National Journal: Texans Among Most Conservative in Congress

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and U.S. Reps. Randy Neugebauer and Sam Johnson are among the most conservative members of Congress, according to National Journal's annual ranking of votes by the 100 senators and 435 representatives sent to Washington by all 50 states.

Cornyn, who was 12th on the list in 2009, tied for the top spot in 2010 with U.S. Sens. John Borasso of Wyoming, Mike Crapo and Jim Risch of Idaho, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and John Thune of South Dakota. Each of the eight senators earned a conservative ranking of 89.7.

Neugebauer was tied for first in 2009. This year, he's joined by Johnson and three other members — Trent Franks of Arizona, Jim Jordan of Ohio and Doug Lamborn of Colorado — in the top slot with a ranking of 95.0.

Two other Texans in the U.S. House — Pete Olson and John Culberson — place seventh and 10th, respectively, on this year's list.

A few words about National Journal's methodology, via the magazine's website:

For the past three decades, National Journal has rated members of Congress based on selected roll-call votes from the previous year to see how they compared with each other on an ideological scale. For the 2010 ratings, National Journal examined all of the roll-call votes in Congress last year — 664 in the House and 299 in the Senate — and identified the ones that show ideological distinctions between members. Just under 100 votes in each chamber were selected, weighted, and categorized as economic, foreign, or social. The votes in each issue area were combined in an index for each member, and members were then ranked from the most liberal to the most conservative in each issue area. These rankings were used to assign liberal and conservative percentile ratings to all members of Congress.