The Foreign Service Journal, October 2004

O C T O B E R 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 43 2 0 0 4 A F S A C O N G R E S S I O N A L S C O R E C A R D K EEPING S CORE IN THE C ONGRESSIONAL G AME ince 1996, as part of the Foreign Service Journal ’s election issue, AFSA has worked to help inform our members of their senators’ and representatives’ positions on key foreign policy issues. By explaining how these legislators voted on mea- sures that have influenced how the United States partic- ipates in the world arena and whether funding has been provided to do so, we hope that the Scorecard has helped you evaluate how you are being represented, and that it has served as a tool in making voting decisions. AFSA continues to provide this service. However, we have changed the format. In prior years, we sought to put ourselves in the posi- tion of legislators, and asked how each elected official’s vote matched the vote that AFSA would have cast. We then gave each legislator a score based on how similar his or her voting record was to AFSA’s virtual vote. This is the closest that AFSA has come to taking a position on political issues. In the new format, we selected certain issues that arose in the 108th Congress (eight for the Senate, nine for the House of Representatives) and recorded how your elected representative voted on them. We did not, however, create an AFSA position or tabulate a rating as we have in the past. Rather, the purpose is to serve as an impartial source of information on, rather than an evaluation of, your representatives’ views on specific issues. We also tried to diversify the votes so that they cover a fairly wide range of issues, from strict foreign policy matters to trade to human rights. We hope you will find this new format helpful. Again, we would like to caution that this congres- sional voting profile is but a snapshot of how your elect- S AFSA PROFILES HOW YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES SUPPORTED A MERICAN ENGAGEMENT IN WORLD AFFAIRS . B Y K EN N AKAMURA Ken Nakamura is AFSA’s Director of Legislative Affairs.