So says the National Journal’s annual rankings.
Those are some dark blue tennis shoes!
The rankings, to be published tomorrow, calculated the color—how blue or how red—each member’s ideology was, based on 76 key votes from 2008. They also split the votes into the categories of social issues, economic issues, and foreign policy issues. According to the rankings, Murray voted more liberally than 92.7 percent of her fellow Senators on these issues.
The National Journal, a weekly DC magazine read almost exclusively by Capitol Hill insiders and members of Congress, calculates the rankings every year. Junior Senator Maria Cantwell is ranked 18th most liberal.
Who was last year’s most liberal Senator? That would be Illinois’ first term junior Senator, Barack Obama.
Murray’s office told PubliCola, when asked for their response to the rankings, that they’re not jumping to any conclusions about Sen. Murray’s presidential future.
And they’re a little skeptical of the National Journal‘s conclusions, too. “You know, this is the same publication that said Barack Obama was the most liberal Senator last year,” said Murray spokeswoman Alex Glass, referring to Obama’s often-conciliatory stance.
“So yeah, we don’t put much stock in those rankings.”
The Journal also ranks the House, but with 435 members, 95th most liberal—Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA, 1)— gets a little hard to distinguish from 181st most conservative—Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA, 8). Earning the designation of Washington State’s most conservative Congressmember is Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA, 4), holding down the number 52 spot on the list, with Reps. Reichert and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (at 97) trailing not too far behind.
The magazine’s decidedly unscientific rankings shuffle substantially from year-to-year. Last year, Murray was ranked 12th.
