Congressman Ron Paul of Texas is seen by many as being the only consistent libertarian voice in the House of Representatives. Through his Liberty Committee and its blog More Liberty, libertarian activists online are organized to put pressure on their representatives. A few members of Congress, all Republicans, have affiliated with this effort and claim to be supporters of smaller government.

Kent Snyder of the Liberty Committee says, "[I]t is the votes cast in the committee rooms and on the floors of the U.S. House and Senate that count-not words, only votes." Back during the debate on the passage of CAFTA, which Ron Paul and the Liberty Committee opposed, I began to notice a disconnect between the words of Republican Congressmen who affiliated with Ron Paul and their votes. This was verified by my first Scorecard of Ron Paul's Liberty Committee, which was based on the ten key votes identified by the Liberty Committee in 2005.

Now, as we prepare for the 2006 election, I am turning once again to Ron Paul and his Liberty Committee to update the previous scorecard. With the new More Liberty blog, action alerts and the like are now split between the blog and the traditional e-mail alerts. So far in 2006, the following votes were identified as key. As part of the same session of Congress, they will be added to last year's votes for the updated scorecard.

H.R. 513. 527 Reform Act of 2006 April 5, 2006. Passed 218 to 209. The Liberty Committee was AGAINST this legislation.

H.R. 4975. Lobbying Accountability and Transparency Act. May 3, 2006. Passed 217 to 213. The Liberty Committee was AGAINST this legislation.

Amendment to H. R. 5384 to block funding of the National Animal Identification System. May 23, 2006. Rejected 34 to 389. The Liberty Committee was in FAVOR of this amendment.

Members who were only present for part of the session of Congress were not included. The Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, was also not included because the Speaker does not traditionally vote. The full scorecard, including the above votes and last year's votes, is here.

The scorecard reveals that most "small government conservatives" are all talk and no walk. Congressman Ron Paul of Texas has the highest score of 130 out of 130. But the other high ranking members of Congress are not his fellow members of the Liberty Caucus. Instead, Cynthia McKinney (110), Neil Abercrombie (100), Bernie Sanders (100), and Barney Frank (100) top the list. The highest ranking Republicans are Roscoe Bartlett (70) and Virgil Goode (70), both members of the Liberty Caucus. Six other members of the Liberty Caucus had scores of 60. The remaining fifteen may profess to favor small government, but their voting record does not back up those claims.

When a nutjob like McKinney or a socialist like Sanders manages to vote with Ron Paul more than his fellow 'small government' Republicans, something is obviously wrong among "small government conservatives." I did not select these votes on my own whims, they are votes identified by the Liberty Committee as key votes that were worthy of libertarian activists pressuring their members of Congress over. A high score for a member does not automatically translate into being a libertarian, but one would assume that a libertarian-leaning member of Congress would have voted consistently with Ron Paul. These were key votes on protection of civil liberties and the protection of American sovereignty. For the most part, Republicans who claim to value these principles dropped the ball.