Various groups do studies of congressional members to paint a picture of the officeholders based on voting records and other actions they take.

No study is perfect; the organizations looking at congressional records interpret them based on their political philosophies and biases.

In just the past couple of weeks, a pair of studies stood out to me.

I’ve written articles about the bipartisan studies done by the Lugar Center and Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy for years.

The study reviews every bill, excluding resolutions, to determine if those introduced by members received co-sponsorship from members of the other political party, as well as how often legislators added their names in support of a bill introduced by a member from the other side of the aisle. It also considers the amount of bipartisan support for a bill.

While it doesn’t consider how members of Congress vote on what would be considered bills supported by both Republicans and Democrats, it gives a reasonable conclusion on their bipartisanship. I seriously doubt anyone is reaching across the aisle just to improve their scores in this study.

The other — a conservative ranking by the Institute of Legislative Analysis — is only in its second year. The Republican political research organization, which advocates for limited government, selects votes taken by Congress it considers important in determining whether members support limited government, basically being conservative, or favor big government thus more liberal / progressive.

Because the Senate took so few votes in 2023, the institute based its scores in the upper chamber on only 58 bills. It scored House members on 133 bills.

This one admits a certain slant, but gives insight into the political thoughts of members of Congress, particularly in the House as several more bills were taken into consideration there than in the Senate.

One pattern that emerged from both studies is the more a member of Congress works with those in the opposition camp, the lower that person’s conservative ranking.

So if the Lugar-McCourt study ranks a congressional member as bipartisan, he or she is not likely to get a strong conservative ranking, particularly Republicans.

U.S. Rep. Dave Joyce, whose district includes Trumbull County, is considered one of the more effective members of the House.

The Lugar-McCourt study ranked Joyce, R-Bainbridge, as the 15th most bipartisan House member during the 2023 session. He was also ranked 15th most bipartisan in the study of the 2021-22 session.

Surprisingly, Republican Bill Johnson, who resigned Jan. 21 to become Youngstown State University president, did well in the bipartisan study. The reason it was a surprise is historically he has scored low in the study.

Johnson, whose district used to include Mahoning and Columbiana counties, was ranked the 81st most bipartisan House member for 2023.

It was the first — and last — time Johnson made it into the top 100 in the study.

In previous House sessions, Johnson was 120th in 2021-22, 298th in 2019-20, 149th in 2017-18 and 205th in 2015-16.

While Joyce and Johnson did well in the bipartisan study, they didn’t fare well in the limited government one.

Joyce was ranked as the 209th most conservative House Republican out of 220 who were ranked. He received a score of just above 55% out of 100%. That made him the 12th most liberal House Republican in 2023, based on the study.

Johnson received a score of 71.5% and was ranked the 131st most conservative House member. That’s in the bottom half of House Republicans.

Both Joyce and Johnson scored low in the tax and fiscal category. Joyce was at 18.8% while Johnson was at 40.4%.

Of the 10 categories in the study, tax and fiscal was the lowest for Republicans — and Joyce and Johnson were no exceptions.

The institute, which wants limited government, stated more Republicans voted last year with the Democratic position on tax and fiscal issues than any other category.

“The data shows that cutting spending and the growth of government is no longer a priority for the vast majority of Republicans within Congress,” the group stated.

Have an interesting story? Contact David Skolnick by email at dskolnick@vindy.com.