The major candidates in the Maine race for U.S. Senate each are touting evaluations of their voting records in Congress that recently have been released by third-party organizations.

Sen. Susan Collins last week was ranked 51st in a National Journal list that rated U.S. senators by how liberal their voting record is with the top ranking being the most liberal and the bottom ranking most conservative. According to the list, Collins has voted with liberals 47 percent of the time and with conservatives 53 percent of the time. Collins’ fellow Republican senator from Maine, Olympia Snowe, was ranked 50th on the same list with a difference of less than 1 percent between the two senators’ voting records.

U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, the Democrat who represents Maine’s 1st District, has a more partisan voting record, according to a National Journal ranking of members of the House. Allen is hoping to oust Collins from the Senate seat she has held since 1996.

Allen, ranked 107th out of 435 representatives, sided with liberals nearly 77 percent of the time and with conservatives only 23 percent of the time, according to the National Journal.

By comparison, U.S. Rep. Michaud, also a Maine Democrat, voted with liberals nearly 69 percent of the time and with conservatives 31 percent of the time for a ranking of 144th.

The lists can be found on the Internet at http://nationaljournal.com/voteratings.

“The new Senate vote rankings are consistent with Senator Collins’ record throughout her career,” Jen Burita, spokeswoman for Collins, said Wednesday. “She is an independent-thinking centrist who has a long list of major legislative accomplishments because she reaches across the aisle to get things done.”

According to a release from Allen’s office, a different evaluation conducted by Drum Major Institute for Public Policy gives the congressman a “perfect” score so far this year in voting on issues important to the middle class. Allen has received either an A or an A-plus from the group in each of the previous four years, according to information available on the Internet at themiddleclass.org.

Allen touted his support of two bills pending in the House, the Middle Class Opportunity Act and the Small Business Health Plans Act, as evidence of his support for middle class issues.

“I will continue to fight to enact legislation I have introduced to reduce taxes and make affordable health care more available to middle income earners and small business owners and employees,” Allen said in a prepared statement.

Both the National Journal and Drum Major Institute for Public Policy describe themselves as nonpartisan organizations.

btrotter@bangordailynews.net

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