Study: Americans Are More Conservative Than Reps In Congress

A new study of voting records found that congressional lawmakers are less conservative than the voters they work for in 41 out of 50 states, according to The Institute for Legislative Analysis.

“While one may expect the most conservative lawmakers in Congress to represent the deepest red states, the data proves this is simply not the case,” Ryan McGowan, chief executive officer of the Institute for Legislative Analysis, said in a press release. “A number of mismatches exist between Members of Congress and their constituencies across the nation. Of course, this ultimately impacts legislation — especially at a time like now when Republicans have a razor thin margin.” The recent study “provides context” to help explain why some bills struggle to pass, according to the Institute’s president, Fred McGrath.

The analysis overlaps a district’s political ideology with the political voting patterns of the district’s lawmaker to statistically determine if a representative actually votes in tandem with the area he represents. Lawmakers are scored on an A to F grade scale, earning an A if their “Limited Government Rating meets or exceeds the level estimated for their district.” The more representatives vote for limited government, the higher chance they have of receiving an A. The analysis grades representatives “on the principles of limited government,” though “certain social issues in which the limited government correlation varies (such as abortion) were excluded absent any government fiscal or operational implication.”

Notably, in deep red states Republicans “vote[d] further to the Left of their electorates at far higher levels than the Republicans of other states,” the Institute said in the press release. Republicans from South Dakota, Arkansas, Mississippi, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Louisiana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Alabama, Kentucky, and Idaho scored in the bottom 10 in terms of alignment with their districts.

[READ: What Is The Point Of Having A GOP Congress?]

Democrats from swing states Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Georgia voted more left-leaning compared to their districts than Democrats in deep blue states like New York and California, according to the study. All of the Democrat representatives in those states voted no on the SAVE Act, a bill that would require proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote. Only four Democratic representatives — from Hawaii, Texas, Maine, and Washington — joined 216 Republicans in voting yes.

With six Republicans, four Democrats, and one independent (the study accounted for former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema’s voting record), members of Arizona’s congressional delegation had the most conservative voting record relative to their constituents, according to the analysis. The top nine states whose lawmakers voted most conservatively relative to their districts are Arizona, Vermont, Wisconsin, Colorado, Montana, Washington, Maryland, Hawaii, and Massachusetts.

As The Federalist’s Shawn Fleetwood has noted, the misalignment between the GOP and its voters is an issue that has plagued the Republican Party: “[N]ow that they’ve been given the reins of power, many congressional Republicans have shown little interest in actually governing in accordance with the pitch they made to voters just a few short months ago.”