ADA Updates
2010 ADA Congressional Voting Record |
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| Posted May 25 2011 at 11:56 AM |
| Updates >> |
Historic ADA Congressional Voting Record
Confirms Hard-right Shift of House & Senate Republicans
ADA’s 2010 Rankings Find Only 3 GOP House Moderates vs. 90 Extremists
 Confirming Washington’s deep partisan divide and the hard right shift of Congressional Republicans – even before their recent midterm successes – the latest version of America’s pioneering political scorecard was released today by Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), the nation’s longest-established liberal advocacy organization.
“ADA has been identifying the most liberal and conservative members of Congress since the Truman Administration,” noted ADA National Director Michael J. Wilson. “But the brand of ultra-conservatism within the Republican Party revealed by the latest rankings is simply staggering, and does a lot to explain public frustration with Washington.”
"The latest ADA scorecard demonstrates in numbers what I experience every day in Congress – right-wing ideological extremism and outright refusal by Republicans to invest in middle-class families,” said ADA’s President, U.S. Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-CA). "Zero – that’s their score. Zero – that’s what they’ve done to provide affordable health care, help the unemployed, end the Afghanistan debacle, clean up Wall Street, protect our environment, advance civil rights and more.
“I’m proud to receive my 100 percent score and pleased to share that distinction with so many of my progressive colleagues,” Woolsey continued. “I will continue to work with them and with any members who want to bring our troops home and get our economy moving again."
ADA’s 2010 Congressional voting record identified 53 progressive “Heroes” on Capitol Hill: 48 Representatives and 5 Senators who supported progressive policies with every tracked vote. But they were outnumbered 2-to-1 by 109 “Zeroes”, the 90 House members and 19 Senators who sided against economic opportunity, social justice, unnecessary military involvement, and other liberal values. All the Heroes were Democrats, all the Zeroes Republicans.
Only 3 GOP House members supported ADA’s position as often as a third of the time; over half the House’s Republican caucus rated a Zero.
In compiling the rankings for each chamber, ADA scored 20 votes from the second session of the 111th Congress on issues including health care reform, repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, unemployment compensation, and ratification of the New START nuclear weapons treaty. Since their first issuance in 1947, ADA scores have been relied upon by scholars, journalists, and the general public as the standard indicator of American political ideology.
The ADA 2010 Congressional Scorecard is available here.
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