As the premier conservative rating listed in all major political almanacs and reference guides, ACU's "Rating" is often quoted by the media and is extensively used by political strategists and candidates running for public office.

As the umbrella grassroots lobbying group of the Conservative Movement, ACU tracks a wide variety of issues before Congress, ranging from taxes to spending and national security to abortion. Accordingly, our ratings encompass three general categories: (1) economic and budget matters; (2) social and cultural issues, and (3) defense and foreign policy. ACU endeavors to analyze votes from each category in order to obtain a balanced, comprehensive picture of an individual member's ideological predisposition based upon recorded records.

Each member of the House and Senate is rated on a scale of 0 to 100.

The purpose of the "Rating" is to inform the public, in as unbiased a method as possible, exactly where individual Senators and Members of the House stand on the ideological spectrum from liberal to conservative.