American Conservative Union rates Senators and Congressman. 2021 scores released.

 

by Rod Williams, 04/26/2022 - The Center for Legislative Accountability (CLA), an initiative of the American Conservative Union Foundation (ACUF), has just released its 2021 scorecard for U.S Senators and Congressmen. The ACU ratings is the longest-running conservative congressional scorecard. 

The American Conservative Union (ACU) was founded in 1964 and is the oldest ongoing conservative lobbying organization in the U.S.  The ACU is the organization that puts on CPAC, (American Conservative Union Conservative Political Action Conference), the largest gathering of conservatives in the world. 

I have been a long-time supporter and member of ACU but since the organization has gone Trumpinista-populist, I have let my membership lapse. ACU is no longer part of my annual giving.  

I have attended two CPAC's, 20212 and 2015. You can read of CPAC experiences here, and here.  At those events, I was impressed by the speakers and the panel discussion, and the general tenor of the event.  Not only did one hear from the popular conservative politicians of the day, but from conservative authors and intellectuals and from advocates of various causes who had booths in the exhibition hall. While there was a range of opinions and people advocating for many causes, there were no crazies that I could see. There were no conspiracy theorist booths or what a  sane conservative would call "hate groups."   At this year's event, CPAC became pretty much a Trump rally and one of the featured speakers was Marjorie Taylor Green. I have no desire to attend CPAC with its current perspective.  I wonder if the John Birch Society or Q-Anon had a CPAC booth?  I don't know, but with Marjorie Taylor Green a featured speaker, I wouldn't be surprised. 

Despite my becoming disappointed in the direction of CPAC, ACU's scorecard is first-class work. The score is based on how members voted. ACU publishes the list of bills that went into compiling the scores. To view the ACU site where one may read the bills and may filter the data in various ways follow this link. 

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