National Journal's congressional vote ratings -- and more precisely, Sen. John Kerry's ranking in them -- has been a hot topic in recent days. Those ratings and the article explaining them were first published last February. One week later, National Journal ran "lifetime average" rankings for Kerry and many of his Democratic colleagues -- and then at this summer's Republican Convention, National Journal Editor Charles Green wrote an explanatory essay that appeared in Convention Daily.

That essay appears below, as do the lifetime averages and links to the complete vote ratings package from the Feb. 28 issue of National Journal.

· Main Page Overview · Rating Methodology · Senate Votes · House Votes For vote ratings on issue areas, go to the Main Page Overview. Lifetime Averages  In the following chart, the 48 sitting Senate  Democrats are ranked based on their "lifetime  average" composite liberal score in National  Journal's annual congressional vote ratings.  NJ began compiling the ratings in 1981.  SENATOR (Year First Elected Or Appointed) Liberal Score   1. Mark Dayton, D-Minn. (2000) 90.3   2. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md. (1976) 89.4   3. Jack Reed, D-R.I. (1996) 89.3   4. Jon Corzine, D-N.J. (2000) 88.8   5. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. (1962) 88.6   6. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. (1992) 88.5   7. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa (1984) 87.6   8. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. (1996) 87.3   9. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. (1982) 86.2 10. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. (1974) 86.0 11. John Kerry, D-Mass. (1984) 85.7 12. Carl Levin, D-Mich. (1978) 85.5 13. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. (2000) 83.9 14. Patty Murray, D-Wash. (1992) 83.8 14. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. (2000) 83.8 16. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md. (1986) 82.4 16. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. (1998) 82.4 18. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii (1990) 82.0 19. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. (2000) 81.0 20. Russell Feingold, D-Wis. (1992) 80.0 21. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. (1996) 79.8 22. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. (1980) 78.9 23. Tom Daschle, D-S.D. (1986) 78.8 24. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. (1984) 77.3 25. Joseph Biden, D-Del. (1972) 76.6 25. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii (1962) 76.6 27. John Edwards, D-N.C. (1998) 75.7 28. Tim Johnson, D-S.D. (1996) 74.0 29. Herb Kohl, D-Wis. (1988) 73.0 30. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. (1992) 70.9 31 Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. (1982) 70.7 32. Max Baucus, D-Mont. (1978) 70.1 33. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. (1992) 67.8 34. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. (2000) 67.3 35. Harry Reid, D-Nev. (1986) 65.3 36. Thomas Carper, D-Del. (2000) 65.0 37. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. (1986) 64.7 37. Bob Graham, D-Fla. (1986) 64.7 39. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. (1958) 64.3 40. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn. (1988) 64.1 41. Mary Landrieu, D-La. (1996) 63.2 42. Evan Bayh, D-Ind. (1998) 62.0 43. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark. (1998) 60.3 44. Mark Pryor, D-Ark. (2002) 60.2 45. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C. (1966) 58.1 46. John Breaux, D-La. (1986) 53.2 47. Ben Nelson, D-Neb. (2000) 48.5 48. Zell Miller, D-Ga. (2000) 35.0

By Charles Green
National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Monday, Aug. 30, 2004

If the past several months are any guide, more than a handful of convention speakers will mount the stage at Madison Square Garden this week and label John Kerry the most liberal member of the United States Senate.

Some will go on to say that Kerry's running mate, John Edwards, is the fourth-most-liberal senator, and they will describe the Kerry-Edwards ticket as the most liberal presidential ticket of all time.

As for their source, the speakers will cite one publication: the (take your pick) nonpartisan, nonideological, or authoritative National Journal -- the weekly magazine that is producing the newspaper you're reading now.

President Bush has cited National Journal's ranking of Kerry. So have Vice President Cheney and his wife, Lynne. Newt Gingrich mentions us all the time. So does Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie. We've even been discussed on Comedy Central's Daily Show With Jon Stewart.

In short, our magazine -- or, more precisely, our annual congressional vote ratings edition -- has become a Republican talking point in the 2004 presidential campaign. And that's been a fascinating, and disconcerting, experience. Fascinating because we're more used to being cited in congressional hearings than on the Today show. Disconcerting because the shorthand used to describe our ratings of Kerry and Edwards is sometimes misleading -- or just plain wrong.

Here's the background:

Last November and December, as we have for the past 23 years, National Journal editors and reporters began preparing for the magazine's annual vote ratings of members of Congress. Each year, we pick several dozen votes in three broad issue areas -- economic, social, and foreign -- and identify yea and nay positions as representing a "conservative" or "liberal" stance. Members are then ranked from the most liberal to the most conservative in each issue area. Members also receive a composite liberal score and a composite conservative score -- basically an average of their issue-based scores.

When the tabulations came in for 2003, John Kerry had the highest composite liberal score of any senator.

But there was an asterisk. As with other lawmakers who were running for president, Kerry missed a lot of votes in 2003 -- 37 of the 62 that were being used in the vote ratings. He didn't vote often enough to merit scores in the social-policy and foreign-affairs categories. (Under our system, a member has to participate in at least half the votes in a category to receive a score in that category.) He did cast enough votes (19 of 32) in the economic category to get a rating. On those votes, Kerry took the "liberal" position every time.

That was the basis for Kerry's receiving a composite liberal score for 2003 that was higher than any other senator's score.

Some critics of our rating system have questioned why Kerry should have gotten a composite score at all since he didn't vote enough to qualify for scores in two of our three categories. The answer, in a nutshell, is because that's the way we've done it in the past. Gary Hart, Al Gore, Paul Simon, Jack Kemp, and Jesse Helms are examples of members of Congress who have received composite scores from National Journal over the past 20 years even though they didn't vote enough to receive a rating in all three categories.

We knew that rating Kerry as the most liberal senator in 2003 would be controversial. But it seemed to us that not giving Kerry a composite score because of his many absences -- to, in effect, change our vote-rating rules in the middle of the game -- would be unfair. It would expose National Journal to charges of partisanship.

It didn't take long after the ratings were published in February for Republicans and talking heads to start using Kerry's rating as a weapon against him. Sometimes, the people citing the ratings would note that Kerry was ranked as the most liberal senator in 2003. More often, the sound bite would be that National Journal had ranked Kerry as "the most liberal senator," without any reference to 2003. Occasionally, Republicans would assert that Kerry had been ranked the most liberal senator on the basis of his entire Senate career.

Vice President Cheney made such a claim at a campaign appearance in Minnesota this month. "John Kerry is, by National Journal ratings, the most liberal member of the United States Senate," Cheney said. "Ted Kennedy is the more conservative of the two senators from Massachusetts. It's true. All you've got to do is go look at the ratings system. And that captures a lot, I think, in terms of somebody's philosophy. And it's not based on one vote, or one year; it's based on 20 years of service in the United States Senate."

But if the standard is votes over a lifetime, Kerry isn't the most liberal senator. By that measure, Kerry is the 11th-most-liberal senator, coming in below such Democrats as Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, Barbara Boxer of California, and, yes, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, according to a National Journal analysis published in March.

John Edwards, who was ranked the fourth-most-liberal senator in 2003 (and who also missed many votes that year), is the 27th-most-liberal senator based on votes over his career.

Whether the scores of Kerry and Edwards in 2003, when they were pursuing their party's nomination and appealing to Democratic primary voters, are more relevant than are their lifetime scores is a matter of opinion, of course. Democrats tend to say that a lifetime score is a more useful barometer. Republicans counter that the votes that Kerry and Edwards cast in 2003 are fair game.

Also open to debate is the relevance of the terms "liberal" and "conservative."

When Kerry was asked in a nationally televised debate in February about being rated "the most liberal senator in the Senate," he replied that it was a "laughable characterization. It's absolutely the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in my life." He went on to say that "labels are so silly in American politics," and he questioned whether his votes against the Bush-backed Medicare bill or Bush-backed tax cuts should be considered "liberal" votes.

Al From and Bruce Reed, the chief executive officer and president, respectively, of the Democratic Leadership Council, made a similar case in a recent column questioning the ratings. National Journal's rating system, they argued, "makes a decidedly subjective judgment about what is a 'liberal' vote and what is a 'conservative' vote that is based more on partisan than ideological differences, ensuring that most Democrats will have very liberal ratings."

From and Reed are right that identifying "liberal" and "conservative" votes is subjective. National Journal has never claimed otherwise. But their contention that National Journal's rating system ensures that most Democrats will have "very liberal ratings" is a stretch. As the table on p. 4 shows, 28 of the 48 Senate Democrats have lifetime scores below 80. Sixteen have lifetime scores below 70. As the record shows, Democrats don't all vote alike.

Like most talking points, National Journal's 2003 vote ratings will be forgotten soon enough. And our days of being cited repeatedly on talk shows, in the press, on the campaign trail, and, perhaps, at a national political convention -- will be over.

On one level, we'll no doubt miss the attention. But all the same, we'd just as soon let someone else have the honor next time around.

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