Associated Oregon Industries (AOI) Fuzzy Math Lobbyists
Chuck Sheketoff
It came out in August, but Jeff Mapes is just now giving it some attention on his blog at oregonlive.com -- AOI's scorecard of the 2009 legislative session (PDF). When I read it I checked the math with J.L. Wilson, one of their lobbyists and he confirmed the system.
Here's the fuzzy math -- they counted committee votes as well as floor votes. So, if someone voted "wrong" in both a committee and on the floor, and someone else only voted wrong on the floor (wasn't on committee) they got different scores, with the person with the committee vote getting a lower score. For example, if Leg-D1 and Leg-R1 each votes for BadBill-A and GoodBill-B on Floor each gets a 50% score. But because Leg-D2 voted for BadBill-A in committee and on the floor and for GoodBill-B on the floor, Leg-D2 gets a 33%.
I have never seen such a scoring system with legislative reports. It rigs the system against the party with more members on committees.
To add insult to injury -- though when it comes to AOI I try my darndest to remember "do not to assume malfeasance when mere incompetence will do" -- the AOI report points to an AOI priority bill but fails to judge legislators on how they voted on that bill!
HB 3300 directed the Workforce Investment Board and the Oregon Business Development Department (formerly the Economic and Community Development Department) to develop a Green Jobs Growth Initiative and AOI's scorecard text hails it as one of "several bright spots in an otherwise gloomy legislative session for AOI’s workforce improvement agenda."
You'd think a vote or two on a "bright spot" that was a priority would get into the scorecard, but not one did.
When you check the legislative records and learn that only one party was represented in the "nay" votes on the floor, if you were a conspiracy theorist you might have a theory.
Oh yeah, the picture. As AOI would say, that's just to break up the type.
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6:36 a.m.
Oct 29, '09
For example, if Leg-D1 and Leg-R1 each votes for BadBill-A and GoodBill-B on Floor each gets a 50% score. But because Leg-D2 voted for BadBill-A in committee and on the floor and for GoodBill-B on the floor, Leg-D2 gets a 33%.
I have never seen such a scoring system with legislative reports. It rigs the system against the party with more members on committees.
But, in your example above, if Leg-D3 also voted for GoodBill-A in committee (and cast the same votes on the floor as the other legislators above), then Leg-D3 would get a 67%, and thus be rewarded for being on the committee.
So it isn't really a bias against the party in power, unless the party in power is passing a lot of bad bills. Which, come to think of it, may be the point.
Oct 29, '09
What do you care, Chuck? It's their scorecard. They can calculate it any way they want...just like you blast away at people that don't vote/think/act like you do. Like EVERY OTHER GROUP. I can almost feel the shockwaves of outrage and amazement ripping through the democrat circles that AOI....(wait for it).....supports people that support THEM. It's time to fire up the torches, sharpen those pitchforks...and find that picture of Jack Abramoff we've been waiting to drag out.
It's like you suddenly ran out of stuff to whine about.
Oct 29, '09
Right wingers lie with statistics and this is new? Oh the horror!
Oct 29, '09
Wow Chuck, slow news day? Session is bad for Oregon business and Oregon business groups are not happy. Color me shocked.
BTW, I didn't see your article about the OLCV or OEA scorecards grading Republicans down. Must have missed your outrage...
8:38 a.m.
Oct 29, '09
Jack Roberts: you are right and wrong. You are correct that the math works both ways, but you are wrong to condone use of committee votes to skew results and avoid the issues in the post.
Does OLCV or AFL-CIO use committee votes to make those on committees that voted on the bills have skewed vote scores (friends better and foes worse)? Would that make skewed results for committee members right if they did? I don't think so.
Is your silence about not including a priority bill in the vote tally tacit agreement with that practice, or are you just still feeling so beholden to the corporate campaign contributions that you've received over the years that you are incapable of criticizing AOI? I hope neither. Your silence on that issue is wrong.
Oct 29, '09
So some legislators got a failing report card. The reasons: it’s unfair, the test didn’t ask the right questions, and the teacher didn’t like me. Sound familiar? Are any of the results a surprise in anyway? We are adults. The 2009 session was a battle against business, which was why we elected Ds. Would you WANT the D’s to get high pro-business ratings? So why complain? Sounds as if it came out just right. And a vote in committee or the floor is a vote is a vote is a vote. I think AOI bashing is largely deserved, but they probably got it right this time. The Ds got the scores we want them to get. We can’t go electing legislators to fight employers and then attack business for giving those legislators a bad report card. Not if we have any integrity.
Oct 29, '09
Chuck, your simplicity is amazing. It is clear that you have great animosity towards AOI and folks that agree with them. Really, you do yourself no credible good by harping on insignificant side issues such as a score card methodology. As a matter of fact, you tend to marginalize what some from the other side of the debate would try to agree on.
In the vein of other recent posts on BO, this is an excellent example of why it is becoming more impossible to attempt reconciliation and/or agreement on common issues that would benefit the majority of Oregonians.
Double scoring for voting "wrong" once in committee and once on the floor????? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Chuck! In the eyes of the scoring entity, had the vote been "right" in committee then perhaps the offending bill would have never made it to the floor. Be thankful that committee votes in the AOI system do not carry a weighted multiplier.
9:34 a.m.
Oct 29, '09
Here's the interesting question: Has AOI always done it this way? If so, fine. If not, then they changed methodologies for a reason -- perhaps to hide some other phenomenon in the numbers.
It sure would be interesting to figure out their methodology the last few sessions - and apply that to the 2009 session. I suspect you'd find an outcome that AOI decided just didn't "feel right".
It's their scorecard, and they can score people however they want, but there's a story here behind the story.
9:41 a.m.
Oct 29, '09
So it isn't really a bias against the party in power, unless the party in pow
Or they're passing GOOD bills, and AOI's standard of what is "bad" is in the eye of the beholder, like any other organization.
Honestly, if I were a legislator and AOI gave me a "bad" rating, I'd wear it as a badge of honor. Until more business organizations decide that it's in their best interest to really work for the the interest of the state as a whole, rather than the generally short-sighted and myopic stuff they usually push, Oregonians should be skeptical of their "grades".
9:52 a.m.
Oct 29, '09
I think committee vote are important and I would count them. I'd also add for committee chairs whether they scheduled a hearings on a significant bill and whether they let the bill go to a committee vote.
AOI is free to score any way it wants (and we can criticize, of course). I'll keep my own score.
Oct 29, '09
Carla makes a good point about grading in general. Usually whatever organization is really trying to say is watch out for this politician or support this politician. The grades are merely a statistically rigged litmus test according to the inherent bias of the grading organization. Some will pay attention to AOI, many here will not. Not a big deal unless one is really concerned about finding a meaningful middle ground.
Oct 29, '09
To be fair, I don’t see any D vs. R summary in the AOI report, just individuals listed, as normal, by district and party affiliation. Some voted with AOI and got a high score, some the opposite; thier choice. Go to see OLCVs scores (olcv.org) and you’ll see the almost the EXACT mirror image. Except we like them, so no outrage. The sad fact is we are working hard to polarize ourselves, and we like it.
12:18 p.m.
Oct 29, '09
Scorecards are a difficult business. As someone who helps design one and has looked at dozens, I have to say omitting a priority bill of yours from being scored is unusual. It either says it wasn't really a priority, or that there are political reasons it was left off.
Counting committee votes is something that's always debated, but I think it's fair. The more difficult challenge is how to adjust for the votes that don't happen (bills that are killed) and the critical leadership work, separate from votes.
2:38 p.m.
Oct 29, '09
Chuck, I'm neither condoning or criticizing including committee votes; I'm simply pointing out that your statement that including committee votes is unfair to the party that has more members on committees, i.e., the party in power.
Actually, I think Carla's point is the appropriate one: If you like AOI, you'll think a high rating is good, whereas if you don't like them, you'll think a low rating is good. Same with OLCV or any of the other ratings groups mentioned above.
Personally, I have disdain for all of the interest group ratings. My sense is that they select votes and weight them to get the result they want. In particular, I thought it was disgraceful that the NRA announced in advance of the confirmation vote on Judge Sotomayor that this vote would count in their ratings.
I expect AOI's ratings to tell us which legislators they like and which one's they don't, nothing more or less. Their methodology doesn't concern me much.
Oct 29, '09
if anyone has fuzzy math its mr chuck sheketoff because he never includes every dollar in taxes and fees the state annually takes in and taxes and fees and etc is his arguments about oregon is such a low tax state and corporations only pay the 10.00 minimum which is nonsense.mr sheketoff never includes all the hidden taxes like fees,system development charges and etc businesses pay either in his arguments.be honest with taxpayers for once chuck instead of listening to your public employee union buddies.
Oct 29, '09
"Except we like OLCV"? No, I have seen too many games, and take them with a grain of salt like any other lobbying group.
Jack, I think you have something here:
"Personally, I have disdain for all of the interest group ratings. My sense is that they select votes and weight them to get the result they want. In particular, I thought it was disgraceful that the NRA announced in advance of the confirmation vote on Judge Sotomayor that this vote would count in their ratings."
I can think of a few times when interest group ratings were manipulated by a small group for their own purposes. For example, a woman's group (NOW? Oregon Women's Political Caucus?) in the 1986 4th District was supposedly going to do the full endorsement treatment for Congress but then some members (not necessarily living in the district ) said things like , "well, in the 4th Dist. we have Margie Hendricksen" ---and then wondered why women living in the 4th District thought they had the right to consider Peter DeFazio as a serious candidate.
Did love the last line of this post, though.
Oct 30, '09
It is very unfair to Jack Abramoff to link him to AOI.
Oct 30, '09