Minnesota's new faces in Congress: A scorecard
Good article by Andy Birkey of Minnesota Monitor about how Minnesota's first-year legislators are doing at their jobs:
Checking up on the freshmenMore here.
By Andy Birkey, Minnesota Monitor
What have Minnesota's newest Congress members been doing?
Minnesota sent four new faces to Washington, D.C., in 2007. As the month-long August break approaches next week, how have the new members done now that the 2007 session is over three-fourths finished?
Voting History
All of Minnesota's representatives have been at the top in terms of attendance. Of 725 votes, Rep. Tim Walz has only missed four (0.6 percent), Rep. Keith Ellison missed six (0.8 percent), and Rep. Michele Bachmann missed seven (0.9 percent). The average for the House was 3.5 percent. On the Senate side, Sen. Amy Klobuchar has a perfect voting record and has missed zero votes since taking office.
Minnesota's freshman delegation generally votes with its party. Walz has voted with the Republicans and against the Democrats 29 times out of 721 votes, and Ellison three times out of 719 votes. Sen. Klobuchar crossed over 12 times out of 277 votes. Bachmann voted with the Democrats and against the Republicans six times out of 718 votes.
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1 Comments:
Interesting raw data but it does not tell a story.
100 % Attendance is unimportant accomplishment.
The number of missed votes is irrelevent ... not all of the 725 roll call votes are significant ... some are mere resolutions. Evaluate the quality not quantity ...in other words, were the missed votes important or impacting on the final outcome. For example, Bachmann did not vote on Roll Call vote 70 ... along with 25 other Congressmen (16 Rep. 9 Dem). The bill passed 226 to 184 on a party line vote ... the 25 votes would not have swayed the outcome. And since 25 people did not vote, I suspect that there may have been some other activity going on that kept that many away.
Were you impressed that Mark Kennedy prided himself on a 100% voting record? I wasn’t.
Voting with Personal Conviction
The second area that was looked at was voting outside of party discipline. OK so that may show an ability to think outside of the Party Mantra and For their District or personal philosophy. I admire that. Walz voting 29 times is significant ... and good ... I would rather have someone that actually represents something besides their political party ... hate those Rove Robots and Pelosi Pawns. But the reporting does not tell us what the roll call votes were. That's important. Once again, were the roll call votes important? Is there a philosophical stance that voters should be aware of? Another way that this could be evaluated is how many times did they against their Party's majority? When the Republicans were in the Majority, the old Republican Rule was that bills would not be brought forward until a majority of the Majority agreed to the bill (which is why NOTHING got done). So, I suggest that you look at how many times a Representative voted against their Party. Jim Ramstad (I know he's not a rookie) has a strong record of voting against the Republican leadership. If a Representative voted against the party majority that would be significant as it would show if the Representative values his/her vote independently. And even more insightful vote would be when the both parties overwhelmingly agree on a bill, but the Representative bucks the leadership. For example, on the Small Business Tax Relief Act Roll Call vote 102 Congresswoman Bachmann voted against it while all the Democrats voted in favor and the Republicans voted 141 to 45 to pass it.
Bachmann’s votes ( see also roll call 17, 32, 130, etc.) should be brought to the attention of the voters for them to decide if she is out of the mainstream or in sync with their personal beliefs.
Authoring legislation
There have been well over 3,000 bills offered in the House thus far with an overwhelming number never reaching a committee hearing. Some are re-treads from prior Congresses … my favorite is John Kline offering HR 349 which was the same as Gil Gutknecht’s HR 4357 (read more at Minnesota Central blog . Kline’s bill is still awaiting Committee action. Gutknecht paraded that bill through the First District to show how he was working for the First District and his campaign contributors … now Kline is peddling the same thing … with the same results.
So the motivation for offering a bill can be questioned, but if the legislation is truly going to pass, generally it needs a Champion who can carry the bill through committee. Based on rank in Committee, Jim Ramstad would be the most influential Minnesota Republican in Congress; to date he has offered three bills that are still awaiting Committee action. On the Democrat side, Colin Peterson has offered six bills of which only one has passed by the House (the farm bill). Jim Oberstar has offered 21 bills. One became law ( the always controversial naming of a Post Office), and one is awaiting Bush’s signature (funding for the I-35 bridge project). A half dozen other bills are waiting for Senate action ( the status of those bills is indeterminate as Gil Gutknecht referred to the Senate as “the graveyard of all good ideas”).
Authoring legislation is a misleading indicator of performance. I would suggest that the number of bills that they have signed on as Co-sponsor may be a better indicator. Once again, some analysis would have to be done to determine the intention. Congresswoman Bachmann has signed onto 45 bills of which most are pending … but you can learn her leanings … for example, she wants to reduce the tax on beer to its pre-1991 level, make English the official language of the United States, Constitutional rights for each born and preborn human person, and supports the Pledge of Allegiance … all sure to get her votes next November but unlikely to be enacted into law during the 110th Congress.
Recognition
One area that was not consider is how the Party Leaders welcomed them.
On January 13, Congressman Walz delivered the Democratic Radio Address.
In March, Ellison joined Speaker Pelosi to visit Israel, Syria and other countries in the Middle East.
And what about Michele Bachmann … she gave the President a “Death Grip” until he kissed her at the State of the Union Address link
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