovereignty, and a traditional foreign policy of avoiding foreign entanglements.

---

By this criteria, anyone who is against the USA even bringing to justice Osama Bin Ladin and the Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan are going to score highly on this index.

Remember, we captured most of the terrorists in Guantanamo in Pakistan and Afghanistan. If avoiding foreign entanglements is a constitutional principle, then why did Thomas Jefferson send troops to fight the Barbary Pirates in Tripoli? Does that mean he doesn't know what the Constitution means?

[Quix]

INDEED.

Rushing off on errands and working on other projects.

Thanks for your kind replies, all.

I think most ought to have -100% scores, imho.

[Pollster1]

A better link can be found in the upper left file: "Freedom Index - August 2011". Dems are usually 0-30%, while GOP is usually 80-100%, with a very small number of exceptions in the House and a larger proportion of exceptions in the Senate (shockingly, Senators McCain, Murkowski, Kirk, Lugar, Coats, Grassley, Roberts, McConnell, Snowe, Collins, Scott, Cochran, Wicker, Blunt, Johanns, Hoeven, Portman, Thune, Alexander, and Hutchison all rate 50% to 60% - I guess their inability to balance a budget should be no surprise).

[Roninf5-1]

By this criteria, anyone who is against the USA even bringing to justice Osama Bin Ladin and the Al Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan are going to score highly on this index.

If you think that the purpose of Trillions of US taxpayers dollars being spent to kill and control people in the Af/Pak/Iraq Forever War, not to mention, Lybia, Yemen, and God knows were else, is to bring justice to Osama Bin Ladin, who is dead now, and Al Qaeda terrorist, less than a 100 according to the Pentagon, then I have a bridge to sell you.

[upchuck]

He’s on the panel. Do you know how he voted? Maybe he voted no.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: If you think that the purpose of Trillions of US taxpayers dollars being spent to kill and control people in the Af/Pak/Iraq Forever War

I don’t believe in a Forever war. But neither do I believe in NO war to avenge 3,000 of our countrymen who were killed by evil doers hiding in another country supported by their leaders.

Do you believe that for the purpose of saving a trillion dollars the United States should then not fight Japan when they attacked us in Pearl Harbor?

[Quix]

Good points.

Like I’ve said . . .

most of the treasonous congress critters should have scored well into the

minus numbers.

[Vide]

Nope. He's a co-sponsor and he voted against an amendment to restrict the stored data to IP address only.

The only defense I can think of is that he's too dumb to understand what he's voting for.