ACU: Next Congress to Turn Further Left

Alexandria, VA  - The nation's largest conservative organization, and the national authority on conservative ratings of Congress, the American Conservative Union today issued an analysis of the post 2008 election Congress.

The ACU examined past conservative vs. liberal ratings of Congress and applied those ratings to the makeup of the next Congress.  The result: be prepared for a left turn.

"The next Congress is likely to move further toward the left on issues of economic, family and national security policy," said David Keene, Chairman of the American Conservative Union, "Unless the public voices their concerns they may be in for a surprise when the left wing policies that emerge do not match the moderate rhetoric candidates gave on the campaign trail."

Dennis Whitfield, ACU's Executive Vice President , said, "You only need to look at the leaders' lifetime conservative ratings.  President-Elect Obama has a lifetime conservative rating of less than 8%, Speaker Pelosi has a lifetime rating of less than 3% and Senator Reid has a lifetime rating below 20%.  Averaged together they have chosen the left wing agenda 90% of the time, likely the most extreme trio to ever hold these positions of power."

Analysis by ACU staff shows that in 2007 the average Democrat Senator or Representative chose the left wing, liberal agenda more than 94% of the time.  

In that same year the average Republican Senate or House member voted conservative more than 80% or 85% of the time respectively.

Overall, using Congressional lifetime averages for all members, both the Senate and House as a whole averaged 48% conservative in all of their votes through the end of the 2007 session.  With additional likely liberal Members, ACU predicts that average will drop to 44% or lower despite strong lifetime conservative ratings from Republicans.  ACU notes that some of the most liberal members of Congress will serve as Committee Chairman and control the agenda meaning that most conservative policies may never see the light of day.

About the ACU:

The  American Conservative Union is the nation's oldest and largest conservative organization.  From February 26-28, 2009 the ACU Foundation will host CPAC 2009.  CPAC is the largest national gathering of conservative citizens and leaders annually.  ACU is on the internet at http://www.conservative.org/.

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