Scores from Heritage Action:

US Senate:

• Pat Roberts: 65%
• Jerry Moran: 74%

US House:

• Kevin Yoder: 77%
• Lynn Jenkins: 79%
• Mike Pompeo: 85%
• Tim Huelskamp: 92%

Kevin Yoder was the only House member in Kansas to vote for the Export-Import Bank reauthorization, opposed by Club for Growth.  Tim Huelskamp, Lynn Jenkins, and Mike Pompeo voted against it.

Washington Examiner editorial:

Though GOP lawmakers talk a big game about wanting to limit government, they are susceptible to big government if they can be convinced that a given policy benefits big business. To show voters they truly believe in free enterprise, Senate Republicans should work to kill the corporate welfare agency known as the Export-Import Bank.

The Export-Import Bank, known as Ex-Im, is a government agency founded by a 1934 executive order from President Franklin Roosevelt. Its ostensible purpose was to promote U.S. exports by making loan guarantees to foreign buyers. Though Republicans raised a stink when the bankruptcy of solar panel manufacturer Solyndra exposed U.S. taxpayers to $535 million in losses, a large majority of Republican House members voted Wednesday to extend and expand Ex-Im by approving up to $140 billion in loan guarantees. Without congressional action, the agency’s charter would expire at the end of the month.

Roll Call to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

Heritage Action is the 501c4 lobbying arm of theHeritage Foundation.  They’ve released whatDaniel Horowitz at RedState describes as “the first comprehensive conservative report card of Congress.”  Horowitz writes, “We can now determine which members of the ‘Tea Party Congress’ drink a hardcore brew.”

Unlike most other scorecards, this one was designed to separate the men from the boys.  Most traditional scorecards, and most prominently, the ACU annual report, tend to focus primarily on those votes which fundamentally divide the two parties.  They fail to probe some of the more courageous conservative votes against party leadership.

To that end, any Republican who is even minimally conservative is expected to score at or near 100%.  After all, at a minimum, any Republican should oppose Obamacare, vote down tax increases, and support the Republican annual budget.  This is how the likes of McCain, Graham, and Chambliss have been able to achieve stellar scores.  Except for those like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Dick Lugar, most Republicans will vote with their party on the final roll call of major bills.  In fact, anyone who is not on the list of 100% is someone who has voted with the Democrats in contravention to fundamental Republican values.  A perfect ACU score should be the floor, not the ceiling, for a conservative voting record.

The Heritage Action scorecard digs much deeper.

In just the first seven months of the legislative session, they scored 30 votes in the House and 19 in the Senate, many of which dealt with obscure amendments that sought to cut spending beyond the comfort zone of GOP leaders. (more…)

It looks like Kansas Senate Majority Leader Derek Schmidt wants to run state-wide in 2010, for Secretary of State.  He’ll face the well-respected former state Republican party leader and constitutional scholar Kris Kobach, along with another tough challenger, J.R. Claeys.

There are many policy-related reasons for Republican voters to be skeptical of of Senator Schmidt.  But there’s at least one rather odd piece of baggage carried by Schmidt that is particularly troubling:  in 2008, he approved of the donation of thousands of dollars of Senate Republican Leadership PAC money to a far-left group called The Kansas Traditional Republican Majority (KTRM), which then, without real evidence or without any later apology, labeled as “racists” former Republican Congressman Jim Ryun (then in a close primary with now-Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins), former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, and the Family Research Council (FRC), along with the FRC’s leader Tony Perkins.

KTRM’s views are extreme, without a doubt, but its supporters, while small in number, are relatively influential and have close political ties to Schmidt, and to the other two state senators who operate the Senate Leadership PAC (President Steve Morris and Vice President John Vratil).  In other words, it would be tough for Schmidt to claim that he didn’t know what he was getting into when directing thousands of dollars to the group.

It’s tough to know where to begin with such an absurd attack on religious conservatives.  It sure doesn’t seem like a way to gain the affection of Kansas’ Republican primary voters.

If Schmidt wants a promotion to a state-wide office, he needs to explain his support of KTRM.

See the final vote tally here.