New rankings from a prominent national conservative activist group rates Alabama as having one of the nation’s most conservative congressional delegations.
The American Conservative Union, which tracks lawmakers’ voting records on key issues every year and puts on the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, released the scorecard.
Of the 173 tracked votes cast by Alabama representatives, 131 were for the position favored by the American Conservative Union. That is 75.7 percent. Of states with at least five representatives, only Indiana, Louisiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina were more conservative.
Some 82 of the nation’s 435 representatives voted ACU’s way 90 percent of the time or more — and Alabama has three of them: Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Fairhope), 93 percent; Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville), 96 percent; and Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Hoover), 100 percent.
Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Birmingham), the delegation’s lone Democrat, scored lowest — just 4 percent.
Rounding out the House delegation, Rep. Martha Roby (R-Montgomery) attained an 85 percent score, Rep. Robert Aderhlolt (R-Haleyville) scored 81 percent and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Saks) scored 78 percent. The average among all Republican House members nationwide was 82 percent.
The scorecard is based on 25 votes taken by the House last year. Those issues include the tax reform bill that passed in December, a proposal to repeal Obamacare, a bill to defund Planned Parenthood and legislation to repeal the financial industry regulations known as Dodd-Frank.
The Senate rankings are based on those votes, as well as confirmations of key Cabinet secretaries and Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.
“In the 2017 session, we saw Republicans come together to pass the most important corporate tax reform in decades, confirm a true conservative in Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, and repeal the Obamacare individual mandate,” ACU Chairman Matt Schlapp said in a prepared statement. “But conservatives must not rest on their laurels. This is not the time for four corners defense. Congress must pass a rescissions bill to eliminate wasteful spending in the omnibus and finally confirm highly qualified presidential nominees to critical positions.”
Alabama senators are judged a bit more conservative than the House delegation overall, but those rankings undoubtedly will get far less conservative the next time the organization releases its scorecard — which will include Sen. Doug Jones (D-Mountain Brook).
For 2017, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Tuscaloosa), voted the ACU position 80 percent of the time. That was the exact average among all Senate Republicans. Former Sen. Luther Strange (R-Mountain Brook) clocked in a tad higher, at 82 percent.
Alabama lawmakers received ACU scores in line with their lifetime averages. Palmer, in fact, has a 100 percent score for his entire brief tenure in the House.
Among Republicans in Congress, Roby has the lowest lifetime rating in Alabama. Her lifetime 72.4 percent score over seven years is significantly below her 2017 score.
@BrendanKKirby is a senior political reporter at LifeZette and author of “Wicked Mobile.”
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