The Children's Defense Fund Action Council 1999 Nonpartisan Congressional Voting Record is a useful tool for voters and advocates. It recognizes that child-friendly political rhetoric is cheap, but votes are the currency of Congress.

You can use it as a starting point for deciding who in the 106th Congress might deserve your support—and your vote. Is your incumbent House member facing a tough challenge? Find out where he or she comes out in CDF Action Council rankings. Are you crafting a letter to members of your delegation asking for more funding for child care? Looking at how individual members voted on that issue in 1999 gives you a heads-up on who is open to your message, and who might be a stumbling block.

Children were not big winners in the first year of the 106th Congress, according to the CDF Action Council report. For example, Congress declined to increase funding for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, despite the fact that 65 percent of mothers with children under the age of six are in the workforce. And once again, the goal of common-sense gun safety legislation eluded lawmakers.

But there were some bright spots: a $607 million funding increase for Head Start; $253 million for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers after-school program; and enactment of the John H. Chafee Foster Care Independence Act .

The Best and Worst of the 106th
To compile a ranking of state Congressional delegations on the basis of their support for children, the council selected 15 votes each from the 1999 sessions of the House and Senate. The votes were on legislation or amendments to legislation involving issues such as child care, school safety, juvenile crime prevention, gun safety, welfare reform, managed care, and tax policy. Each legislator received a score based on how often his or her vote matched the position of the council; and each state received a combined score based on how its members performed.

At the state level, the top five delegations were Massachusetts (with a 97.2 percent score from CDFAC); Rhode Island (96.5 percent); Connecticut (93.8 percent); Hawaii (93 percent); and North Dakota (93 percent). The Oklahoma delegation emerged as the worst performer by this measure, with a 23.6 percent score. Other poor performers were Wyoming (24.8 percent), Idaho (24.8 percent); Alaska (30 percent); and Kentucky (32.6 percent).

In all, the Senate came out as somewhat less child-friendly than the House, with an average score of 60 percent, compared to 69.2 percent for the House.

The report also includes individual scores for every member of the House and Senate. In all, 37 U.S. Senators and 51 House Members voted the council's way 100 percent of the time on the 15 selected votes. One Senator, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, received a score of zero. No House member reached that dubious goal, though Ron Paul of Texas scored a slender 6 percent.

The full report [1] offers an explanation of how the member and state scores were calculated; a summary of the 15 House and 15 Senate votes on which the members were scored and a discussion of how the votes were selected; and a list of legislative priorities for children for the year 2000.

To obtain a free copy of the report, call 202-662-3576, send an e-mail to greef@childrensdefense.org [2], or visit the CDF Action Council's Web site [3] for more details.