Comparing Apple's and Oranges
Jonathan Kaplan's story in this weekend's Maine Sunday Telegram was a remainder that if news is not available, journalists often feel it is their job to create it. Titled
'Allen, Collins offer study in big contrasts', the article proffered a
comparison of the legislative records of Senator Susan Collins and her
challenger, Congressman Tom Allen. What makes this article so strange is
that it avoids any quantitative assessment of their records at all, and
instead seems to make the case that legislators should not be judged by
their legislative accomplishments. This premise seems a shallow attempt to
mask what will most likely be the key issue in this campaign: that
Congressman Allen, during his tenure in Washington that started on the exact
same day as his opponent, has never passed a single piece of legislation
into law.
The article was featured on the front page of Sunday's paper, and included a
callout graphic with the candidate's pictures and a short list of
legislative highlights, side by side. While the Collins column highlighted
three (of many) actual legislative accomplishments, Allen's list stretched
the definition of 'Legislative Highlights':
- Inserted provision into bill that would have banned permanent U.S. bases
in Iraq
- Kicked off national debate on high price of prescription drugs in 1998
- Authored bill banning mercury exports that passed the House, pending in
Senate
Let's break these down:
The first of Allen's top three achievements in his 12 years in Washington
is that he inserted a provision into a bill. And the provision was ignored.
Later in the article, Kaplan erroneously refers to Allen's effort as a
'bill', which it was, in fact, not.
The second point is even more dubious: "Kicked off national debate" on
prescription drug prices. Again, not a law. And how exactly did Congressman
Allen 'kick off' this debate? Kaplan is suggesting that Allen was the first
public figure to voice displeasure about prescription drug prices, a
suggestion that is laughable even if we discount its irrelevance. Anyone who has had the misfortune to look at the prices of prescription drugs shares Allen's outrage. It is actually doing something about it that would be an accomplishment.
And last, Allen's pending Mercury bill. In 12 years, all Allen has been able
to do is get a bill through one house of Congress. This is not a
'legislative accomplishment'. A 'nascent accomplishment', perhaps, but
hardly the stuff to put on your resume after more than a decade on the job.
When comparing the legislative records of two candidates, it would make
sense to at least include a simple quantitative assessment: how many bills
has each candidate passed into law? There is not a single reference to the
number of bills Collins has passed into law in the entire article (15 as of
March 2008, not including ammendments). We have to go 13 paragraphs deep
into this front-page article before we get to the fact that Allen has NEVER
passed a bill into law. This point is obviously the deserved focus of any
article on the Collins vs Allen legislative record, its absence in this
article generates serious questions about the author's reason for writing
the piece.
When Kaplan finally reveals that Allen has never passed a bill into law, he
couches it in an excruciatingly misleading sentence:
"Until the Democrats
took control of Congress in 2007, none of those bills was signed into law."
The reader would naturally assume that Allen has passed some legislation
since the 2007 Democratic takeover. The reader, in that case, would be
wrong: Allen has still not passed a single bill into law.
The 'provision' referred to in the front-page graphic is revealed actually
as the work of Rep. Barbara Lee of California, but not until the sixth
paragraph, on the back page of the paper. It turns out Allen's #1
legislative accomplishment was having a two year old concept picked up by
another member of congress and inserted into a bill. So the front-page
graphic that says Allen 'inserted' the provision was contradicted by later
parts of the article itself- Lee, not Allen, inserted the provision. And, of
course, the provision was ultimately dismissed.
Kaplan then goes on to suggest excuses for Allen's dire lack of legislative
accomplishment. He states as fact that 'In the house, the majority party
rules with a heavy hand. The minority party rarely wins any legislative
victories and is afforded only limited chances to shape legislation."
Kaplan's statement seems to suggest an institutional lack of cooperation in
the House,regardless of which party is in charge. A simple test of this
logic would be to compare Allen's lack of accomplishment with his fellow
Democratic congressmen.
Turns out the iron-fisted majority rule in the House has not prevented Rep.
Charles Rangel from passing 13 bills into law since 1997. The late
Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos also passed 13 bills since 1997, Elijah
Cummings passed 11, Ralph Regula and George Miller each passed 9, the list
goes on and on, and these don't even include amendments that have been
adopted. While there is no doubt that minority status is a hindrance to
passing legislation, the idea that a legislator would be unable to get a
single bill passed in 12 years in Congress is worth examination in an
article about legislative records.
Kaplan proceeds to break apart the themes of the two candidates'
legislative work: Allen works on 'Big Issues', while Collins is 'Taking Aim
at Bureaucracy'. Again, the false implication here is that Collins is absent
from the 'Big Issue' debate. Despite the headline, the only backup to this
claim is a quote from Allen himself, stating that he has 'taken on big
issues.' Kaplan reverts again to Allen's role in the prescription drug
debate, admitting Allen's efforts failed, but closing with this: " The bill
never made it through the House, but it led states, including Maine, to pass
similar bills." Kaplan fails to describe how exactly Allen's bill 'led'
states to pass similar bills, the same way he failed to explain how Allen
'kicked off' the debate over prescription drug prices. Kaplan is making an
inference here that could only be based on Allen's talking points, as he
presents no empirical data about Allen's involvement in subsequent efforts.
Kaplan closes this article with a paragraph that is as revealing of his
motivations as any in the article. The piece that was ostensibly a study in
legislative accomplishments ends with a quote from Amy Fried of the
University of Maine. Kaplan describes her as a 'political scientist a the
University of Maine at Orono." Fried is in fact a rabid partisan, a
self-described progressive. Her partisan bona fides would have been easily
accessible to Kaplan, here is a sampling of the headlines of some of her
op-eds:
The Real Feel-Good Party-Republicans would rather live in a fantasy world of
saving face, than deal with the real issues.
Republican Rage- Republican free-floating rage is reinforced by
self-defeating neo-con policies.
Corporate Media Enables Right Wing Distortion of "Religious Liberty"-The
corporate media is making it easier for the Republican Religious Right base
to pass extreme views off as mainstream. The media stars display their own
ignorance in the process.
Republican Candidates' Pro-Torture Glee-Arguments against most Republican
presidential candidates' adolescent view of torture.
Offered as a non-biased summary, Fried's statements have almost nothing to
do with the rest of the article:
"Congressman Allen will want to frame Senator Collins' record in terms of
her relationship with President Bush and the Republican Party, which is
unpopular in Maine," said Amy Fried, a political scientist at the University
of Maine in Orono. "Senator Collins wants to set up herself up in opposition
in certain Bush policies."
So Kaplan's judgment of a fitting summary to this piece is that Collins is
trying to set herself up in opposition to Bush? Despite Allen and Collins
spending 12 years in Congress, Kaplan dismisses the entire concept of
legislative accomplishment, and chalks it all up to his myopic perception
that Bush trumps everything.
