The Best & Worst American Politicians

Why the historically low Congressional ratings? Could it be because the US Congress has largely been sold to the US Chamber of Commerce?

For 2013, Progressive Living again embarked upon an evaluation of the best and worst American politicians (as of 2012, the last year for which legislative records are available as of this writing). Once again, we used criteria that reveal which representatives actually do represent working Americans, and which instead represent corporations and billionaires.

That's why we believe that our evaluation is the one that most truly reveals America's best and worst politicians. And we think our evaluation does so about as objectively as any such evaluation could.

Though recent Congresses may well have been the worst in American history, for purposes of clarity and simplicity, we've focused here only on the very worst politicians. Many more are also nearly as terrible.

To keep things simple, we've used just two criteria this time. We've discovered that these criteria very clearly identify an especially alarming group of legislators, legislators who represent an ideological strain that is fundamentally opposed to democracy itself.

Specifically, we've looked at how the US Chamber of Commerce evaluates these representatives, and at how the American Civil Liberties Union evaluates these representatives. Combined, these criteria reveal who is legislating on behalf of wealthy businessmen (the US Chamber of Commerce is run by the CEOs of very large, not small, businesses), and who is also legislating against American freedoms. However, as an independent check on our evaluation, we've also included the legislative score of Public Citizen, a clean government group. A low score from this group indicates the legislator is in basic ideological opposition to American democracy itself.

The final results: every legislator on this list voted 90% of the time or better as the US Chamber of Commerce wanted them to. Every legislator on this list also voted 100% of the time against American freedoms. And every one independently received a scandalously low score from Public Citizen.

If this set of scores doesn't send a chill down your spine, it should. Democracies exist precisely in order to safeguard the economic and political interests of the little guy. Fascism, on the other hand, exists only to crush the freedoms of the common man, and to ensure that wealthy businessmen run society exclusively in light of their own economic interests.

Every one of the legislators identified below has a well-established, highly consistent, and undeniable record of fascist ideology. Twenty-nine of these are extreme even within this very extreme group. All share the same basic political alignment as the Italian dictator Mussolini and the Spanish dictator Franco.

Despite the fact that we've focused only on the very worst, there are an awful lot of them (103), which, in itself, says a great deal. All are House "representatives" and all are Republican.

The corporate media largely presented the 2012 election as a contest between the interests of the young and the interests of the old. This was a typical bit of utterly false divide-and-conquer distraction. What this election in fact did was very largely determine whether democracy itself could survive in the United States: a Romney presidency with a Republican-controlled Senate would, quite simply, have meant the end of democracy in the US. (But all is not well, even now.)

And please also note this: not a single corporate mass media news outlet named these names.

That is surely because the CEOs of the corporate mass media are themselves sympathetic to fascism. We've seen this before in the years leading up to World War II. Businessman Henry Ford adored Hitler, who borrowed much of his agenda from Mussolini. (And the love was returned: Ford received a medal of appreciation from Hitler.) Others, such as news mogul William Randolph Hearst, preferred the fascist dictator Mussolini instead.

The current CEO (and Republican party) alignment with fascism is, to some degree, the consequence of a secret memorandum written by future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, authored at the request of the US Chamber of Commerce.

The infamous memorandum called for big business to transform democratic governance through corporate control of the arts and sciences, academia, and above all the media. It called for the destruction of organized labor and consumer protection groups.

In short, Powell was, like the leaders of the US Chamber of Commerce, a fascist calling for fascist governance.

Money in elections is drowning out the voice of legitimate politicians - and making the corporate media and the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) rich. And that's the way the NAB and USCoC like it.

The Powell/USCoC agenda is one major thread that runs through Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that gives corporations, and the super-rich who own and rule them, the ability to control elections with unlimited secret campaign donations.

Because they can either serve the US Chamber of Commerce or the American people, but not both, we think it's about time that Americans knew specifically who the most fascist of their politicians are.

So here they are.

Those color-coded in red voted 100% of the time as the USCoC wanted them to, and are, in effect, outright USCoC employees.

We note that this list of the very worst and very most extreme politicians in America includes two key Congressional leaders, and the 2012 Republican Vice-Presidential contender: John Boehner, Eric Cantor, and Paul Ryan. This signifies deep and comprehensive corruption within the Republican party itself. There's nothing remotely normal about this. A Republican party this deranged, this completely opposed to democracy, can simply no longer be regarded as legitimate political party, and has no role to serve in American society. (This is not to say that everything is swell with the Democrats, most of whom would have been considered quite conservative Republicans in the 1950s.)

State	Office	Last Name	First Name	Party	Anti- Freedom Score	Pro- Corporate Score	Public Citizen Score
Alabama	Rep	Bonner	Jo	R	100	93	10
	Rep	Roby	Martha	R	100	94	10
	Rep	Rogers	Michael	R	100	91	10
	Rep	Bachus	Spencer	R	100	91	10
Arizona	Rep	Gosar	Paul	R	100	94	10
	Rep	Quayle	Ben	R	100	93	10
Arkansas	Rep	Crawford	Rick	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Griffin	Tim	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Womack	Steve	R	100	100	10
California	Rep	Herger	Wally	R	100	91	10
	Rep	Denham	Jeffrey	R	100	94	20
	Rep	Nunes	Devin	R	100	93	10
	Rep	McCarthy	Kevin	R	100	92	10
	Rep	Gallegly	Elton	R	100	92	10
	Rep	McKeon	Howard	R	100	95	10
	Rep	Dreier	David	R	100	94	10
	Rep	Miller	Gary	R	100	96	10
	Rep	Calvert	Ken	R	100	97	10
	Rep	Issa	Darrell	R	100	93	10
Colorado	Rep	Tipton	Scott	R	100	94	10
	Rep	Gardner	Cory	R	100	100	10
Florida	Rep	Crenshaw	Ander	R	100	95	10
	Rep	Nugent	Richard	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Mica	John	R	100	92	10
	Rep	Ross	Dennis	R	100	94	10
	Rep	Posey	Bill	R	100	90	20
	Rep	Rooney	Tom	R	100	92	10
	Rep	West	Allen	R	100	94	10
Illinois	Rep	Kinzinger	Adam	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Schock	Aaron	R	100	95	10
Indiana	Rep	Rokita	Todd	R	100	94	10
	Rep	Bucshon	Larry	R	100	100	10
Iowa	Rep	Latham	Tom	R	100	95	10
Kansas	Rep	Jenkins	Lynn	R	100	92	10
	Rep	Yoder	Kevin	R	100	94	10
	Rep	Pompeo	Mike	R	100	100	10
Kentucky	Rep	Whitfield	Ed	R	100	93	10
Louisiana	Rep	Cassidy	Bill	R	100	96	10
	Rep	Boustany	Charles	R	100	91	10
Michigan	Rep	Huizenga	Bill	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Camp	Dave	R	100	96	20
	Rep	Walberg	Tim	R	100	93	10
	Rep	Rogers	Mike	R	100	94	0
	Rep	Miller	Candice	R	100	93	10
Minnesota	Rep	Kline	John	R	100	93	10
	Rep	Paulssen	Erik	R	100	92	10
Mississippi	Rep	Nunnelee	Patrick	R	100	94	10
	Rep	Palazzo	Steven	R	100	100	10
Missouri	Rep	Long	Billy	R	100	100	10
Nebraska	Rep	Terry	Lee	R	100	92	20
	Rep	Smith	Adrian	R	100	92	10
New Hampshire	Rep	Guinta	Frank	R	100	100	10
New Jersey	Rep	Runyan	Jon	R	100	94	10
	Rep	Lance	Leonard	R	100	92	10
New York	Rep	Reed	Tom	R	100	100	10
North Carolina	Rep	Ellmers	Renee	R	100	94	20
	Rep	Myrick	Sue	R	100	90	20
North Dakota	Rep	Berg	Rick	R	100	100	10
Ohio	Rep	Johnson	Bill	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Austria	Steve	R	100	92	10
	Rep	Boehner	John	R	100	93	N/A
	Rep	Tiberi	Patrick	R	100	95	10
	Rep	Stivers	Steve	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Gibbs	Bob	R	100	100	10
Oklahoma	Rep	Lucas	Frank	R	100	93	10
	Rep	Cole	Tom	R	100	94	10
	Rep	Lankford	James	R	100	100	10
Oregon	Rep	Walden	Greg	R	100	94	10
Pennsylvania	Rep	Kelly	Mike	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Thompson	Glenn	R	100	90	10
	Rep	Gerlach	Jim	R	100	91	10
	Rep	Shuster	William	R	100	94	0
	Rep	Marino	Thomas	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Barletta	Lou	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Pitts	Joseph	R	100	92	10
	Rep	Murphy	Timothy	R	100	92	10
South Carolina	Rep	Scott	Tim	R	100	94	10
South Dakota	Rep	Noem	Kristi	R	100	100	10
Tennessee	Rep	Fleischmann	Chuck	R	100	94	10
	Rep	DesJarlais	Scott	R	100	94	10
	Rep	Black	Diane	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Fincher	Stephen	R	100	100	10
Texas	Rep	Johnson	Sam	R	100	92	10
	Rep	Barton	Joe	R	100	91	10
	Rep	Brady	Kevin	R	100	92	10
	Rep	McCaul	Michael	R	100	93	10
	Rep	Granger	Kay	R	100	95	10
	Rep	Thornberry	William	R	100	91	10
	Rep	Flores	Bill	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Smith	Lamar	R	100	93	10
	Rep	Canseco	Francisco	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Farenthold	Blake	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Carter	John	R	100	92	10
	Rep	Sessions	Peter	R	100	92	10
Virginia	Rep	Rigell	Scott	R	100	100	10
	Rep	Hurt	Robert	R	100	94	20
	Rep	Goodlatte	Bob	R	100	92	10
	Rep	Cantor	Eric	R	100	93	10
Washington	Rep	Hastings	Doc	R	100	95	10
	Rep	McMorris	Cathy	R	100	91	10
West Virginia	Rep	Capito	Shelley	R	100	90	10
Wisconsin	Rep	Ryan	Paul	R	100	94	10
	Rep	Duffy	Sean	R	100	100	10

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Remove these legislators from office, particularly those coded red, and America could quickly become the democracy that it is supposed to be.

And Now for the Good News . . .

After browsing through the rogues' gallery above, one might be left with the impression that nobody in Congress is doing what they were sent there to do — represent the political and economic interests of their electorates - American citizens. The only significant exception to this trend, again this year, is provided by the Progressive Caucus, far and away the Congressional group doing the most for working Americans. Its members once again represent the Congressional best.

The Progressive Caucus Newsletter

Sources of the scores:

The US Chamber of Commerce
The American Civil Liberties Union
Public Citizen

Each of these scores, in turn, was based upon actual legislative votes. To see the legislation in question, please visit the respective sites (but be aware that, the last time we looked, there was malware at the USCoC site).