‘Extreme’ Republicans don’t count Heck as one of their own

By Karoun Demirjian

Wednesday, May 16, 2012 | 5:25 p.m.

Democratic congressional candidate John Oceguera has gone to great lengths to paint his opponent, incumbent 3rd District Rep. Joe Heck, as the sort of “extreme” conservative Tea Party Republican that has to be replaced.

There’s one problem with that argument: The unofficial body of extreme conservatives in Washington says he isn’t.

This week, the Club for Growth, a politically conservative outfit that advocates low spending and limited government, put out its rankings of the freshman, “Tea Party” class in the House. Heck was hovering somewhere around the bottom.

The Club gave Heck a 50 percent conservative ranking, making him the 13th-least conservative of the 87 freshmen in the House. Overall, he ranked somewhere in the middle: 196th out of 430 representatives whose votes were analyzed. (Members who only served partial terms — like Nevada Rep. Mark Amodei — didn’t get a rating.)

The numbers seem to make sense for Heck, who accepted Tea Party support as a candidate but has shied from vocally affiliating himself with the movement as a congressman. Heck’s office refused to comment for this article.

Oceguera’s campaign maintains Heck’s rating from the Club for Growth doesn’t change anything, considering how divided Congress is.

“The House Republican caucus has grown increasingly more extreme with this freshman class, and Joe Heck has consistently voted with them,” said Oceguera spokesman Adam Weiss, citing Heck’s votes for Paul Ryan’s budgets in particular.

According to a vote breakdown from the Washington Post, Heck votes with the Republican Party about 90 percent of the time.

“To say that his votes aren’t extreme is inaccurate. I can’t speak for the rest of the House Republicans,” Weiss said.