Suppose you could check a Web site to discover if a legislative candidate in your area was a certified wacko. In a click or two, you’d know if your potential state senator or representative harbored any bizarre beliefs, such as:
• Guys go to Hooters because the food is so good.
• Ben Affleck sure has made some great movies, lately.
• Governor John Baldacci really knows how to manage a budget.
Unfortunately, there’s no such site. Indications a candidate might be a couple of votes shy of a plurality are spread across the Web, requiring lots of on-line time to figure out would-be legislators’ levels of loopiness.
Here are a few of the more informative sites:
MAINE ECONOMIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE: MERI is ridiculously pro-business, so its ratings are most useful for picking out extremists. Anybody with a 100 percent score is an obvious shill for industries that want to rape the land and enslave the workers. Anybody with a tally of zero is too busy hugging trees and saving mosquitoes from bug zappers to devote much time to legislating. Those who score between 30 and 70 are probably close to rational. Unfortunately, many non-incumbents don’t fill out MERI’s questionnaire and are unrated. Also, the site’s credibility is undermined by not listing the specific legislative votes on which its scores are based, leading to charges the numbers are spun to favor Republicans.
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESSES: As pro-business as MERI, but with more specifics. This site shows current legislators’ votes on 10 bills of importance to smaller companies during the 2006 session. Big weakness: NFIB doesn’t poll non-incumbents, so their stands remain a mystery.
KATAHDIN INSTITUTE: This liberal think tank is trying to be the anti-MERI. How well it’s doing is hard to judge, since technical problems have so far kept its ratings off the Web. The KI will mail you a hard copy if you call 207.773.0980, but mine didn’t arrive before deadline.
MAINE AFL-CIO: The mirror image of the NFIB site, with “right” and “wrong” votes on eight of the ’06 session’s issues of concern to organized labor. It also offers lifetime ratings of longtime legislators, but, alas, nothing on challengers.
SPORTSMAN’S ALLIANCE OF MAINE: SAM polls both incumbents and newcomers (although many, particularly from southern Maine, don’t respond) on a range of issues vital to people who hunt and fish, including sprawl, mercury pollution, access to public lands, Sunday hunting, trapping, and, of course, gun control. Too bad the site doesn’t show candidates’ answers, but merely gives them grades from A to F, based on how closely they adhere to SAM’s agenda.
MAINE LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS: Liberal enviros may be more comfortable with MLCV, which tracked votes on 11 bills in the just-concluded legislative session. The site also includes rankings from previous years, but has nothing on those who’ve never held office.
MAINE PEOPLE’S ALLIANCE: By following eight bills dealing with such issues as the minimum wage, access to health care and lobbying rules, MPA’s site gives visitors a good idea of who in the current Legislature is a liberal populist and who’s only pretending.
