CQ Voting Studies are an annual analysis of a member's support or opposition to a given position. Interest Group Ratings are based on rankings from groups chosen to represent liberal, conservative, business and labor viewpoints.Voting Participation scores are based on the number of times a member voted "yea" or "nay" on roll call votes (not including quorum calls in the House). CQ Vote Studies Year Presidential Support Party Unity   S* O* S O 1998 76% 20% 94% 4% 1997 80 17 93 3 1996 72 22 93 4 1995 86 12 96 2 1994 72 26 88 4 1993 75 24 92 3 S=Support; O=Oppose
Voting Participation Year % 1998 94 1997 95 1996 95 1995 97 1994 93 1993 96	Interest Groups Year ADA AFL-CIO CCUS ACU 1998 100% n/a 24% 8 % 1997 100 100 20 4 1996 100 100 7 0 1995 100 100 8 0 1994 100 100 17 5 1993 95 100 9 8
Note on Interest Groups: ADA=Americans for Democratic Action; AFL-CIO=American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations; CCUS=Chamber of Commerce of the United States; ACU=American Conservative Union

NEW YORK 8 : West Side Manhattan; parts of southwest Brooklyn

Starting at the tip of Manhattan, the 8th covers Wall Street and moves north along Manhattan's West Side past Chinatown, Greenwich Village and Midtown to end up in Central Park. The 8th also crosses the Brooklyn Bridge to take in Brooklyn's western waterfront and some of the borough's most impoverished neighborhoods. The manufacturing industry that once sustained Brooklyn has been neglected in a surge of white-collar financial growth. Now officials are looking for ways to revitalize the decaying Brooklyn waterfront.

Manhattan's heavily Democratic West Side has sent liberal representatives to Congress since 1970. Redistricting has combined Manhattan's low-income northwest, Midtown, Greenwich Village and financial districts with Brooklyn's Hasidic Jewish communities and minority neighborhoods in western and south Brooklyn and Coney Island.

The 8th's politically active communities - gay, Jewish, minority, art and student - supported Clinton with at least 75 percent of the vote in 1992 and '96, and the district's liberal Democratic representative easily won re-election to four terms. The only conservative voters in the 8th live in Brooklyn's upper-middle-class Hasidic communities, like Borough Park, where residents are sometimes willing to back Republican candidates who share their socially conservative views.

Major Industry
Finance, manufacturing, small business

Population
581,453 (1990)

Cities
New York (pt.), 581,453 (1990)

People
100% urban; 15% age 65+ (ranks seventh of 31 in state; top third nationally); 32% married couples, 13% married couples with children; 42% college educated (ranks second of 31 in state; top third nationally); 79% white collar (ranks second of 31 in state; top third nationally), 11% blue collar (ranks 30 of 31 in state; bottom third nationally) (1990)

Race
Non-Hispanic: 74% white, 7% black, 6% Asian, 12% Hispanic origin (1990)

Median Household Income
$32,784 (ranks 16 of 31 in state; top third nationally) (1990)

Unusual Features
World Trade Center; Empire State Building; Coney Island, home to a century-old amusement park; Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" set near Coney Island.

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