New Republic puts National Journal liberal/conservative rankings in perspective

David Jarman at The New Republic offers an interesting take on last week’s National Journal rankings, which show Rep. Betty McCollum as one of the U.S. House’s most liberal members, Rep. Tim Walz as a “centrist” and Rep. Bachmann as not nearly as conservative as her media campaigns might suggest she is. He writes that a “consistent quirk” in the annual surveys means legislators who are “typically portrayed in the media as the most extreme and polarizing ideologues often fall somewhere in the middle of the list.” He notes that progressive Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich was ranked as 160th most liberal, while “bomb-thrower Michele Bachmann” is 28th most conservative.

The rankings, Jarman writes, don’t take into consideration the why of each vote:

There’s a logical explanation for this. The lists tend to highlight the workhorses and backbenchers who most reliably hew to the party line. So low-profile senators like Ben Cardin and Sheldon Whitehouse top the liberal list, while the most conservative House members include no-names like Trent Franks and Doug Lamborn.

This shouldn’t call the validity of National Journal’s rankings into doubt, but it does point to a glitch in its formula: It doesn’t ask why a congressman or -woman votes the way he or she does. It only records whether it’s a party-line vote.

So when Kucinich votes against healthcare reform for not being single-payer, it’s notched as a conservative vote rather than a lefty one. And when Paul votes against military adventurism, it’s recorded as a liberal vote rather than modern-day isolationism. In other words, because they break with their party on principle, National Journal ends up classifying ideologues as centrists.