Peacemakers, Warmongers and Fence Sitters: Who Represents You?
To help you decide who to vote for in the 2018 Congressional election, CODEPINK's Peace Voter Guide & Divestment Record has gathered the arms industry campaign contributions and peace voting records of every single Member of Congress together in one site for easy reference. You will find every incumbent Senator and House Representative included in the charts below.
You can use these charts to see where your "representatives" in Congress really stand on questions of weapons, war and peace, and compare them with their colleagues. Are there overall differences between Democrats and Republicans? Who are the real hawks and doves in each party?
We hope this guide will help you to find incumbents or challengers where you live whose campaigns are not tainted by contributions from the arms industry, and who will cast decisive, world-changing votes for peace and disarmament in the coming years. Please vote wisely!
"2018 MIC Funding" includes all arms industry contributions to each politician in this election cycle from individuals and PACs (Political Action Committees). These include contributions to their "Campaign Committees" and to their "Leadership PACS." Records marked "N/A" indicate that this politician is retiring from Congress and has not raised significant funds in this election cycle. To explore this data yourself, you can enter the politician's name on the Open Secrets web site, then click on the "Industries" button at the top of their individual page, then select "2018" and "Campaign Committee and Leadership PAC Combined" and scroll down to "Defense" in the list of industries at the bottom of the page.
"Divestment Rank" ranks each politician based on their campaign contributions from the arms industry in this election cycle. Politicians who have taken no money from the arms industry are ranked "1" and so on. Code Pink is part of the "Divest from the War Machine" campaign, which we invite you to join.
"Peace Vote Lifetime %" is the actual percentage of critical Congressional votes in which each politician has voted as requested by their peace-loving constituents in response to action alerts by Peace Action, Code Pink and our partners in the U.S. peace community. Peace Action has tracked these votes (through 2016) at its "Know the Score" web site, where you can explore each politician's "Peace Vote" record in detail. Members of Congress elected in 2016 or later are marked "N/A," and we will enter their "Peace Vote" percentage once it has been evaluated.
"Peace Vote Rank" ranks each politician based on their "Peace Vote" percentage. Those who vote for peace most often are ranked first, those who vote more often for war and militarism are ranked lower, and the 22 current Members who have never voted for peace even once in their entire careers in Congress are ranked last of all.