How Tea Party is Congresswoman Herrera Beutler?

A shift of power fueled in part by the Tea Party movement placed 87 new Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2010 elections. This month, Club for Growth released a report on how well those new Republicans were living up to Tea Party expectations.

First-term U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, received a 53 percent rating from Club for Growth, a conservative group registered as a 527 organization. That means she voted in alignment with Tea Party values 53 percent of the time, according to the group’s analysis.

“What we found was that while some freshmen have lived up to the promises they made to the tea party movement, dozens of them are big-spenders and are no different from many of the veteran Republicans they serve with,” according to the report.

Their report is titled: “Just how Tea Party Are They?: How Freshman Republicans of the Class of 2010 Rate on Economic Freedom.” It rates lawmakers based on limited government and pro-growth policies.

Herrera Beutler’s voting record, according to Club Growth’s analysis, shows that she deviated from the Tea Party message by skipping cuts to the energy subsidies the group wanted, voting to keep funding for the National Labor Relations Board, and declining to sign pledges regarding the debt ceiling. Herrera Beutler also voted against cuts to Botanic Garden funding, against some agricultural spending cuts, and against cuts to the flood insurance program.

Stevie Mathieu: 360-735-4523 or stevie.mathieu@columbian.com or www.facebook.com/reportermathieu or www.twitter.com/col_politics