Senate Voting Record

While the Senate voting record is limited, those votes are illuminating and is one measure of an officeholder's position --

Council for a Livable World has just released its 2009-2012 Senate Voting Record.

The Council analyzes congressional votes as one measurement of Senators’ and Representatives’ positions on key national security issues. This task has become more difficult in past years as the Senate has avoided controversial votes.

Over the past two years, there have been only four votes that provide a good indication of where Senators stand on defense and foreign policy topics. As a result, we have combined key votes over the past four years to produce our voting record, including a number of key votes during Senate consideration of the New START nuclear reductions treaty in 2010.

Click here to find out how your Senators voted on important national security issues.

Although these votes provide a good measure of where Senators stand on key national security issues, they are only one measure of a Senator’s positions, ideology and effectiveness. Also important are their work in committee, leadership on issues and ability to build coalitions and secure majorities.

With this imperfect measuring stick, we have listed votes of Senators in office. For those with up to 12 votes, we calculated a percentage “right.” For those in office only two years, we did not list a score; four votes is not a sufficient sample of key issues.

Of those Senators in office all four years covered by this voting record, 22 Democratic and Independent Senators scored a perfect 100%. Though most Republican Senators finished with a zero, six scored a 50% or above.