The 2006 New Hampshire Liberty Index
This is the 2006 New Hampshire Liberty Index, an evaluation of New Hampshire legislators' voting records during the most recent session. It follows the general pattern of the prior editions (2003 and 2004), but reflects one major improvement over its predecessors: a defined, systematic methodology for determining which votes should be included.
Consistent rules for assessing bills make the Index more reliable. First and foremost, they vastly reduce the amount of bias factored into the ratings. Ideally, the rules should be so clear that the Index could be replicated by multiple persons without any communication in between. I cannot claim to have crafted perfect rules, nor to have applied them with 100% accuracy, but that has been my goal nevertheless.
If the Index cannot be replicated, how can I expect legislators to use it as a guide for their future votes? As I wrote in 2004, its most obvious use is for evaluating candidates, but I hope both legislators and constituents who value liberty will find the Liberty Index helpful for deciding which laws to support and which to oppose.
What is Liberty?
Liberty is the ability of a person to engage in actions and agreements involving his person and property as he sees fit, provided he does not forcibly interfere with the ability of others to do the same.
Ultimately, there are only two types of activities that are inconsistent with liberty: crimes against property (i.e. theft and trespass) and crimes against persons (e.g., murder and rape). (Because as a human being you own your own body, technically all crimes can be classified as theft or trespass.) A perpetrator of a theft or trespass, the only real true crimes, against another person relinquishes the rightful security of his own person and property. This is why taking your money back from a thief is not considered theft, nor killing a person in self defense considered murder, etc.
Many people believe that the proper role of the government is to “protect” people and their property from theft and trespass, most commonly by imposing punishments on criminals. (I put “protect” in quotation marks because nearly always the government plays a role only after a crime has been committed, though of course the threat of trial, conviction, and fine or incarceration deters many crimes before they're committed.) But the Index is focused on what the government should not do. In short, the government should not punish people who have not committed real crimes. When it does so, it violates liberty.
Rules for Determining Inclusion in the Index
1. A bill that increases government revenue or expenditures is anti-liberty, while a bill that reduces government revenue or expenditures is pro-liberty.
While at first this guideline may appear somewhat extreme, one must not forget that the government's money does not come out of thin air—it is taken by force from taxpayers. Every dollar that the
government spends is one less dollar that a New Hampshire taxpayer gets to spend (or save, or invest, or give away) as he or she chooses.
This is the Liberty Index, not the “Equality Index,” so sometimes I will include a pro-liberty tax cut that favors some taxpayers over others. See, for example, SB380, establishing an R & D tax credit for businesses. This obviously distorts the market and “unevens the playing field” for New Hampshire businesses, but we cannot say that it doesn't increase liberty for all the people now forced to hand over less of their money to the state.
On the other hand, local property tax rates are set based on budgets, rather than vice-versa. This means that local tax credits for some people (like the current use designation and veteran's tax credit) increase taxes for other people exactly as much as they decrease them for the favored group. Government revenue and spending remain exactly the same, so while I think this is bad policy (and probably leads to higher taxes overall), I cannot considered such bills (e.g., HB1734) anti-liberty.
2. A bill that outlaws (or increases penalties for) a consensual activity or agreement is anti-liberty, while a bill that re-legalizes (or reduces penalties for) a consensual activity or agreement is
pro-liberty.
Actions that do not directly violate another individual's property or person should not be punished. Furthermore, the mere potential for such a violation does not justify punishment. In order for a penalty
to be just, there must be an actual violation, not merely the potential for one. For example, having a barbecue in your back yard should be legal despite the danger of starting a forest fire.
Restrictions on the activities of government officials, whether or not acting in their capacities as such, are not generally considered anti-liberty.
3. A bill that makes it easier or more difficult for the General Court to pass a pro-liberty or anti-liberty bill in the future may be pro-liberty or anti-liberty. Similarly, if a bill increases or decreases the prospects for anti-liberty regulation by local governments, it will be treated accordingly as anti-liberty or pro-liberty, respectively. The rare exception to this rule would be the case where the state government actually cedes its regulatory authority to municipalities. If the state doesn't give up its regulatory authority (by constitutional amendment, for example), but merely enables greater municipal control, liberty may then be encroached on both fronts. Still, from a pro-liberty perspective, authorizing new local infringement of liberty is preferable to simply violating a liberty across the entire state.
4. Some bills are purely pro-liberty, some are purely anti-liberty, and some include both pro-liberty and anti-liberty provisions. If a bill in this latter category is clearly weighted one way or the other, I include it in the Index. One example this year is the anti-liberty HB1457, which creates a new $10.7 million tax while reducing another tax by only $6.2 million. If the balance is more ambiguous, I prefer to err on the side of omitting a bill.
In addition to pro-liberty and anti-liberty provisions, some bills center on the government's role doling out justice to criminals. I cannot classify all this legislation as pro-liberty, because it involves the expansion of government and increased spending. (In any event, is a bill increasing the penalty for murder from 50 years in prison to 55 years pro-liberty? What about the death penalty?) It turns out that legislation these days rarely limits itself to punishing true criminals (who commit theft or trespass as described above). For one thing, basic crimes like murder, assault, burglary, and fraud* have been illegal for hundreds of years, since well before the U.S. Constitution was ratified. (*This is my first mention of fraud. It's worth noting that fraud is a true crime because it incurs theft. Mere dishonesty is not a crime, but when someone's dishonesty imposes costs on others it is tantamount to theft.)
Thus the need for a “tainted law” rule. A law that includes any anti-liberty provisions is anti-liberty unless it includes countervailing pro-liberty provisions. For the purposes of this rule, laws addressing true crimes are considered liberty-neutral. For example, a bill simultaneously outlawing bank robbery and possession of marijuana would be considered anti-liberty. There is no excuse for taking away even a modicum of people's liberty as part of an effort to protect them.
Not all of the votes undertaken in the New Hampshire General Court each year are recorded "roll calls," so many pro-liberty and anti-liberty bills are excluded from this analysis.
At most one roll call vote relating to a particular bill is included, though there may be several bills relating to a single issue, and in some cases nearly identical bills introduced in the House and Senate.
The Index includes the raw percentage of votes cast by a legislator that were pro-liberty, along with a center-weighted rating that accounts for missed votes. A legislator who doesn't cast any votes receives a rating of 50%.
This initial release of the 2006 Index rates only the House. Ratings for the Senate have not been compiled for 2006.