As illustrated above, the voting records of state legislators like Brown can also be used to assess their ideological track record and forecast their behavior as a statewide or federal elected official. While some candidates adjust their positions due to changes in the constituencies that they represent, the general pattern is that legislators tend to have relatively consistent ideological positions over time. For instance, Shor identified two likely moderates among the Republican House class of 2010 based on their voting record in state legislatures. (Nevada’s Joe Heck turned out in fact to be quite moderate compared to his party, while Illinois’s Randy Hultgren is closer to the center of the GOP caucus.)
In addition, Shor and McCarty’s data enable reporters to assess the relative positioning of legislators in primaries and to quantify the ideological stakes in campaigns. In one post, for instance, Shor compared the ideological scores for Rep. Alan Mollohan to Mike Oliverio, a West Virginia state legislator who defeated Mollohan in a 2010 Democratic primary. Mollohan scored near the average for liberalism among Democrats in the state, while Oliverio was about as conservative as the average West Virginia Republican—a huge difference with significant consequences for how the district would be represented. (Oliverio ultimately narrowly lost to a Republican in the 2010 general election.) Similarly, he found that Deb Fischer, a current U.S. senator from Nebraska, was in the 93rd percentile for conservatism among Republicans in the state legislature—much further to the right than Jon Bruning, the Attorney General and former state legislator whom she defeated in a primary campaign last year.
Finally, these data make it possible to draw meaningful and often subtle distinctions between relative ideological positions within a state and absolute ideological positioning across states. Shor and McCarty compute estimates of legislator ideology based on roll call voting in state legislatures and then make them comparable across states using candidate survey data from Project Votesmart. As a result, when State Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava was criticized from the right for not being conservative enough during a 2009 special election in New York’s 23rd district, Shor could show that Scozzafava was actually “slightly more conservative than the average Republican legislator in Albany,” but that “New York’s Republicans (along with Massachusetts’, Connecticut’s, Hawaii’s, and New Jersey’s) are the most liberal in the country.” In other words, she’s a conservative Republican for New York, but not by national standards.
Much more can be done to incorporate political science insights into daily political reporting. Shor and McCarty’s data offer a valuable new resource to statehouse reporters who are covering the next Scott Brown or Dede Scozzafava.
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It would be interesting to develop similar data for newsrooms. Then I think it would be reasonably clear why the media so eagerly dubbed Brown a conservative.
#1 Posted by Tom T., CJR on Thu 23 May 2013 at 08:36 AM
Given that nearly all Republicans are conservatives, there's a big difference between "much less conservative than the average Republican" and "not a conservative at all".
Rather than pointing out that Brown was to the left of most Repubs, how about the fact that (IIRC) he was to the right of every Dem, in a Senate that still included some definitely centrist Dems.
Otherwise, a great articile
#2 Posted by John Quiggin, CJR on Thu 23 May 2013 at 08:54 AM
One note on Poole and Rosenthal's ranking. If I recall correctly, they factor in the legislator's district into their liberal-conservative estimates. Obviously with Massachusetts being probably the bluest state with a Republican, Brown was destined to be one of the most liberal Republicans according to their scores.
Still a good analysis that Brown is liberal, just pointing out voteview's methodology.
#3 Posted by Corey Kane, CJR on Thu 23 May 2013 at 11:17 AM
Corey Kane, you are mistaken about Poole and Rosenthal. Their scores are based on roll calls only.
#4 Posted by Michael Tofias, CJR on Sun 26 May 2013 at 12:00 PM
For all the Mann/Ornstein variety of Beltway wisdom that says it wants 'moderation' and blames the Republicans for the lack thereof, I heard few such pundits urging that the moderate Republican Brown be elected over the left-wing ideologue/wannabe Cherokee maiden Warren in 2012. The Republicans would be wise to take with a grain of salt the political advice of writers who are not going to vote for them anyway, if the Democratic candidate is a strong representative of the Beltway's self-interest.
#5 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Tue 28 May 2013 at 12:36 PM