Our Freedom Index and Congressional Scorecards
by Gary Benoit, Editor-in-Chief, The New American
The Freedom Index in the August 29, 2022 issue of The New American is the third installment for the current Congress — and the last that will be published prior to election day on Tuesday, November 8, when officeholders for all 435 House seats and 34 of the 100 Senate seats will be decided.
As always, our new Index not only shows how every member of the House and Senate voted on 10 key votes, but it also rates congressmen based on the U.S. Constitution. Moreover, in each vote the Index explains why we rated the vote as we did — making every vote summary a mini-lesson in the Constitution.
And as always, we encourage JBS members and TNA readers to use this great resource to first inform themselves how their own U.S. representative and senators have voted (it’s often very different from their rhetoric), and then to inform others.
To facilitate distribution of the information in the August 29 Freedom Index, we have made it available as a reprint (see ad on page 5).
We have also created a version of this Index online, where it is identified as “Freedom Index 117-3” (117th Congress, third Index). To access it, visit https://gojt.us/bimx.
But we’ve done more than that to facilitate getting the word out. In addition to our Freedom Index, which in a single presentation shows how all members of Congress vote, we also provide Congressional Scorecards that show the voting record of any individual U.S. representative or senator you select. This can be downloaded (without charge) as a PDF and printed on a single (front and back) letter-size sheet of paper. There are 535 versions of the Scorecard, one for each of the 435 representatives and 100 senators. To access the 117-3 Congressional Scorecards, go to https://gojt.us/hcaz.
We encourage you to print ample supplies of the Scorecards for your own congressmen (House members and Senators) and to distribute them widely in your area. In general, the relatively inexpensive Scorecards are excellent for wide distribution at townhall meetings, going door-to-door, etc., while the Freedom Index is excellent for giving an overview of all congressmen’s voting records in more targeted ways.
As you reach out, you may be surprised by the overall lack of knowledge of voters, many of whom do not even know who their own congressman is. But you also may be surprised by your effectiveness in creating understanding among your fellow citizens — one person at a time. That understanding, created by you and other Birchers, can also cause a congressman to develop a backbone and move in the constitutionalist direction.
Legislative Scorecards for State Legislatures
Because of the importance of state legislatures, we have begun making available Legislative Scorecards showing how state legislators voted on key issues. This gigantic undertaking is still a work in progress, but for some states, Legislative Scorecards are already online and ready to download for any state representative or senator. (Please keep in mind that because this is a new tool, the ratings are based on very few votes.)
If you live in a state where our state Scorecards are already online, please download and print them out for your state legislators and distribute them. You can access the state Scorecards by going to https://gojt.us/itv3, scrolling down to the bottom of the page to see the map of the 50 states, and then clicking on the appropriate state.