( – promoted by Jack McCullough)

UPDATE: AFL-CIO Lifetime Scores now included

This is another installment from my project that has been in the works now for nearly two years, but might finally be coming around the corner to some sort of real conclusion.   So, as I wait to find out if I’m going to ever land the funding to expand the project nationally, I wanted to share some of the information I all ready have on hand.  My hope is that, once I’m able to work all this out and make the numbers all available, there will be more of this kind of analysis online.

To provide a little back history, in the fall of 2009 I set out to develop some sort of rudimentary legislative district index for Vermont (If you’re interested, click on my profile and check my past diaries for a little more background).  My basic formula was to include Presidential, Gubernatorial, and State Legislative results in order to accurate rank the partisan preference of all 108 of the state’s legislative districts compared to the state on average.  You can expect a longer post about my methodology once I have a clearer picture of what the timeline is for this entire project, but I’m basically using the results of six recent elections, weighted for how strongly I’ve valued them as an indicator and for how long ago the election occurred.

One of the principle reasons for this project was that in the time I’ve been following politics online, I have been intrigued by how data plays an increasingly large role in casual political observation, and the popularity of analysis in the style of FiveThirtyEight.  However, for people to be able to replicate that kind of stuff on a local level, they need metrics to use, and those are often lacking.  

As an example of the function of this legislative district index, I’ve taken the 2008 Vermont District Index and paired it with the legislative scorecards issued by VPIRG, Vermont League of Conservation Voters, and the Vermont Chamber of Commerce for 2009-2010 to try and paint a fuller ideological picture of the last session of the Vermont House.  For the purposes of these charts, I only included legislators who were serving at the end of the 2010 session.  

Before I blabber on too much, here are the charts:

The first one uses the lifetime scores given out by the Vermont League of Conservation Voters (who deserve recognition for making lifetime numbers easily available).  There are a couple of points that really stand out on the map.  For Democrats, there are a fair number of representatives who underperform the trend line, ranging from Rep. Warren Kitzmiller in Washington-5 (D+35, 82% lifetime LCV score) to the worst offender, Rep. Richard Howrigan in Franklin-2 (R+16, 34%).  For the representatives in more liberal seats like Rep. Kitzmiller, his score is still on the lower end for the Democratic caucus, but by no means out of line.  Rep. Howrigan, on the other hand, has voted more conservatively on environmental issues that a number of Republicans in more conservative seats than he is in.  Effectively, when it comes to the environment, he votes much more like a Republican.

On the other hand, the Republican side of the equation isn’t all that interesting.  Aside from the hardliners who sit around 20%, there is a fair degree of leeway amongst the Republican caucus on the environment, with scores bouncing between 20 and 60 percent.  Worth nothing that there’s no real correlation when you look at the Republican caucus by itself – Republicans seem to be voting exactly how they feel on the environment  

The scores from VPIRG are the least helpful of the group, as so many Dems have 100% scores – the overlapping along the 100% line is what makes this graph appear so sparse.  There are only seven Democrats with imperfect scores: Reps. Browning, Gilbert, Howrigan, Keenan, Potter, Rodgers, and South, all on the conservative end.  That being said, Rep. Chip Conquest stands out as a shining example of the kind of Democrat you want to elect: not only is the seat he won in 2008 the most conservative seat held by a Democrat, but he managed to win re-election in 2010 while still receiving a 100% score from VPIRG.  Once again, the Republican caucus is all over the place.  Perhaps the most interesting point here is Rep. Topper McFaun in Washington-4, who represents one of the most conservative seats in the House, yet posted the highest VPIRG score among Republican legislators at 71%.

The Chamber of Commerce scores flip the trend line in the other direction and offer a few interesting points to keep in mind.  For the Republicans, Rep. McFaun’s score again deserves attention, as he was scored significantly lower than his colleagues who represent equally conservative districts.  If there was any sort of legitimate tea party presence in Vermont, you would have to imagine that between his votes on these issues and his previous rhetoric on health care, he would be a prime target.  The other low number on the list comes from Rep. Joseph Krawczyk, who was identified by the index as possessing the most Democratic seat held by a Republican – though after his defeat last fall, that title is back with Rep. Kurt Wright.

For Democrats, only three break the 60% barrier, but all three fall on the more conservative end of the scale.  Once again, Rep. Howrigan is on the list, as is Rep. Keenan and Rep. Robert Krebs, who was appointed to finish the term of the late Rep. Ira Trombley after his passing, before winning the office in his own right last fall.  It is worth noting that Rep. Krebs high score, while by no means out of line given the lean of his district, is inflated as a result of the limited number of votes that could be tabulated for him – his voting record in the House was identical to Rep. Mitzi Johnson (40%), who also represents the Grand Isle-Chittenden District.

Lastly, just to clarify, by analyzing these charts I by no means claim that their scores are accurate measures when viewed alone – there are well documented issues with interest group scorecards, and it appears that the rules for how legislators are scored are not always applied equally by all groups.  That being said, viewing these numbers in the context of the partisan lean of the district does give us a chance to peak at the members who have been more willing to stray from their caucus – whether that is for better or worse depends on the individual situation.  As always, if you’re interested in seeing more specific graphics, feel free to ask in the comments or contact me directly.

UPDATE:

Thanks to Dennis LaBounty, political director at the Vermont AFL-CIO, I can now show you their scorecard as well

A few quick notes: last session, there was only one House roll call vote that the AFL-CIO counted for their scorecard: S.290 AN ACT RELATING TO RESTORING SOLVENCY TO THE UNEMPLOYMENT TRUST FUND, which was overwhelmingly passed with the support of leadership, and resulted in the first “WRONG” vote for most Democratic lawmakers.  In this kind of graphic, that becomes even more pronounced, as there are a lot of fairly liberal, freshman Democrats who have scores of 0%.  I debated whether to counterbalance this by counting H. 647, a bill they highlighted as being a victory for labor, but since it wasn’t a roll call vote there really wasn’t any appropriate way for me to tabulate the votes.

In terms of looking at some of the lawmakers in this graph, surprise, surprise, once again Rep. McFaun has been voting pro-labor at a much greater rate than his colleagues. On the Democratic side, there isn’t much to bring up: the underperforming Reps on the liberal end of the spectrum all have 4 or less votes, one of which was a “WRONG” vote this year, and if you head down to the more conservative districts, the last Democrat sitting at 100% is Rep. Bob South, who broke ranks on the bill last session, but just as is the case with his other freshman, only has one data point to rely on.

For the lifetime numbers, AFL-CIO’s approach of being very strict about what votes count and what votes don’t works very well, but in the short term, it can really skew the picture.

Help me get to Netroots Nation!  And if you’re interested in building the next generation of progressive leadership, or simply want to know more about what young progressives are talking about, check out our blog at Students for a New American Politics.

Privatizing VT State liquor business ?  

In hard times antique dealers looking for quick bargains used to travel back roads looking for run down houses whose owners might have hidden treasures. Many dealers scooped up good investments from people desperately in need of cash by trolling this way.  

Dave Gram of AP reports that a small meeting took place Wednesday in Montpelier where a proposal to privatize part Vermont’s liquor business was presented. The Maine based company backed by a large private equity firm that is making a similar proposal to Washington state legislators. A Montpelier lobbyist explained how the meeting came about

[it] “germinated from a conversation he had with [Senate President Pro Tem] Campbell about "the advantages and disadvantages of getting out of the liquor business.”

An up-front payment, twenty year lease and revenue sharing were mentioned. Options were presented by Dean Williams, president and CEO of Maine Beverage Company to attendees Lt. Gov. Phil Scott, Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell and Sen. Richard Mazza, a senior Democrat and member of the Senate Rules Committee.

This particular solicitation that “germinated” with Senate President ProTem Campbell didn’t get any traction with the Vermont lawmakers. The lobbyist, William Shouldice that set up the meeting seemed to distance himself  telling the AP reporter "

They’re  [the company, whose Maine operations are managed by the Massachusetts-based Martignetti Companies with financial backing from the Lindsay Goldberg private equity firm] not even a client" of his lobbying business. "I just did them a favor," in setting up the meeting.

  This meeting raises worries that as revenue stays scarce and if courage can’t be found to put taxes on the table as an option then deals selling/leasing off parts of Vermont to for-profit companies will look more and more inviting.

The trolling antique dealer always left a calling card in case the mark changed their mind.

…but this time, it wasn’t from Vermont Yankee. It was from Dr. George Till. Take it away, Dave Gram of the Associated Press:

A Vermont legislator and physician said Friday he believes he got tainted results from an online survey he took of fellow doctors to determine whether they support Gov. Peter Shumlin’s plan for a single-payer health care system. …

… Friday, Till said he’d learned that some respondents were non-physicians.

So after four days of generous news coverage, he admits the poll was problematic. But it’s a tightly-worded admission; he doesn’t acknowledge the fundamental problem, that the survey was posted online and could have been taken by anyone with Internet access. Instead, it implies that a couple of lawmakers somehow hacked their way into it. And implicitly blames the lawmakers for doing so.

Still missing from the story: how Till (and his UVM grad-student assistant) could be so clueless as to conduct a survey on a wide-open website.

Below the jump: Media hijinx!

I heard about Till’s admission on VPR, whose Saturday morning anchor was presumably reading a short piece from the AP broadcast wire. After hearing the report, I looked up the story online and found a couple of interesting tidbits regarding our state’s biggest newspaper.

Dave Gram’s story was posted on the Burlington Free Press website. It was also posted elsewhere. As a matter of fact, I first found his story on the website of a newspaper in Columbus, Indiana. In its version, the third paragraph of the story reads as follows:

The Associated Press did not report on the results when they were first released because the unscientific survey did not meet AP polling standards.

Funny thing: on the Freeps’ website, that entire paragraph was omitted. I guess that stuff about journalistic standards would have been a tad embarrassing.

Another little thing: The (truncated) AP story is in the Freeps’ news section. There’s also a post by reporter Terri Hallenbeck on the Freeps’ vt.Buzz political blog. Her blogpost is even more carefully couched than Gram’s AP story, and goes a little further in casting the blame on those dastardly Dems who pissed in George Till’s pool.

Friday, Till apparently learned that two lawmakers had gained access to the online survey and taken it themselves, including House Assistant Majority Leader Willem Jewett, D-Ripton, and Health Care Committee Vice Chairman Mike Fisher, D-Lincoln. I couldn’t reach Till on Friday afternoon, but those who were in the committee room Friday morning said he wasn’t happy about any of it, accusing lawmakers of skewing his survey.

That’s rich. He posts a survey on a wide-open website, then (reportedly) implies that Jewett and Fisher hacked in, and completely fails to acknowledge the survey’s fundamental flaws. And both he and Hallenbeck imply that Jewett and Fisher were the only people who skewed an otherwise valid survey.

Finally, the conclusion of Hallenbeck’s post is worth reading:

Here’s the rub: It doesn’t look good for those in House Democratic leadership to be going behind the back of their fellow lawmaker. At the same time, it indicates the survey was not completely sound.

Again, blame the lawmakers for taking a survey that was wide open. And make the thinnest possible admission about the unscientific survey — “not completely sound,” indeed.

Given all of this, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Till’s survey continue to be cited as valid and credible, even though it obviously is not.  

This  nonsense in Maine over the Labor Dept. mural cuts pretty close to my last nerve.  Our entire family consists of artists; and we have experienced more than our fair share of censorship attempts.  

That is what we’re talking about in Maine…censorship.  In the liberty-casual U.S.A. we’re more familiar with censorship efforts directed at “offensive” images…mostly having to do with nudity and bodily functions with which Americans have never been entirely comfortable.  Former Governor Douglas’s blushing banishment of the Greek Slave from his statehouse desk springs readily to mind.

We regard political censorship as something foreign and unlikely on these shores.  But here it is, in all its autocratic glory: a genuine act of political censorship; right here in one of our Yankee sister-states!  It has certainly raised comment, but not nearly on the level that one might expect, given all that is at stake.  We’re busy parsing words about misappropriation of funds and the public’s right to access when we should be genuinely alarmed, conjuring memories of Nazi Germany, where the manipulation of public art played a significant role in a certain paper-hanger’s propaganda machine.  Okay; it’s my turn to hyperventilate and invoke the other “N” word.

There is a class-war on in this country.  This time, it is not the creation of a restless underclass; rather, it is a cynical construct generated by the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country; people like the Koch Bros., and the Waltons who hit the jackpot with a little discount store called Walmart.   Both have made the effort to defund public education central to their political “philanthropy”; and they champion a regressive social agenda that finds favor with the extreme right.  

They understand that their goal of unbridled corporate dominance of America’s economic resources will depend as much on dumbing-down the “Have-Not” population and redirecting their anger away from the “Haves”, as it will on any direct political funding. So the targets become public education, public television and radio…and those dangerous expressive arts.  They pull funding, revise textbooks, remove images and attempt to re-write science.

I do not invoke Nazi Germany casually.  It has become the shrill invective of last resort; often hurled by an accuser who hasn’t the first clue that the Nazis and their fellow travelers were right-wing extremists, social conservatives and about as far from being socialists as one could get.  I waited a long time before drawing that equation because it runs the risk of simply being lost in the noise.  But here is where I’m coming from:

In the early 1970’s, I spent a couple of years living in Berlin with my sculptor husband who was a guest of the Deutsches Akademischer Austauschdienst.

Our good friends, American sculptor, Ed Kienholz and his wife Nancy had already been living there for several years and had become immersed in the history of the Third Reich, which figures significantly in their work from those Berlin years.

Naturally, we were drawn into the conversation, and I began to read everything about the period that I could lay my hands upon.  What most concerned us all was the manner in which the good people we saw all around us had been alternately seduced and entangled in the monstrous social experiment that was Nazi Germany.  

I say “good people” without  a trace of irony because they were good people, just as the vast majority of Tea Party followers are good people.  As individuals, most of them would have given you the shirt off their backs. Even my father-in-law, who survived the camps but lost all but two of his family members…even he always insisted that

“there are no bad people…there are only bad leaders.”

That is what is so very dangerous about the slippery slope from simple pliant ignorance to complicit barbarism; it is a path that might be travelled by even the best among us if we succumb to the argument that intellectual thought and science and the arts may be subverted to serve an overarching political agenda of neo-patriotism and religious intolerance.

The left is always poorly equipped to meet this brazen enemy of thought because we sit in stunned disbelief far too long.  It is in the vacuum of that stunned silence (or as we frame our carefully measured response) that  folks like Rand Paul and Governor Walker are emboldened to reach still further.   We count too much on common sense prevailing, and we discount the powerful nectar of blissful ignorance.

I can’t help imagining American militia groups (our home-grown Brown Shirts) assembling behind the Tea Party luminaries; and I see parallels between the economic chaos of the Weimer Republic, which gave rise to those Brown Shirts in Germany, and the economic dysfunction we have been experiencing here since the collapse of the Wall Street ponzi schemes.  They too were emerging from a costly, humiliating, and winless war.

Both have led to a less civilized society, ripe to be misled into attacking scapegoats and indulging right-wing extremism.  It is here that I begin replaying the first chapters of “Inside the Third Reich” in my head again.

We have teetered on the brink more than once in the past,  recovering our sense of proportion in time to save our liberties and hold up the standard of human decency once again.  But so had Germany maintained a relatively tolerant, intellectually free society right up until it plunged clean over that cliff…practically over-night.  

It would serve us well to bear in mind that Hitler did not march on Berlin to seize power in a coup de tat.  His reign of terror began quietly enough with insidious Brown Shirt successes achieved within a democratic election process.

It’s time to set aside that pocket Constitution for a moment and pick-up a history book…but not a Texan textbook.

The writing is on the wall.

A bill just passed out of the human services committee.  The original intent of the legislation, H97, was to allow for child care providers in the state of Vermont to form a union.  Some of the provisions of the original bill included allowing for providers to choose to form a union so that they can, if they desire, bargain with the state over a variety of issues including:

1. subsidy rates and reimbursement practices;


2. retirement and health care benefits;


3. professional development and training support;


4. child-to-staff ratios;


5. licensing fees, as well as other related fees;


6. grievance procedures;


7. any other matter related to regulating child care within the state;

This legislation also allowed for an automatic collection of dues for union members and covered every kind of child care providers regulated by the state.

I will state again that this doesn’t force providers to do this.  It allows them to choose to do so.

So what passed out of committee?

1. subsidy rates and reimbursement practices;


2. retirement and health care benefits;


3. professional development and training support;


4. child-to-staff ratios;


5. licensing fees, as well as other related fees;


6. grievance procedures;


7. any other matter related to regulating child care within the state;

Yup.  Anything related to benefits?  Cut out of the bill.  Anything related to child to staff ratios?  Gone.  Anything that’s not subsidy, professional development or grievance procedures?  Nixed.  Nada.

You know what else got cut out of the bill as passed?

Licensed centers.  This includes some fairly small centers, but it also includes those large child care facilities which deal with a great many children in Vermont.  They won’t have the choice to form a union and work with the state collectively under the new version of the bill.  

What else got cut?  The automatic collection of dues.  This is how you nickel and dime a union to death: instead of having dues automatically pulled out (as with any paycheck for any union member), forcing the organizing body to collect the dues themselves is an administrative nightmare and will have to be handled provider by provider.  

This, folks, is how you hobble a union before it’s even been formed.  And this was done in a committee controlled by Democrats, many of whom have just turned their backs on the people who work absurdly long hours, for ridiculously low pay, to take care of Vermont’s children.

But even with this watered down version of a union, there’s one Democrat who didn’t even want to give child care providers the tiniest of voices.  That Democrat is none other than district CHITTENDEN-8 rep. Bill Frank, of Underhill, who just happens to share his district with poll hack George Till (I’ll leave it to you guys to figure out just what to say about that).

Just an aside: I was at the house for some of the testimony over this bill.  Its opponents invoked the anti-union measures in Michigan as a reason not to support this, saying Michigan’s an example of what goes wrong when we let the wrong people form unions.  

I expect that from Republicans, and I expect it from people who think themselves better than working class people, and better than “the help.”

I forget from time to time that that can sometimes include Democrats.

IBM’s John O’Kane has long played the role of Vermont Republican leader. Yes, Democrats across the spectrum, from Peter Clavelle to Peter Shumlin, have all tried to play him as though he may be approachable, even reasonable on issues – always to no avail. Regarding the health care reform now working its way through the legislature, one would think O’Kane and IBM would at least be open to the idea that a more active government role could mitigate spiraling costs borne by their business and – more importantly – could inject some fiscal predictability into future corporate budgets.

But forget it. O’Kane is IBM in Vermont, and O’Kane has proven time and time again to be nothing more than a Republican ideologue, not open to any serious, non-partisan analysis of policy impacts to the corporate entity that signs his paychecks. It’s a shame.

So, predictably, IBM is stepping front and center into the role of scuttling the landmark health reform currently working itself through Montpelier. Fortunately for us, Vermonters for Health Care Freedom, the anti-health care reform point operation, has inadvertently dumped some documents into the greater internet via sloppy email, and are now in full-blown circulation – documents which give a glimpse into their legislative strategies for moving forward for we in the semi-professional, citizen journalism set. Documents seem to come via The Fleischer Jacobs Group (a financial firm, which is a subsidiary of a much bigger financial firm – NFP Securities, Inc.), which is playing a role in the lobbying effort for IBM. It’s a machine of sorts, and I’m a little unclear on all the working parts.

We’ll be analyzing these over the coming days, but rather than play gatekeeper, I’ll start with posting what I’ve got. Take a look and comment on what you find. We’ll reference your comments and thoughts as we add our own and develop the conversation over the coming days. Team journalism!

So let’s assume for a moment that the survey which George Till released is actually a survey conducted of physicians, without duplication.   Even if this were true, there would still be multiple problems with the data as presented and the survey as presented.  

To highlight a few examples.  Let’s take, for example, the responses to question #2, which asks about whether or not there should be additional protections for physicians or patients if physician-assisted suicide were to become legal.

The choices are yes, no, and no response.  They break down, respectively to 71, 471, and 68.  The interpretation actually ignores the skipped question, presenting it as 13.1% and 86.9%.  But it should really be 11.6%, 77.2% and 11.1%.

So that’s kind of misrepresenting things to begin with.

But here’s the part I just love- there’s a 2nd section of that question if you answer yes, there’s a follow up: if you think there are more protections necessary what do you suggest they should be, shortened to “if so, what?”  

Remember that there were 71 people who said “yes” to that question.  So you would think that there would be 71 or fewer answers to the “if so, what?” question.

Not so much so.

There are 98 answers to that question.  

This, to me, suggests a certain lack of quality control.

These are just a couple examples from problems with the presentation and use of the survey from a methodological standpoint.  On the other side of the flip, I’ll talk more about the philosophy of surveys and what they do and do not do

So let’s talk for a moment about polling.  You often see people surveyed on a variety of issues– they usually discuss polling a number of people and include a margin of error.  This is based on statistical analysis of sample size vs population size.  The larger sampling percentage of a population you get, the more likely you are to have results which fall within certain margins.  Everyone shoots for a confidence interval of about 95%.

So when you see a margin of error, for example, of +/- 4%, it means that given the number of people polled and the size of the population being estimated, 95% of the time, the results you get from that poll will accurately reflect the population at large.  The other 5% of the time, it’s just sampling error.  

When people present surveys like Till’s, they often do so as though it’s in some fashion similar to those polls and surveys.  

It’s similar, in the same sense that a raccoon is similar to a horse.  They both have fur and are capable of walking on all fours.  But there are a whole lot of differences.

Till’s survey doesn’t do random sampling.  It was sent out to a large swath of people, a portion of whom (36%) responded.  This means that the responses are self-selected.  I.e., people who feel passionately about these issues and think it’s worth their time to make their voice heard shared their thoughts.  Those who didn’t either didn’t have time, thought it was worthless, or just didn’t feel a strong need to weigh in.  

You can’t interpret much from that.  If I were trying to be political about this, I could claim that only 10% of those surveyed said they’d leave the state if single-payer were enacted, since all 1600+ were surveyed, but the response rate was only 36%.  But that’s a ridiculous claim, because it (a) takes the “survey” seriously to begin with and (b) ignores proper methodology for interpreting and understanding survey results.

So what you have here is something more akin to a poll in Cosmopolitan magazine or any other such pop culture thing which makes for nice press, but doesn’t say anything meaningful or valuable about the topic.  I’d be fine with that, except for the fact that it’s presented as though it actually is academic and meaningful.  

Specifically:

Rep. George Till (D-Jericho) today released the results of the 2011 Vermont Physician Legislative Survey. Till conducted the survey with a Departmental faculty support grant from the University of Vermont College of Medicine. Doctor Till had assistance from Anastasia Coutinho MPH, UVM College of Medicine class of 2014.

Now this offends me.  At least the Doyle survey isn’t presented as anything but one man’s quirky attempt to take take “the pulse of voters on hot issues.”

But Till?  He presented this as though it’s science and put it under the auspices of actual meaning.

To me, that’s unacceptable.  

What is it with the media’s love of meaningless polls?

In an article in today’s Rutland Herald, staff writer Susan Smallheer may have slipped and fallen prey to Vermont poll syndrome by letting another questionable poll punch above its weight. This stands out from Smallheer’s usual Vermont Yankee coverage.  

The paywalled article: Report: Entergy will keep operating Yankee, without state permit; Houston firm predicts a courtroom showdown between Vt., Entergy is about Jefferies Equity Research firm’s report that surmises Entergy’s coming strategy. Many doubt the study’s conclusions that Entergy will just continue to operate the plant and fight Vermont in the courts. The study includes an aggressive disclaimer:

Jefferies does and seeks to do business with companies covered in its research reports. Investors should be aware that Jefferies may have a conflict of interest that could affect the objectivity of this report

 

So how does a pound of feathers ever weigh more than a pound? Smallheer claims:

The Jefferies report also gave weight to the recent results of The Doyle Poll, the unscientific poll conducted during town meeting by Sen. William Doyle, a Washington County Republican, which showed that 45 percent of Vermonters now favored Vermont Yankee to continue to operate. The poll, which is voluntary and open to repeated participation, showed a flip from 2010, when Vermonters were 52 percent against the relicensing, in the wake of the radioactive tritium leaks at Yankee.

 

But this poll, Doyle’s latest in his long running series of voluntary, easily manipulated polls, was taken on town meeting day before the almost month old Fukushima power plant problems.

Can’t imagine how the Jefferies report – insightful or not – gives weight to a thoroughly unscientific local poll taken before the Japanese nuclear accident which may shift attitudes. It still weighs a pound.  

Arnie Gundersen has a new report on what industry officials are saying to each other about the mess at Fukushima.

http://www.fairewinds.com/