Mackinac Center Profiles 6th District

The Mackinac Center's Michigan Capitol Confidential profiles the 6th district congressional race.

MichCapCon Profile: The 6th Congressional District Primary

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When the Club for Growth, a D.C. free market political organization, recently released its scorecard ranking all members of Congress on their "pro economic growth" voting records during 2009, MichCapCon profiled the scores for the Michigan delegation (see: www.MichCapCon.com/12803). The survey assigned weighted values to votes on taxes, budgets, earmarks, and more to arrive at a measurement of how well they believed that each lawmaker supported economic freedom.

Upton's score was 64 percent, compared to an 82.7 percent national average for all Republicans in Congress. Only one Republican from Michigan beat the GOP national average, and Upton's score placed him third in the Michigan GOP delegation.

The same survey for 2008 was the subject of an earlier MichCapCon profile of the Michigan delegation (see: www.MichCapCon.com/12284). In this instance, Upton posted a 39 percent score, compared with a GOP national average of 71.9 percent and a national average for all members of 36 percent. He was the lowest-scoring Republican in Michigan.

The "RePork Card" is a different ranking put out by the same organization - the Club for Growth. This measures the willingness of all members of Congress to vote against earmarks in the federal budget. The 2009 scores for the Michigan delegation were profiled in a January MichCapCon article (see: www.MichCapCon.com/12007). Nationally, 22 members of Congress received a perfect score of 100 percent, having voted to remove each earmark used in the ranking. The median national score for all Republicans was 69 percent, and three Republicans from Michigan exceeded this mark. Upton's score was 53 percent.

An earlier MichCapCon article examined five specific earmarks that received national attention due to the outrage they produced from the public (see: www.MichCapCon.com/11218). Time Magazine listed three of them on a list of its ten most outrageous earmarks of the year for 2008. Among the votes profiled were those to kill an appropriation for a research center in Maine that bragged about creating dog treats made of lobster, and a museum for mules in California. Of the five earmarks profiled, Upton voted to strip two of them out of the budget.