MERI REPORT ON MAINE LEGISLATORS

IS AN "UNETHICAL" FRAUD SAYS GORHAM

The following media release was sent to Maine newspapers, radio and television.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 11, 2006

Maine AFL-CIO President Edward Gorham said today that the Maine Economic Research Institute “Guide to Economic Performance” of Maine legislators which was inserted Tuesday in Maine daily newspapers is an “unethical” fraud.

”This so-called ‘guide’ purports to be based on a compilation of roll call votes on Maine legislation with economic impact,” said Gorham. Actually, as clearly indicated on the MERI web site itself the guide is a completely arbitrary rating based on the secret opinions of an unnamed group of lobbyists about how the legislators are ‘behaving’ in the halls and elsewhere.”

“The impression the MERI rating guide makes on the Maine voter is both misleading and false,” said Gorham.

In its July press release announcing the report MERI stated that “key economic legislation is identified and used to guide all MERI research – including MERI’s Economic Index ratings for each legislator. Ratings are determined based on performance.”

This statement is a “deliberate falsehood,” said Gorham.

“Oddly enough,” said Gorham, “The evidence of fraud comes from their own web site.”

Gorham noted that under “methodology” on the MERI web site is an evaluation of what the organization has been doing written by Douglas Hodgkin, Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Bates College.

Professor Hodgkin states that up to 75% or more of any legislator’s rating is based on what an unnamed group of lobbyists of an unknown size happen to think about various legislators and whether or not they are “helping” or “hurting” the Maine economy. The Professor says this “subjective” rating is based on how each “legislator” is “behaving” in the halls and elsewhere.

According to the professor’s “evaluation” of the process some 14 other unnamed lobbyists called “advisors” then decide how strongly to “weigh” the opinions of how legislators “behaved” in the halls. The Professor calls this process “arbitrary.”

”Since he is a highly educated college professor, “ said Gorham, “One must assume that Professor Hodgkin well knows that ‘arbitrary’ is defined in the dictionary as,  ‘subjective, unscientific, unreasonable, unpredictable, capricious, random, chance, temporary, unpremeditated, irrational, motiveless, unaccountable, superficial, whimsical, fanciful, freakish, determined by no principle, depending on the will alone, optional, uncertain, inconsistent, discretionary, subject to individual will, or half-baked.’”

 “The prime criticism for such a system is that it enhances the likelihood of a partisan division in the ratings,” said Professor Hodgkin.

This outcome is obvious in the MERI 2006 tabloid, said Gorham, since it gives very high ratings and/or gold stars to every Republican and targets every Democrat in the Maine Legislature as voting in a way to “hurt” the Maine economy.

”The Maine AFL-CIO has no quarrel with any organization selecting issues, specific legislation, or roll call votes and, on the basis of this open and easily available public information, showing how specific legislators voted and, finally, rating legislators favorably or unfavorably,” said Gorham. “Indeed organized labor has done exactly this for decades both nationally and at the state level.

“Nor is there any objection to having such ratings indicate that the organization (based on its own selected issues of importance) rates all members of one party either high or low. Nor is there any objection to collecting and publishing the opinions of various lobbyists about individual legislators. In this country both organizations and lobbyists are free to say whatever they wish.

“What is objectionable and, in our viewpoint, highly undesirable in a democratic society,” said Gorham, “is to twice publish and distribute statewide in major newspapers 300,000 or more tabloids shortly before an election with ‘ratings’ that pretend to be based entirely on recorded roll call votes of legislators and then conceal the fact that the ratings are, in fact, based in large part, or possibly entirely, on the secret ‘observations’ of a group of unnamed lobbyists.

”This may not be illegal but it is certainly unethical,” Gorham said.

”In this era, in which we strive for openness in government, for accountability, for elimination of corporate money influence on our political processes and for high ethical standards and fairness – it is simply unacceptable to allow a tax-exempt, corporate-financed organization with a half million dollar budget to create a secret system that serves to threaten and intimidate legislators” he said. “All legislators of both parties stand willing to have the public know their votes and, when asked, to explain them. Legislators of both parties should, and probably do, resent this hidden threat to their reputations and their votes and actions in the Maine Legislature.”