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>You and I both know it would be bad PR if he did.<

I don’t know about that. If he can prove NumbersUSA misrepresented his record, it would show the voters that he can fight for what is right. And, you’ll have to admit, a legal action would get him a great deal of news coverage! :)

The problem is, they can just say they did represent a specific vote correctly as most of their problems are absence of information. For example, one major vote they have him voting Yes on when he actually voted No- they have listed a procedural vote to move it from one committee to another but they don’t list the actual vote on the bill itself. Deception through picking and choosing what they want to list.

Fred Thompson is a lawyer who either knows or could easily find out that he'd have to prove a whole lot more than simple "misrepresentation" to win such a case, especially given that he is a public figure, and especially given that the speech is political in nature. The Supreme Court held in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan that the test in such cases is "actual malice", and that test is very strictly applied.

Except in cases of clear, deliberate, malicious deception, the First Amendment trumps any right of a public figure to recover on defamatory political speech. Fred has better things to do, particularly considering that NumbersUSA isn't really all that influential.

As for the substance, NumbersUSA doesn't give the whole story on each piece of legislation Fred voted for or against. For instance, Fred pointed out in committee that part of the "worker verification program" included a provision forbidding state and federal agencies to accept birth certificates that did not conform to certain federal regulations. This would, in effect, regulate state issuance of birth certificates, a constitutionally dubious proposition at best.

If NumbersUSA wanted to be truly objective, they might look into why Fred voted the way he did.