Breaking down the National Journal vote ratings

WASHINGTON — The National Journal’s annual ratings of Congress’s most liberal and conservative lawmakers came out today and there are a few surprises where Minnesotans are concerned.

According to the ratings, Rep. John Kline was the delegation's most conservative Republican in 2012, relative to his party. Its most liberal member was Sen. Al Franken.

National Journal has been rating lawmakers like this for 30 years and their numbers are among the most respected and talked about in Washington. It’s important to remember that the ratings reflect voting tendencies, and that individual votes are weighed differently based on a rather convoluted calculation process (voting for the House GOP budget, for example, will take you further to the right than voting against the Republican Study Committee budget will take you to the left, since the Study Committee budget is far more conservative and Republicans who vote against it shouldn't be considered "liberals" for doing so … got that?).

With that in mind, here’s how Minnesotans are ranked, relative to members of their party, and some of my thoughts below:

Senate:

-Al Franken: 3^rd most liberal in the Senate

-Amy Klobuchar 30^th

House:

-John Kline: 26^th most conservative in the House

-Michele Bachmann: 80^th

-Erik Paulsen: 110^th

-Chip Cravaack: 155^th

 --

-Betty McCollum: 38^th most liberal

-Keith Ellison: 47^th

-Tim Walz: 150^th

-Collin Peterson: 183^rd

So, what sticks out?

• National Journal considers Al Franken the third most liberal member of the Senate, a title Republicans will probably hang around his neck come next year. It’s a big jump up for Franken, who has been ranked somewhere in the mid-teens each of the past few years. Amy Klobuchar’s voting record, meanwhile, is near the center of the Senate Democratic conference.
• Minnesota House Democrats' rankings feel about right. Betty McCollum and Keith Ellison are easily the most liberal members of the delegation, though it’s a bit surprising they’re not higher on the list (Ellison was one of a score of Democrats tied for most liberal in last year’s rankings).
• Tim Walz and Collin Peterson both tend to cast themselves as moderates and the rankings reflect that. Peterson has the fourth most conservative voting record among Democrats, putting him further right than two Republicans (Illinois’ Robert Dold and New York’s Chris Gibson).
• For the second year in a row, John Kline takes the prize as the Minnesota delegation’s most conservative member. Kline and Bachmann have traded the title since the latter took office in 2007.

This is where it’s important to remember that the ratings reflect voting record and not raw ideology. Conventional wisdom suggests Bachmann is the most conservative member of the Minnesota delegation and often looks to buck Republican leadership when they don’t go far enough right for her tastes. Kline is a party man and tends to vote as such. So as Republicans vote for more conservative bills, he does too, while Bachmann might vote no on those same bills because they’re not as conservative as she might like. With that in mind, here’s a big caveat from National Journal:

Some House Republicans occasionally voted against budget-cutting measures last year because they didn’t think the bills reduced spending enough. In so doing, they voted against the overwhelming majority of House conservatives and with the overwhelming majority of House liberals (who opposed the measures because they thought the bills cut spending too much). In such cases, their votes were counted as liberal because they voted with liberals. It’s beyond the capacity of a vote ratings system to determine why a member voted the way he or she did on any particular piece of legislation.

For another perspective, consider the conservative Americans For Prosperity scorecard released on Wednesday. Lawmakers get positive grades both if they vote for bills the group considers conservative and against bills that don’t go far enough right. The group gave Bachmann a B, the highest grade in the delegation. Kline, Erik Paulsen and Chip Cravaack all received Cs (every Democrat got a D or worse).

• Taken as a whole, Minnesota Republicans’ average composite conservative score (77.2) and Democrats’ average composite liberal score (76.7) are pretty much in line with where they’ve been over the last four years. In other words, the delegation's voting record hasn’t become more conservative or liberal (relative to their parties) over time.

Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com. Follow him on Twitter: @dhenry