Late last week the National Journal produced their annual list of who they consider to be the most liberal and conservative members of Congress – all 535 of them.
Most interestingly in these parts was the D.C. based publication naming Tampa area Democrat Kathy Castor the 9th most liberal member in the House, outranking Barney Frank, Jesse Jackson Jr. and Nancy Pelosi, among others.
Asked about the ranking over the weekend, Castor said she was surprised, immediately mentioning that she voted against the $700 billion TARP bailout for Wall Street banks. "What they did was take 92 specific votes and you can believe I'm going to stand up in my district and vote for bankruptcy judges to work out mortgages, health care, energy, hate crimes, that's how it's measured, and I'm representing my district, " she said, moments after speaking at the LGBT Caucus at their winter meeting in St. Petersburg.
The National Journal rankings do base their standings on 92 votes in the House, and 99 votes in the Senate voted on in 2009. You may recall that in the past two election years, the Democratic candidate for President, Barack Obama in 2008, and John Kerry in 2004, both were named by the publication as the most liberal senator in the country, rankings that bothered Democrats greatly, since they all seem to want to run away from "the L-word," as it became known as after George H.W. Bush successfully tarred Michael Dukakis with the appellation during the 1988 presidential campaign.
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 2, 2010.