Congress

Using supercomputers, the authors have analysed 16 million individual roll call votes since the two Houses of Congress began recording votes in 1789. By tracing the voting patterns of Congress throughout the country's history, Poole and Rosenthal find that, despite a wide array of issues facing legislators, over 80 per cent of a legislator's voting decisions can be attributed to a consistent ideological position ranging from ultraconservatixm to ultraliberalism.