THE LIBERAL-CONSERVATIVE IDEOLOGY OF US SENATORS - A NEW MEASURE

Responding to widespread concerns about how scholars typically measure legislators' ideologies, we propose, implement, and test the efficacy of a novel measurement approach. We employ formal content analysis of the news coverage of U.S. Senators' initial campaigns for office to c reate an ideology scale for members of the 101st Congress. We also off er systematic tests of reliability and of convergent and discriminant construct validity for this scale and for conventional, indirect measu res of Senator ideology using interest group ratings and ''residualize d analyses'' measures. This newspaper content analysis procedure produ ces ideology scores that demonstrate high reliability and validity and that are superior for theory-testing purposes to commonly used surrog ate or indirect measures of legislator ideology.