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The Liberty Index consists of forty roll call votes in each chamber of Congress, twenty addressing economic liberty, and twenty addressing personal liberties. We are interested both in the overall scores of members of Congress, as well as the combinations of their scores on the two components of the index. In particular, we are interested in identifying the members who, relative to their peers, vote pro-liberty in both economic and personal liberty issues. These we label them "libertarian." We want the government out of our pocketbooks and out of our bedrooms. Those who vote the opposite of a "libertarian," who vote to increase taxes, spending, regulations, and other intrusions into our private lives, we unapologetically label "authoritarians." What we have found, in the twelve years we've been compiling the Liberty Index, is that the political axis has substantially shifted to a liberty versus authority orientation. Congressman Dennis Kucinich received one of the lowest ratings (30) for personal liberties and received a perfectly awful zero for his stand on economic liberties. His overall score of 15 on 40 key votes earned him a rating of Authoritarian. In fact, Kucinich rated near the bottom of the 435 congressmen rated in the study. According to Professor Thies, an Authoritarian, like Kucinich, believes in a strong state apparatus intervening extensively in economic and personal affairs.
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