For conservatism, 5 Arkansas legislators touted; Boozman just misses group’s cutoff

WASHINGTON -- The American Conservative Union on Monday honored five of the six members of the all-Republican Arkansas congressional delegation for their work in 2016, saying they consistently voted the right way last year.

U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman of Hot Springs had the highest ratings, and he showed up for the event. He said he was honored to be recognized.

"ACU's a great organization. It's kind of the standard on conservative politics," he said afterward.

Westerman had portrayed himself as someone who would uphold conservative values, and he said the award "makes me feel like I'm taking the votes that I promised my constituents I would come up here and take."

U.S. Sen. John Boozman of Rogers scored higher than the average Republican senator but not high enough to make the list.

Founded in 1964, the Conservative Union has been a force in Republican politics for decades and calls itself "America's premier conservative voice."

A spokesman for the group, Ian Walters, said members of the state delegation had scored "above average," doing better than most of their Republican counterparts.

"They're fairly high ratings," he added.

The group pored through hundreds of roll call votes, picking out 25 of the House votes and 24 of the Senate votes and then scoring legislators based on whether the Conservative Union agreed with how they voted.

In the Senate, opposition to Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland was considered the 25th vote, even though Garland never received a confirmation vote. Senate Republicans received two points instead of just one to reward them for successfully blocking him.

Scoring was on a 0-100 scale. The scorecard and all the votes are available on the group's website, conservative.org.

The Award for Conservative Excellence, given to those scoring between 90 and 100, went to U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (92) of Dardanelle and Westerman, who scored 96.

The Award for Conservative Achievement, given for scores between 80 and 89, was granted to U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford (86) of Jonesboro, U.S. Rep. French Hill (88) of Little Rock and U.S. Rep. Steve Womack (80) of Rogers.

Boozman earned a 77, the group said. While Boozman didn't get an award, he still scored slightly higher than the average of 75 for Republican senators. Among House Republicans, the average score was 82.

Boozman would've scored high enough to earn an award if he'd voted, for example, to block the nomination of librarian of Congress nominee Carla Hayden. (The Conservative Union said it was inappropriate to select a librarian "mere months before a presidential election," and the group accused her of being a political activist.)

The state's senior senator was also penalized, among other things, for opposing an amendment that would've eliminated Delta Regional Authority funding and another that would've eliminated a catfish inspection program favored by the aquaculture industry.

Dozens of Republicans, including Westerman, stopped by Tortilla Coast, a Tex-Mex restaurant on Capitol Hill, to pick up their awards Monday night.

Metro on 05/02/2017

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