It's almost the end of this session of Congress, and looking back we can see who were the most conservative members.
The DW-NOMINATE score was developed by Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal as a way to determine where legislators voted in relation to each other.
By looking at how each legislator voted on every roll call vote compared to the member's peers, DW-NOMINATE is able to show how liberal or conservative a Congressman or Senator is.
Over the course of a session, they develop a score based on how they vote compared to their peers. By looking at hundreds of roll call votes and comparing them mathematically, the DW-NOMINATE process is able to figure out where each member sits politically compared to other members.
The closer to -1 a member's score is, the more liberal they are. The closer to 1 a member's score is, the more conservative they are. At zero, a member is considered very, very centrist.
On this list, the closer the score is to 1, the more conservative the member is.
Knowing this, Poole is able to rank them in order of partisan tilt based only on how they voted in a single session.
As the 112th Congress approaches its end, we can look to the DW-NOMINATE score to see who were the most conservative members of the House of Representatives mathematically.
10. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX)
Score: 0.745
Votes: 863
Hensarling, the chairman of the House Republican Congress, was a co-chair of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, better known as the "Super Committee." He is also a former chair of the conservative Republican Study Committee.
9. Rep. John Campbell (R-CA)
Score: 0.757
Votes: 809
Campbell, a four-term Congressman, serves on the House Committee on Financial Services and the Budget Committee. He also chairs the Budget and Spending Task Force of the Republican Study Committee.
8. Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ)
Score: 0.775
Votes: 853
Franks, a four-term Congressman from Arizona, is another active member of the Republican Study Committee. He also serves on the House Armed Services and Judiciary committees.
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