An interesting web-site called ProgressivePunch describes itself as, “a non-partisan searchable database of Congressional voting records from a Progressive perspective.” The site says that it tracks the performance of members of Congress within 160 different issue categories.
Progressive Punch gives John Boehner (OH-8) a score of 2.59% and a ranking of 406 out of 434 possible members. It gives Mike Turner (OH-3) a score of 14.25% and a ranking of 288 out of 434 members. It gives Dennis Kucinich (OH-10) a score of 88.96% and a ranking of 143 out of 434.
Here is how Progressive Punch rates Mike Turner according to specific categories:
- Aid to Less Advantaged People, at Home & Abroad (17 subcategories) 8.33%
- Corporate Subsidies (14 subcategories) 1.67%
- Education, Humanities, & the Arts (3 subcategories) 7.27%
- Environment (15 subcategories) 8.15%
- Fair Taxation (6 subcategories) 2.31%
- Family Planning (2 subcategories) 5.88%
- Government Checks on Corporate Power (31 subcategories) 5.31%
- Health Care (15 subcategories) 4.59%
- Housing (2 subcategories) 21.62%
- Human Rights & Civil Liberties (10 subcategories) 1.80%
- Justice for All: Civil and Criminal (7 subcategories) 1.20%
- Labor Rights (8 subcategories) 7.21%
- Making Government Work for Everyone, Not Just the Rich or Powerful 8.14%
- War & Peace (18 subcategories) 2.42%
If being “progressive” is inherently in line with Democratic Party principles, how can this be non partisan? Their overall ranking by score clearly demonstrates it’s very partisanship. The top scores are all Democrats and the bottom are all Republican. If you are measuring and ranking by political ideals then you can not be non partisan.
Mike, I used to expect better from you, I can see now that this website is just another sounding board for the Democratic agenda.
You posted something like this article already and it had the same results. Yay Democrats and boo republicans. It would appear that you spend time searching for websites and articles to simply try and find support for a democratic agenda. Oh well, blogs are not neutral, nor news, nor accurate.
mcohio and Robert Vigh — thanks for stopping by and making comments.
mcohio, maybe you missed my article last October — “Mike Turner Is A Bum, For Our Democracy’s Sake, Let’s Throw The Bum Out.” I don’t know much about ProgressivePunch. It seems like it is well researched, but by printing an article about this group, does not mean that I’m vouching that it is without error. I’m simply reporting that I found an interesting site. If you have reason to think its findings are in error, please explain. Just because high scores for “progressive” votes go to Democrats and low scores go to Republicans, does not mean the scoring is somehow unfair. Is there anyone who is suggesting that John Boehner is a progressive? Anyone surprised that his progressive score is so low? No, of course not. But, on the other hand, most everyone would identify Dennis Kucinich as being progressive, and his progressive score, predictably, is high. The ProgressivePunch scores seem pretty predictable. What would be interesting and valuable to do, would be to analyze the specific legislation that ProgressivePunch used to make its analysis.
Robert Vigh, The previous article you referred to — “Rep. Mike Turner Scores 50% — Grade Of “C” — On Votes Pro Middle Class: Drum Major Foundation Says” — I thought was pretty favorable to Congressman Turner. If my goal is simply to make negative reports about the congressman, I would not have bothered to make this report about the Drum Major Foundation grades. As I said, I was surprised that this liberal group evaluated Turner’s grade as “C”, rather than “F,” as I would have expected. And, I was surprised to learn, that according to The Drum Major Foundation, the last couple of years, Mr. Turner has shown a pretty big improvement in his votes favorable to the middle class. So, no, I’m not claiming that I don’t have a point of view. Of course I have a point of view, and, of course, my point of view is reflected in what I focus on to report and in the articles that I choose to write. I do attempt to hold myself to a pretty high standard to make every effort to be fair and analytical, and truthful, and courteous.
Mike Turner is my representative in congress and I would like to have as much information as possible about what he is doing– in order to understand his work as my representative. It think groups like ProgressivePunch and the Drum Major Foundation, in their analysis of legislation, serve a useful purpose. If you can name another group that purports to give an objective way of scoring the votes of congressional members, and that gives Mike Turner scores that you think are more fair, show me the link and I will write a story about it. Or, better yet, if you want to write an article that praises the work of Mike Turner, then please do write an article and post it here at DaytonOS.
“Progressive Punch gives John Boehner (OH-8) a score of 2.59% and a ranking of 406 out of 434 possible members. It gives Mike Turner (OH-3) a score of 14.25% and a ranking of 288 out of 434 members.”
These guys are my heros!
I never said unfair. I was pointing out how their non partisan research is inherently partisan.
mcohio, in your first message, you wrote, “If you are measuring and ranking by political ideals then you can not be non partisan.” I agree. But where is your evidence that the criteria by which this group evaluates legislation should be called “political ideals”?
My impression, gained by reading their web-site, is that this group,Progressive Punch, attempts to honestly analyze legislation as to how it impacts average people. I think there are objective measurements that can be used to make such analysis and it is my impression that the intent of this group is to apply some intellectual integrity to their methods. You seem to be saying that the criteria for making these scores is simple partisanship — good scores for my team members, bad scores for members of the other team — and, by very definition, making decisions based on mindless partisanship is very unfair. When you say that you believe that ProgressivePunch’s scores are simply partisan, what I hear you saying is that you believe Progressive Punch’s scores are unfair –meaning, not objective, not analytical.
So you are making an accusation about ProgressivePunch — “their non partisan research is inherently partisan” — but you are giving no reasonable explanation as to why anyone should think such an accusation is true.
Dear Mike Bock,
You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Please read the link:
http://www.progressivepunch.org/whatIsProgScore.html
The progressive score is DEFINED as going against republicans. It does not use any intellectual integrity to define what is good for people, it simply ASSUMES not being conservative is being progressive. Which, logically it would seem PROGRESSIVE is substitutable with DEMOCRAT. So really it s a measure of how Democratic conservatives are.
“My impression, gained by reading their web-site, is that this group,Progressive Punch, attempts to honestly analyze legislation as to how it impacts average people.” lolololololololololololol NO!!!
From the website itself:
The algorithm that we’ve used to come up with these progressive scores is as follows: We take ANY VOTE in which a majority of the progressives we’ve identified–so in the House say, if there were no absences, it would be 21 of the 40–voted in opposition to a majority of the Republican caucus.
Voting against conservatives is the entire basis of the rating, it has absolutely nothing to do with what is best for the average person. How ignorant can you be to assume that all republicans vote against the average person? Then have the audacity to write in support of this site and it’s intellectual integrity?
You can apologize now for writing about something you barely took the time to understand and grossly misrepresented. I will accept it earnestly.
So Mr. Bock found a website that rates a member of congress from a liberal perspective. Subtract those scores from 100 and you will have their consrvative rating. Big deal!
Here is a site for a lot of special interest groups that have scores of members of congress. See what can be done to spin these numbers:
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/congress-scorecards.php
RWE, thanks for the reference, but the web-site you refer to, so far as I can tell, stopped its activity in 2004. If you have any more up to date sites to recommend, please do so. This general topic of how congressional members are rated by various groups is interesting and one I would like to better understand.
Robert Vigh, you are right. I based my comments above on a misconception of how Progressivepunch calculates its scores. John Boehner’s score of 2.59% means that only 2.59% of his votes agreed with how a majority of the 40 House members voted that Progressivepunch has designated as “progressive.” Mike Turner’s score of 14.25% means that he agreed with the majority of these progressives 14.25% of the time — about six times more often than his Republican leader, Boehner. The scoring method used by Progressivepunch gives Dennis Kucinich (OH-10) a score of 88.96%.
Kucinich, I would imagine, could be on the list of 40 designated progressives, but he agreed with the progressive majority only 89% of the time. It makes sense that there is some division even in this group of 40. Even a House member who is identified as one of the 40 core progressives in the House would likely not agree with a majority of this progressive group on every vote. A better algorithm, it seems, would be to focus only on those votes where, say, 65% or more of the 40 identified progressives are in agreement about specific legislation, rather than only a simple majority of these progressives being in agreement.
These Progressivepunch scores have some value, when the algorithm used to generate them are understood, but, you are right, the scores are not the result, as I had supposed, of an analysis of how legislation impacts average people. On an objective basis of how votes impact average people, I would imagine that Kucinich’s score would be closer to 100%. The Drum Major’s methods give Kucinich a score of 94%. And, the Drum Major Foundation gives Turner a grade of 50%, John Boehner, a grade of 0%
Hey Mike,
I may have been in a mood yesterday when I whipped that up. I have not looked at the drum Major foundation.
However, from your statement above, it sounds like you believe Democrats in general have the common person in mind. Pick some topics and I think I could show you how the economic ramifications of alot of those programs really diminish the quality of life for the poor and middle class. They are much better at attacking the rich, but this does not translate into improvement for the rest of us. I am not a republican and my train of thought when seeing a new bill is always #1) The philosophical freedom of our society and the trust we have in preserving that for each other and our prodigy. #2) The economic ramifications and often how that will impact our lives and #1 above.
OK, I went to the Drum Major website. It is basically a bunch of socialists. Their scorecard is pretty much determined by how much free stuff we give away.
While I can appreciate the heart of people that think this way, I cannot reconcile their logic, nor the economic ramifications of these types of programs. They basically want the government to take care of everyone.
From my previous post, they pretty much negatively hit both #1 and #2.
So, I guess it makes sense that progressives are democrats and vice versa. Progressive may be a correct adjective, but “progression into a welfare state” would be the full and correct verbage.
For example: http://www.dmiblog.com/archives/2009/08/forget_the_squeeze_the_middle.html
The person that wrote this is so wrong in the solutions they offer and is very socialist in nature.
Their market place is:
http://www.drummajorinstitute.org/ourwork/ourwork.php
However it is giving platforms to politicians, not to free enterprise groups. This is mercantilist and backwards. It works against their goals.
Their scorecard:
http://www.drummajorinstitute.org/pdfs/2008_scorecard_layout_output.pdf
McOhio was correct in saying their “non-partisian” research is inherently partisian.
Mike, pick a program and talk about it. But the only value these websites have is holding pom poms for democrats and intellectual integrity is out the door.
Robert, Thanks for the links. Your comments suggest a key question: What is the foundation for intellectual integrity?
LBJ, I remember, quoted the scripture that says, “Let us reason together.” What a great idea. But, reasoning together requires intellectual integrity, objectivity, empathy, the capacity to understand other points of view, goodwill, mutual respect, patience. Reasoning together requires a mutual commitment, a mindset, and a mental discipline that unfortunately, in our society, seem in short supply. The capacity to reason, to think independently, the inclination to reason with others and the commitment to do so, should be considered the hallmarks of what it means to be educated.
We’ve settled for a definition of purpose of public education that emphasizes technological training and judges the quality of education by whether, or not, students can perform on SAT type tests. In other words, in the big picture of what it means to be educated, in my view, our public schools emphasize the least consequential parts. We need to transform our system of public education so that more of our citizens become committed to their own self growth, more committed to thoughtfulness.
You suggest I pick a topic and I guess I already have done so. In my remaining time on this planet, I’m thinking that I’d like to help advance two interrelated goals: The transformation of our system of public education and the vitalization of our democracy. I agree with David Matthews, that the two goals are interrelated, and that a vitalized democracy is needed in order to achieve an effective system of public education that will prepare young people to become active and contributing citizens who will help strengthen our communities and help advance our national ideals.
After a lot of dithering, I just this week determined to attempt to “walk the walk,” and put in practice principles that I like to talk about, so I went door to door and gathered 231 signatures from my neighbors, and, yesterday, I paid a $30 filing fee to qualify as a candidate for election to our local Kettering School Board in November’s election. In the next few weeks, I intend on making an in-depth analysis of our local school system. So, between now and November I hope to develop some good information about our local school district and to share that information on the internet.