Today, a new Congressional scorecard was released by
FreedomDemocrats.org, a libertarian Democrats blog. Grading the members
of the House of Representatives on thirty votes on personal liberty and
forty on economic liberty, it shows that few members of Congress support
a broad libertarian agenda. The results of the scorecard, including a
graphic representation of the members on a Nolan Chart, can be found
online at the following link: http://freedomdemocrats.org/node/812
Over the past six years, the rise of "compassionate conservatism"
has eroded the Republican Party's traditional support for economic
liberty. The majority of Republicans fall within the authoritarian
quadrant, voting against both personal liberty and economic liberty the
majority of the time. Ironically, the two most libertarian members of
the House are Republicans Ron Paul of Texas and Jeff Flake of Arizona,
despite the growing authoritarian nature of their party.
Across the aisle, the Democratic Party remains committed to
liberalism. While most of its members support personal liberty, it has
a significant "populist" wing of the party that is far more socially
conservative. Despite some variety on social issues, the Democrats
remain united in support of economic liberalism and big government. Yet
because of the party's overall support of personal liberty, in many ways
it appears to be more libertarian than the authoritarian Republican Party.
FreedomDemocrats.org is an online internet community of libertarian
activists within the Democratic Party. Faced with the collapse of
fiscal responsibility in the Republican Party and its descent into
authoritarianism, it works to promote genuine small government ideas and
candidates within the Democratic Party. Although dismayed by the low
scores of most Democrats, we are pleased to note that two Democratic
members of the House stand out for having libertarian-leaning voting
records: Melissa Bean of Illinois and Jim Cooper of Tennessee, both
members of the Blue Dog Democrats Coalition.
Melissa Bean of Illinois is still in her first term; she defeated
long time incumbent Phil Crane in 2004. She scored 80% on economic
issues and 50% on social issues. Although more to the right on social
issues than ideal, she has shown herself to be a staunch fiscal
conservative (according to the old, traditional definition of the
phrase). She has received a rare endorsement from the Chamber of
Commerce, an organization that typically supports Republicans, in her
reelection bid.
Jim Cooper of Tennessee is also a deficit hawk and an opponent of
wasteful spending; he scored 67.50% on economic issues and 56.67% on
social issues. He has received media attention recently for pushing to
publish the "Financial Report of the United States." This report, which
more accurately tracks the budget and future financial obligations like
Social Security than traditional budget methods, will hopefully help
inform voters about the reality of our country's coming fiscal crisis.
In the future, FreedomDemocrats.org hopes to support more Democratic
challengers running with a libertarian-leaning platform. One such
candidate is Frank Gonzalez, a former Libertarian Party candidate who is
currently running in the Florida 21st. Please check out his site:
http://www.electfrank.org/ Another Libertarian-turned-Democrat is Brent
Benedict in the Tennessee 3rd: http://www.brentbenedict.com/ The Freedom
Democrats community also plans on working on targeting specific policy
proposals to Democratic activists and party members in order to expand
the appeal of libertarian ideas.
<><>
Logan H. Ferree
ForumWebSiteAt http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Libertarian
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