Club for Growth

The Club's Congressional Scorecard

Club for Growth is publishing this scorecard so our members and the public can monitor the actions and the voting behavior of members of Congress on economic growth issues.

We conducted a comprehensive examination of each lawmaker's record on pro-growth policies and computed an Economic Growth Score on a scale of 0 to 100. A score of 100 indicates the highest support for pro-growth policies. Those lawmakers scoring 90 or higher receive the Defender of Economic Freedom award.

The rating examines legislative actions that reflect our immediate pro-economic growth policy goals, including:

• Making the Bush tax cuts permanent
• Death tax repeal
• Cutting and limiting government spending
• Social Security reform with personal retirement accounts
• Expanding free trade
• Legal reform to end abusive lawsuits
• Replacing the current tax code
• School choice
• Regulatory reform and deregulation

Not all of these policy goals will come up for a vote in each session of Congress.

Whenever possible the Club will send a "key vote" alert to each member of Congress prior to an expected roll call vote or pending legislative action that we plan to include in the scorecard. While the Club will seek to provide a "key vote" alert in all instances, it reserves the right to include any vote or action in the rating as votes often come up with little warning.

Legislative Actions Considered

The Club's 2007 rating includes 37 House and 26 Senate roll call votes as well as other selected actions that advance or harm pro-growth policies. The rating awarded points for scores of 80% or better in the Club for Growth's 2007 RePork card on pork barrel spending. Additional points were awarded for representatives who signed a letter to President Bush pledging to uphold a veto of a fiscally irresponsible spending bill. Representatives who failed to vote as pledged did not receive credit for signing the letter. Points were also counted if the lawmaker did not sponsor legislation that could lead to higher taxes on imports or other actions that could harm trade. Finally, the rating also accounts for all tax, spending and regulation votes, and spending bill sponsorships.

Computation

Scores are computed on a scale of 0 to 100. Each vote or action in the rating is assigned a certain number of points depending on its relative importance. Absences are not counted against a member, though we reserve the right to do so in the future if, in our judgment, an absence was used to duck taking a position.

In an attempt to include in our rating a measure of all day-to-day votes on economic growth, we awarded points in the rating based on two nonpartisan studies. One study is on roll call votes and the other is on bill sponsorships. National Taxpayers Union compiles an annual rating of Congress that analyzes "all votes that could significantly affect the amount of federal taxes, spending, debt, or regulatory impact." These votes clearly could affect economic growth.

Because big spending legislation can harm economic growth and can gain momentum from large numbers of cosponsors, we gave credit to lawmakers whose net legislative agendas cut spending. We believe that each member of Congress who proposes new spending programs should also offset those costs by identifying reductions in other programs.

To provide some additional guidance concerning the scores, each lawmaker was ranked. Scores and ranks can not be directly compared between the House and Senate as different votes were taken in each chamber. Please note that the lowest possible rank was 426 in the House, as several members did not cast enough votes to be ranked. In the Senate the worst rank was 97.

Additional Factors

A study of roll call votes on the floor of the House and Senate and legislative actions is just that. It can not account for a lawmaker's work in committees in his party's caucus meetings, and effectiveness as a leader in advocating pro-growth policies.

Posted at Andrew Roth at 12:42 PM | TrackBack