The Foreign Service Journal, October 2006

O C T O B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 53 2 0 0 6 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, AFSA has sought to educate and inform its members about the way their elected representatives vote on a variety of foreign affairs issues. In this, our fifth scorecard in the Foreign Service Journal , we have maintained a format implemented for the first time in 2002. This year, we have assembled a set of votes — eight from the Senate and 10 from the House of Representatives — covering a variety of issues, from international organizations and trade to Iraq and human rights. These votes, listed beginning on p. 56, were selected from over 100 amendments and proposed bills offered on the floor of the House or Senate. Many of those votes passed with near-unanimity (e.g., H. Res. 673, urging Belarus to establish fair, transparent and democratic electoral processes), but we have sought out particularly controversial ones in order to provide as nuanced and informative a scorecard as possible. In addition, we have once more decided to give the “yeas and nays” on each vote, in order to provide clear and impartial information. We hope you will find this helpful in forming your voting decisions. We are compelled to observe also that the issues selected serve only as a glimpse of each member’s work and views as they relate to foreign affairs. Each of the selected votes occurred on the floor of the full Senate or House, when the bills in question had already passed through the fine-tuning processes of subcommittees and committees. Much of the controversial and important decisionmaking occurs in committee or subcommittee, or before the bill is even introduced. Though any sena- tor or representative may serve on a relevant committee, sponsor legislation or write a letter that significantly pro- motes or obstructs legislation important to AFSA, not all 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.