Yes, it's that time of year. Time to look back over how the politicians in Washington behaved last year in 2005. We start with a scorecard of the House and a look at social and defense issues.

A total of fifteen votes were used to score the current House on their views of social and defense related issues. All votes were taken from the 2005 year and the first session of the 109th Congress. If a Congressman was in office it was assumed that he or she could have voted on the legislation and not-voting was scored the same as voting against the position favored by the Freedom Democrats Scorecard. The obvious exception to this was Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the House, who does not traditionally vote. In the rare instances where he did vote, his vote was recorded by the scorecard and used to assign him a score. Scores were kept for both Congressmen in situations where representation of the district changed during the year.

Vote 1- REAL ID Act, H.R. 418. On February 10, 2005 the House approved the REAL ID Act by a vote of 261 to 161. As a move toward a system of national identification cards the scorecard’s position was a vote against passage of the bill. Also included in the bill were restrictions on the rights of asylum seekers and the waiving of restrictions on the construction of physical barriers along the border.

Vote 2- Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, H.R. 310. On February 16, 2005 the House passed the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act by a vote of 389 to 38. The act increased penalties for broadcasters who violate decency standards. This blatant attempt at censorship was opposed by the scorecard.

Vote 3- Terri Schiavo, S. 686. On March 21, 2005, the House voted to intervene in the medical decision concerning Terri Schiavo. By a vote of 203 to 58, the House passed legislation that transferred the case of Terri Schiavo directly to the federal courts. The scorecard is strongly opposed to this intervention in a personal matter.

Vote 4- Reproductive Rights for Minors, H.R. 748. The “Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act” was passed by the house on April 27, 2005 by a vote of 270 to 157. The act would make it illegal for an adult to aid a minor in crossing state lines for an abortion and create a draconian system that does not address the differences in parental notification requirements across states. The scorecard opposed this piece of legislation as an unsatisfactory attempt to use the interstate commerce clause to trample federalism and states’ rights.

Vote 5- Death Penalty and Mandatory Minimums, H.R. 1279. The House passed on May 11, 2005 the “Gang Deterrence and Community Protection Act” by a vote of 279 to 144. The act expanded the federal death penalty and created more mandatory minimum sentences. The scorecard opposes in particular the practice of the legislature taking away powers from the judiciary by imposing these restrictions on sentencing.

Vote 6- Tancredo Amendment on Homeland Security, H.R. 2360. Congressman Tom Tancredo offered an amendment on May 17, 2005 to the Homeland Security appropriations bill that would prevent funds from going to state and local governments that refused to share information with the federal government. The amendment was rejected by a vote of 258 to 165 and the scorecard supports the House’s rejection of this attempt to blackmail the other levels of government into submission.

Vote 7- Woosley Amendment on Iraq, H.R. 1815. – Congresswoman Lynn Woosley introduced an amendment to express the sense of the Congress that the President ought to develop a plan of withdrawing from Iraq on May 25, 2005. Congress rejected this amendment by a vote of 300 to 128. The scorecard supports all efforts by legislators to enforce the President to formulate an exit strategy for Iraq.

Vote 8- Good Amendment on Border Security, H.R. 1815. On May 25, 2005, Congressman Virgil Goode introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would authorize the use of the armed forces of the United States in border security. The amendment passed by a vote of 245 to 184. The militarization of the border is a worrying trend for liberty and freedom in America and the scorecard opposes it.

Vote 9- National Defense Authorization Act, H.R. 1815. This act, which authorized the continuation of our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, was passed on May 25, 2005 by a vote of 390 to 39. There was no timetable or outlining of goals in the act, and the act also suffers from the authorization of several questionable weapons systems. The scorecard opposed this piece of legislation.

Vote 10- Hinchey Amendment on Medical Marijuana, H.R. 2862. On June 15, 2005, Congressman Maurice Hinchey introduced an amendment that would prevent the Justice Department from conducting raids and other measures against medical marijuana patients in states that had approved the practice. The House rejected this amendment in a vote of 161 to 264. The scorecard’s position is in favor of the amendment.

Vote 11- Flag Desecration Amendment, H.J.R. 10. An amendment prohibiting the physical destruction of the American flag was proposed and voted on by the House on June 22, 2005. It failed to meet the two-thirds requirement with a vote of only 286 to 130. A vote against the amendment was the position taken by the scorecard because of the near idolatry of those who back such an amendment and seek to restrict free speech through an amendment.

Vote 12- PATRIOT Act Reauthorization, House Passage, H.R. 3199. On July 21, 2005, the House voted 257 to 171 in favor of the passage of H.R. 3199, which would reauthorize the PATRIOT Act. The renewal of this act without first addressing the strong concerns about invasions of privacy was strongly opposed by the scorecard. The importance given to opposing its renewal was weighted by including the final conference report as well.

Vote 13- Medical Malpractice Caps, H.R. 5. The House voted on a bill to create caps on damages awarded in medical malpractice lawsuits on July 28, 2005. The bill passed by a vote of 230 to 194. Opposing this intervention in the legal system by the legislature was the position of the scorecard.

Vote 14- Online Freedom of Speech Act, H.R. 1606. The Online Freedom of Speech Act would have excluded the Internet from the definition of "public communication" in the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002. This would protect ‘blogs’ from potential regulation by the FEC. On November 2, 2005 the House voted on a motion to suspend the rules and pass the act. It fell short of the necessary number of votes, two-thirds, by a vote of 25 to 182.

Vote 15- PATRIOT Act Reauthorization, Conference Report, H.R. 3199. The final passage of the PATRIOT Act came on December 14, 2005 when the House voted on the conference report of the bill. Because of the importance placed on opposing the PATRIOT Act, both the vote on the original house version and the final passage of the reauthorization are included on the scorecard. The vote on the final passage was 251 to 174.

In the end, the score assigned to each member of the House was based on the percent of their potential votes in which they voted with the scorecard. This was based out of fifteen potential votes except for members who entered or left the House during its first session and the Speaker of the House. Results are viewable here in a text file ordered by score.

No member of the House received a perfect score, although John Conyers of Michigan, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Barbara Lee of California, Cynthia McKinny of Georgia, Jose Serrano of New York, Maxine Waters of California, and Lynn Woosley of California voted with the scorecard fourteen out of fifteen times. The highest scoring Republican was Ron Paul of Texas, whose record was twelve out of fifteen votes. In two of these votes Ron Paul was absent, in only one, the vote on the Tancredo Amendment on Homeland Security, did he vote against the position of the scorecard. The second highest Republican was John Duncan of Tennessee, with a score of seven out of fifteen or just under fifty percent.

Overall, the average score for the House Republicans was 10.76% while the average score for the House Democrats was 60.55%. This fifty percentage point gap parallels the gap found in the Social & Defense Scorecard of the Senate from last year, where the gap was around forty-four percentage points. The average score for the chamber as a whole was 33.99%. Only one Democrat, Gene Taylor of Mississippi, scored a zero. Twenty Republicans, including Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert of Illinois, scored a zero. One hundred and eighteen other Republicans only voted with the scorecard once; Bud Cramer of Alabama was the only Democrat with such a record.

That the Democrats on the whole receive higher scores than the Republicans is not unexpected; the conventional wisdom is that Democrats are better in protecting civil liberties and social rights. But the following graph may help illustrate just how divided the two parties are in this ‘culture war.’

This scorecard won’t be fully complete until I turn to economic issues as well. But until then, I hope you’ve enjoyed this installment.