Saturday, March 17, 2018

Freedom Index


Hold Your Congressmen Accountable to the Constitution. Do you know how your congressmen voted on constitutionally important bills during the last half of 2017?

Learn how they voted by reading the second "Freedom Index" for the 115th Congress, which was published in The New American magazine on February 19, 2018.

We live at a time when our federal government routinely usurps powers not granted to it by the Constitution. This is leading to an increasingly out-of-control Big Government that routinely infringes on our basic rights (property rights, privacy rights, religious liberties, right to bear arms, etc.).

The solution is for more and more voters to hold their representatives and senators in Congress accountable to the Constitution. Fortunately, The New American newsmagazine has been publishing the "Freedom Index: A Congressional Scorecard Based on the U.S. Constitution" and its predecessor, "The Conservative Index," for over 40 years. The "Freedom Index" provides scorecards for every member of Congress on ten key votes four times every two-year session of Congress.

You can help return our federal government to its constitutional moorings by using the "Freedom Index" to learn how constitutionally your representative and two senators are voting, taking the appropriate actions to influence them to vote constitutionally, and then spreading the word to others in your sphere of influence about how to use the "Freedom Index" to hold their congressmen accountable to the Constitution.

You can access the online "Freedom Index" by clicking on "Voting Index" in the menu bar on TheNewAmerican.com, or by clicking on the "NOW ONLINE" graphic above. The first page you'll see (as shown at left) has a list of all 50 states with the senators and representatives for each state listed under that state's name. After each congressman's name is their cumulative "Freedom Index" score for all the years that they have served (beginning with 1999).

Clicking on an individual congressman's name takes you to a page (example shown on the right) with a photo of the congressman along with his or her average "Freedom Index" score for each Congress he or she has served in, all the vote descriptions for each vote cast from the original print "Freedom Indexes," a link from each bill number to more information about that bill, and a link from each "Aye" or "Nay" vote to a page showing how all the members of the House or Senate voted on that roll call vote.

Once you're on the "Freedom Index" homepage a single click on the "Past Members" menu item takes you to a similar "Freedom Index" page with cumulative scores for past members of Congress who have served fairly recently. Clicking on one of these past members' names gives you a new page with all the same details described in the previous paragraph.

Our latest online "Freedom Index" includes the second report on the 115th Congress (which appeared in the print version of The New American for February 19, 2018) with ten votes scored for the House and ten for the Senate. These will be the first ten votes you see when you click on an individual congressman's name in the online "Freedom Index" and scroll down to see the detailed voting record.

Send a pre-written, editable email to your senators and representative to bring their online "Freedom Index" voting records to their attention along with thanking them when appropriate and asking for explanations when appropriate. Remember that it is your responsibility as a voter to hold your senators and representative accountable to the Constitution.

Source: Email from The John Birch Society
 Comments

I have always recommended the Conservative Review Scorecard, but when I compare scores with the New American Freedom Index they are close. See my post titled New American Freedom Index by State

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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