The League of Conservation Voters Is Friendlier to Republicans than Democrats

by: Matt Stoller

Mon Oct 20, 2008 at 18:15

Still, I wanted to look at something slightly different, which is whether according to their own criteria the League of Conservation voters is fair to Democrats.  The LCV scorecard is the major scorecard for the environmental movement, this is their measure of how friendly to the environment a candidate is, a selection of key votes that set goals for the large and sprawling set of green groups.  So one would expect them to treat all candidates the same and judge them strictly according to votes (with some wiggle room based on the type of district).  If you are a Democrat and the LCV endorses a Republican, too bad, the Republican is good on the environment and LCV looks at politicians without fear, favor, or partisanship.  We wanted to test whether that's actually how LCV operates.

Here's how we went about understanding the real criteria for the LCV.  Adam Terando compiled LCV scores for all endorsed Republican and Democratic candidates.  I excluded all but the endorsed incumbents in general elections, so that there's an apples to apples comparison.  We then compared scorecards of the Democrats and the Republicans.

Basically, what the data suggests is that LCV has two sets of standards, one for Democrats, who have to meet a certain bar for support, and one for Republicans, who have to meet a lower bar for support.

Democratic Mean LCV lifetime score: 88
Republican Mean LCV lifetime score: 66

+22 advantage for Republicans

Republican Mean 2008 score: 68
Democratic Mean 2008 score: 85

+17 advantage for Republicans

Republican Mean 2007 score: 81
Democratic Mean 2007 score: 93

+12 advantage for Republicans

Here are some more facts:

• Every single endorsed Democrat except one has a lifetime score above 80.  Every single endorsed Republican except one has a lifetime score below 80.

• Every single endorsed Democrat in an even or Democratic district had a 2008 score above 90.  Every single endorsed Republican in an even or Democratic district had a 2008 score below 90.

• Endorsed Republicans are in districts that are 1.4% more Republican than endorsed Democrats.

The spreadsheet is here.

League of Conservation Voters Democratic Incumbents

Candidate	Lifetime	2008	2007	2006	2005	District PVI
Gabrielle Giffords (D) AZ-08	88	77	95	NA	NA	R+1
Jerry McNerney (D) CA-11	85	77	90	NA	NA	R+3
Joe Courtney (D) CT-02	97	100	95	NA	NA	D+8
Bill Foster (D) IL-14	73	73	NA	NA	NA	R+5
John Yarmuth (D) KY-03	100	100	100	NA	NA	D+2
Tim Walz (D) MN-01	82	77	85	NA	NA	R+1
Carol Shea-Porter (D) NH-01	94	100	90	NA	NA	Even
Kirsten Gillibrand (D) NY-20	85	69	95	NA	NA	R+3
Steve Kagen (D) WI-08	91	92	90	NA	NA	Even

League of Conservation Voters Republican Incumbents

Candidate	Lifetime	2008	2007	2006	2005	District PVI
Chris Shays (R) CT-04	90	54	100	92	78	D+5
Mike Castle (R) DE-AL	66	69	95	83	67	D+7
Tim Johnson (R) IL-15	66	62	75	83	72	R+6
Vern Ehlers (R) MI-03	59	69	70	75	50	R+9
Frank Lobiondo (R) NJ-02	75	85	90	83	78	D+4
Chris Smith (R) NJ-04	73	77	85	92	78	R+1
Todd Platts (R) PA-19	36	62	55	42	33	R+12

It turns out that LCV doesn't use its scorecard to make endorsements.  Judged by the data, Republicans have a consistent advantage when seeking the endorsement of this group.  Put another way, the League of Conservation voters is willing to endorse Republicans that are less friendly to the environment according to their own criteria simply because they are Republicans.

One can argue over whether single issue groups should treat Democrats better because they vote for a more progressive leadership of committees.  In fact, conservative groups tend to treat leadership votes as part of their checklist, and I think that's probably a good idea for progressive groups as well.  Still, this argument is not actually the one we're having.  I'm wondering whether there can possibly be an excuse for treating Democratic politicians worse than Republican politicians.  That seems to me to simply be a broken organizational model.

... If the way that LCV operates is a standard model for left-wing groups, it occurs to me that both right-wing and left-wing single issue groups give Republicans an advantage.  The conservatives help Republicans by considering leadership votes as part of their endorsement process, and Democrats simply cannot compete with Republicans on that score.  This is reasonable; Tom Delay is better for the NRA than Nancy Pelosi.  But liberal groups systematically boost Republicans by some arbitrary amount based on a perceived need to have access to 'moderate Republicans'.

In other words, don't expect to get credit for voting liberal if you're a Democrat, but do expect to get credit for only being crazy some of the time if you are a Republican.