The election of Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980 provided a real promise of conservative governance, with a conservative president, a Republican Senate, and a House that although was not Republican, promised to be majority conservative. However, what was the score for Reagan and the Congress on the issues? They counted for the 1981 and 1982 House 24 and 23 votes respectively, and for 1981 and 1982 Senate 21 votes for both years. Among the issues, they supported indexing tax brackets for inflation, retaining funds for the B-1 Bomber and MX Missile, the Solomon Amendment, overturning a Federal Trade Commission regulation requiring used car sellers to inform their customers of major known defects with automobiles, a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, and school prayer. They opposed busing, the proposed American Conservation Corps, raising the debt ceiling, bilingual ballot requirements, US participation in international development banks, and overriding President Reagan’s vetoes on spending bills. President Reagan himself gets, based on issues he made his opinion known on, an 80 and 100 in the House in 1981 and 1982, and a 70 and 73 in 1981 and 1982 in the Senate respectively. A bit lower than expected, honestly, but ACA finds him having gone wrong by supporting raising the debt limit in 1981 and 1982, supporting US involvement in international development banks in 1981, supporting the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway in 1981, opposing Sen. Harrison Schmitt’s (R-N.M.) amendment on disapproving federal regulations in 1982, and opposing a debt ceiling amendment to the Balanced Budget Amendment in 1982.

Some notable figures and their ACA scores, modified to count pairs for and against:

Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz.
1981 – 81
1982 – 72

John Rhodes, R-Ariz. – House Minority Leader
1981 – 74
1982 – 76

Joe Biden, D-Del.
1981 – 33
1982 – 29

Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.
1981 – 74
1982 – 96

Bob Dole, R-Kan.
1981 – 71
1982 – 71

Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.
1981 – 16
1982 – 20

Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
1981 – 4
1982 – 10

Jack Kemp, R-N.Y.
1981 – 82
1982 – 78

Howard Baker, R-Tenn. – Senate Majority Leader
1981 – 62
1982 – 74

Al Gore, D-Tenn.
1981 – 14
1982 – 26

Jim Wright, D-Tex. – House Majority Leader
1981 – 26
1982 – 39

Ron Paul, R-Tex.
1981 – 79
1982 – 74

Robert Byrd, D-W.V. – Senate Minority Leader
1981 – 29
1982 – 48

Dick Cheney, R-Wyo.
1981 – 79
1982 – 100

The ACA made their scores particularly tough to get all right or all wrong. In the 1981 Senate, for instance, only Chris Dodd of Connecticut scored a 0 and no senators scored a 100. In 1982, only Bill Armstrong of Colorado scored a 100 and no senators scored a 0. Jesse Helms of North Carolina missed one vote for each year. His sins by the standards of ACA? Voting to raise the debt limit in 1981 and voting to table an amendment allowing states to veto a nuclear waste storage site unless both Houses of Congress overrode the state’s veto.

Americans for Constitutional Action continued not to count abortion as an issue, a significant difference with the emerging new right It also counted the House vote for the conference report on the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act in 1982 as a vote FOR the conservative position, as opposed to Americans for Democratic Action, which considered it a vote FOR the liberal position and American Conservative Union, which considered it a vote AGAINST the conservative position. This highlights a difference in the emphasis ACA put on deficit reduction to tax reduction. This wasn’t the only issue in which the organization sided with Americans for Democratic Action in this Congress: they shared their opposition to the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, a project President Reagan favored.

Note: Errors

The data I used to ascertain the issues behind these scores comes from Voteview legacy’s website as well as the Almanac of American Politics 1984 edition. There were some errors in the process that I discovered, and this was through being unable to replicate the exact set of ratings. The 1981 Senate one given how much does fit I am 99% sure about.

The Senate has multiple instances, including:

Paula Hawkins (R-Fla.) – Improper in both 1981 and 1982, 1982 possibly a repeat of Lawton Chiles’ (D-Fla.) 57 score.
Charles Mathias (R-Md.) – His 1981 score appears to be erroneously a repeat of his 1982 score of 14.
Paul Tsongas (D-Mass.) – His 1981 score is listed as a 13, but appears to be a 16 instead.
Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) – His 1981 score appears to count a pair for ending debate on an anti-busing amendment as a vote for.
Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) – He is counted as 67, but has an absence for the Metzenbaum amendment on oil price deregulation, which he was for.

The House’s issues:

In 1981, Bill Hefner (D-N.C.) was listed as having a score of 49. This is not mathematically possible with 24 votes, he scored a 48.
In 1982, Beryl Anthony (D-Ark.) was listed as having a score of 65. This happened to be the same as neighboring Congressman John Paul Hammerschmidt (R-Ark.) and I was unable to find a proper combination of votes that would give Hammerschmidt and Anthony both a 65. I conclude this score was put in by mistake as a duplicate of Hammerschmidt’s.

Despite these, I believe I have hit upon an accurate counting of ACA’s scores, as I have found no other way to reconcile how all the other senators’ scores can be achieved at the same time. It was a truly tall order to find how ACA counted ultra-conservative Steve Symms’ (R-Idaho) score as an 81 in 1981, meaning he voted against their position four times. Same goes for ultra-liberal Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) getting three votes right by their standards that year. What strikes me as interesting about these ratings is that they show how less ideological partisanship was in times past. Admittedly, the ACA has picked a few oddball votes for counting conservatism that contribute to this, but I can see how a case could be made for them.

The votes used for the ACA-Index:

The ACA-Index Scorecards: