Roy Blunt Voting

DW-Nominate Scores

Senator Blunt's DW-Nominate Score for the 113th congress was 0.458.  The DW-Nominate score uses the votes casted by members of congress to rank how conservative and liberal they are.  Senator Blunt's number indicates that he is ranked 84th, with one being the most liberal and 100 being the most conservative.  Therefore, it is safe to say that Senator Blunt is a consistent conservative, but would be considered middle of the pack on the republican side. In Blunt's first session of congress, the 105th, he had a score of 0.592.  

One may ask why Senator Blunt's voting has become less conservative over the years and the answer is probably the fact that he has transitioned from the House to the Senate.  When Senator Blunt was in the House he only had to please the voters of his district, which was obviously a conservative district.  However, moving to the Senate, Blunt has to appeal to the entire state of voters.  Missouri is a state that leans conservative, but also has a significant population of liberals that Blunt must appeal to. 

Party Voting 

Senator Blunt's rate of party voting has changed since his first session of Congress which was the 112th to now.  In the 112th Blunt's rate of voting with the party was 79.630.  Recently, in the 113th session Blunt's rate is at 90.024.  I cannot definitively explain why the increase took place.  However, I think it should be noted that the Democratic Senator from Missouri, Claire McCaskill also showed a very similar trend from the 112th to the 113th congress.  It maybe that as we move towards reelection Blunt wants to align with the party to appeal to his constituents. 

ADA and Interest Group Scores

In 2014, Senator Blunt only agreed with the ADA 5% percent of the time.  He chose to not vote one time and only one time did Blunt vote with the ADA.  Senator Blunt also has knows what things are important to his constituents and interest groups.  The American Farm Bureau Federation in 2011 gave him a 100% approval and an 83% approval in 2014 according to project vote smart. 

Senator Blunt knows that agriculture is a key factor in his state and that he needs the approval of the agricultural interest groups.  It is also likely that the interest groups that support Blunt align well with Blunt also so that they are not backing someone who does not believe the same things they do. 

Crossing Party Lines

Senator Blunt is someone who does cross party lines at times.  For example, many of his bills were cosponsored by Democratic Senators.  However, he introduces bills that are relatively uncontroversial.  Also only one of his bills have been enacted and two others have come to a simple resolution.  Therefore, it looks as if he is crossing party lines simply to gain a favorable image in the eyes of democrats, as well as, in his own party.