Last night I was checking out the Progressive Punch scores for the new GOP House members. Much of it was expected and depressing. Seven of the new GOPers had a Progressive Punch score of zero. That’s right Pete Olson (TX-22), Cynthia Lummis (WY), Blaine Leurkemeyer (MO-9, winner by 8,000 votes), Duncan Hunter (CA-52, son of that Duncan Hunter), Gregg Harper (MS-3),Brett Guthrie (KY-2) and John Fleming (LA-4) all had yet to cast a single “progressive” vote.
Eight others were not far behind with seven at 3.23 (Glenn Thompson, Tom Rooney, Tom McClintock, Lynn Jenkins, Mike Coffman, Jason Chaffetz, and Steve Austria) and one at 3.33 (Bill Posey). Jenkins is a disappointment here.
Four showed at least a hint of moderation: Phil Roe of TN-1 (6.45), Christoher Lee of NY-26 (9.68), Joseph Cao of LA-2 (12.90) and the positive surprise wonderkid Aaron Schock of IL-18 (16.13). Lee is an improvement over the man he replaced, Tom Reynolds. He might be harder to displace than I hoped.
I started counting Republicans by the year they were elected from information I had collected but found that the Washington Post lists representatives by class (the year first elected). The results mainly “agreed” but the Post disregards gaps in serevice. Ciro Rodriguez, for example, is shown as 1997 not 2006. Dan Lungren, who served ten years and then left the House for 14 years is shown as 1978.
The Post lists 36 classes (they don’t list the class of 2008. Republicans win 10 of the 37 classes (we know how 2008 turned out); 2 classes are tied and Democrats win 25 of the 37 classes. The largest Republican class is the class of 2002 with 24 Republicans (and 13 Democrats). The largest Democratic class is the class of 2006 with 37 members. The famous class of 1974 where Democrats picked up 49 seats is reduced to just four members, all Democrats. The Newt “Contract ” class of 1994 has been beaten down to 23 members, 16 Republicans and 7 Democrats. There are more Republican House members left from the class of 1992 (18) than from the “revolutionary” class of 1994. The Revolution is over.
The Republican years are 1973, (1-0), 1978 (3-0 including Lungren), 1979 (1-0, Tom Petri IIRC), 1980 (5-1), 1989 (1-0), 1994 (16-7), 2000 (17-12),2001 (5-1), and 2002 (24-13) and 2005 (2-1).
The three House members with the most seniority are all midwestern Democrats: John Dingell (1955, I kid you not), John Conyers (1964) and David Obey (1969, I remember his surprise election as an anti-war candidate). The two Republicans with the most seniority are both named Young (Bill was elected in 1970, Don in 1973). The other Republicans from the 70s are either from Wisconsin (Sensenbrenner and Petri) or California (Lungren and Jerry Lewis).
A narrow majority of Republican House members came in with George W. Bush. 2004 was the electoral high point for Republicans since 1928 when Herbert Hoover was elected along with 270 House members. Since the election of 1932, Republicans have had the Trifecta for six years and five months. The first spell lasted from early 1953 to early 1955. Eisenhower was pretty moderate and the Republican legislative edges were about as slim as possible with 221 House members and a 48-47-1 edge in the Senate. With the stolen Presidential election of 200, Republicans regained the trifecta from January 20,2001 to Jun 6,2001. Their edge was 211 House seats, a 50-50 Senate vote with Dick Cheney as the tie-breaker and that is what Cheney did. By obnoxiously leaning on Jim Jeffords and sonstantly denigrating him and threatening milk supports for Vermont Vheney pushed Jeffords to caucus with the Democrats. Way to break the tie, Dick. From January 2003 through January 2007 the Republican glory years broke out. Following the 2002 election Republicans had a modest 229 seats in the House and 51 in the Senate. With the elction of 2004 it spread to 229 House seats and a 55-45 Senate edge. Then came Katrina. And Iraq’s death toll mounting.
Since then, it’s been our time.
I hear he goes by Phil, according to his Wikipedia biography and his official website.
I thought Rodriguez was first elected in 1996.
Who chooses the Progressive Punch score? What are their positions on major issues? Why did this suddenly become the leading indicator of how liberal a congressman is? Why should I give any weight to at at all?
But lousy hedline. I was not in any way shocked by the report from Progressive Punch showing that the new Repubs are not in any way progressive.
And while the second part is much more interesting to me, it gets no tease in the hed, so the reader doesn’t know to click thru to this diary. Coulda, shoulda been two diaries?
So thanks for the good info, but sorry to see you’ve only got a few comments so far.
BTW Not to argue with the illustrious Wash Post, but as I understand it, the Congress itself does not honor “Class” at all. Seniority is measured, when service has been interrupted, from the most recent election with continuous terms, not adding any credit whatsoever for the first set of years served.
Ciro Rodriguez in Texas would now be one of the top-ranking members of the Veterans Affairs Committee, if it had not been for Tom DeLay’s racist gerrymander. That action cost Ciro his seat for a while, so instead he is a fairy junior member.
Both Texas and Hispanics in general — and Mexican-Americans in particular (Ciro was born right across the border in Mexico) — would be looking for one of theirs to take over a important Congressional Committee soon. Maybe to Tom DeLay that would have been just too much power for a brown-skinned immigrant. Clearly DeLay’s gerrymander had racial and racist consequences.
Anyway, as far as Congress goes, Ciro is Class of ’06 — minus that missing decade due to the racist actions of Tom DeLay and the Texas Republican Party.
I am not reckless in writing that these actions were “racist.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the gerrymander, which undid Ciro and several Anglo Democrats in the House while protecting certain Repubs, in fact violated the Voting Rights Act by illegally denying the rights of Hispanic voters in the district now represented by Ciro Rodriguez. So I condense “actions that violated the Voting Rights Act” to “racist actions” and “racist gerrymander.” Not to put too fine a point on it.