Progressive Punch has added a new and incredibly useful layer of analysis to its rankings of members of Congress by voting record.

The "Select by Score" pages now indicate how progressive representatives and senators are compared to the districts and states they represent.

Select by Score Senate rankings

Select by Score House rankings

As before, you see members of the House and Senate ranked from most progressive to least progressive, based on all votes as well as on certain "crucial votes." Calculating a separate score for "crucial votes" reveals which Democrats are not reliable when the chips are down. This helps prevent gaming of the system, as when Joe Lieberman voted against filibustering Samuel Alito's nomination for the Supreme Court, then turned around and voted against confirming him.

For the new feature, Progressive Punch has placed every state and Congressional district into one of five categories: strong D, lean D, swing, lean R, and strong R. Each Congress-critter's "crucial vote" score is then compared to the political lean of the district or state. In the right-hand column on the "Select by Score" pages, every member of Congress now has a rating from 1 to 5, with 5 being the most progressive. Progressive Punch explains:

The "%" and "Rating" columns underneath the "Progressive Score vs. State Tilt" are two different ways of measuring the same thing. They both measure how naughty or nice a member of Congress' voting record has been in relation to his/her district. We're grading on a curve. Five stars in the "Rating" column indicate members of Congress who are doing the best in terms of voting MORE progressively than could necessarily be expected given their states or districts. Those with one star are performing the worst in relation to their districts.

For more details on the methodology behind this analysis, click here for House ratings and here for Senate ratings.

Why is this useful? It's now much easier to see which Democrats in Congress are voting about as well as could be expected, and which ones should be doing a lot better.  

Here are a few examples. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Harry Reid have identical lifetime progressive scores on crucial votes. However, since Feinstein represents a strong Democratic state (CA) and Reid represents a swing state (NV), Feinstein gets a 1 while Reid gets a 3.

Ron Wyden (OR), Barbara Mikulski (MD) and Amy Klobuchar (MN) have very similar lifetime scores, but Wyden and Klobuchar get 4s because they represent lean-Democrat states. Mikulski gets a 3 when graded on a curve that takes into account Maryland's solid Democratic profile.

Similarly, Daniel Inouye (HI) gets a 1, while Jon Tester (MT) gets a 3 for almost the same "crucial vote" score, because Montana leans Republican.

Jeff Bingaman (NM), Jim Webb (VA) and Byron Dorgan (ND) have very similar progressive lifetime scores, but Bingaman gets a 2 for representing a lean-Democrat state, Webb gets a 3 for representing a swing state, and Dorgan gets a 4 for representing a lean-Republican state.

Scanning down the Select by Score House page, a few Democrats stand out. There's Timothy Bishop (NY-01) with a 5 rating for how he represents his swing district, while most of the House members with similar lifetime scores get 3s, because they represent strong Democratic districts.

Dave Obey (WI-07) and Peter DeFazio (OR-04) get 4s because they represent lean-Democrat districts. Most of the House members with similar lifetime progressive scores get 3s.

Amid a large group of House Democrats who get a 2 when their crucial vote score is compared to how strongly Democratic their districts are, James Oberstar (MN-08) gets a 4 for a similar progressive score because he represents a swing district, while Michael Michaud (ME-02) and Paul Hodes (NH-02) get a 3 because their districts lean Democratic.

How can progressives use this information? One way would be to determine which incumbents in safe Democratic seats should face more pressure from the left. In extreme cases, this pressure could include a primary challenge.

Also, these rankings reveal which Democratic primaries should become top priorities for progressives when incumbents retire. For example, John Murtha (PA-12) and Henry Cuellar (TX-28) represent strongly Democratic districts but vote like Democrats representing swing or Republican districts.

I discussed Iowa representatives' rankings in more detail at Bleeding Heartland. The relatively low score for Leonard Boswell (IA-03) was no surprise, but Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02) didn't fare much better when graded on the Progressive Punch curve that took into account their strongly Democratic districts.

There's more...

Congressman Leonard Boswell's campaign has been giving the incumbent an image makeover as the June 3 primary approaches.

I learned from direct-mail pieces this month that Boswell is "Taking on George Bush for the Changes We Need," as well as "working to bring the troops home every day" and "Taking on powerful interests" to deliver health care to all Iowans.

These campaign communications bring to mind Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote: "What you do shouts so loudly in my ears I cannot hear what you say."

Progressive Kick has created a website that shows in quite an entertaining way what Boswell has been doing during his six terms in Congress. Let's just say he hasn't been much of a crusader against powerful interests.

Join me after the jump for more.

There's more...

Pundits (and some Democratic functionaries) declared the 2006 election as a triumph of conservative Democrats and "the middle." The facts, at least so far, are easy to establish and quite different.

Twelve Democrats in the House replaced other Democrats (usually either retiring or trying for higher office).  Based on a very limited sample to date (the scores reported in Progressive Punch as of today, March 7), all twelve newly elected Democrats are currently voting nore progressively than the members they replaced. Several conservative or somewhat conservative members have been replaced by more progressive members: Ben Cardin (Sarbanes), Harold Ford (Cohen), and Ed Case (Hirono).  Of course, all 29 Democrats who replaced Republicans are significantly more progressive in their voting than the members they replaced.  To date, only three new members are moderate Democrats in their voting (Ciro Rodriguez, Nick Lampson, and Baron Hill).  Progressive Punch carries over past voting and this may represent that legacy as each had formerly been a House member.  In each case, these three were substantially more progressive than the Republicans they replaced (Tom DeLay, being the worst).

Only one Republican who replaced a retiring Republican is a more moderate voter to date.  That would be Vern Buchanan, with a Progressive Punch score of 9.43 compared to Katherine Harris' 4.70.  The other twelve on my list (Jordan, Roskam, Walberg, Bachman, Bilirakis, David Davis, Fallin, Sali, Lamborn, Heller, McCarthy and Adrian Smith) all recorded lower scores.  

There's more...