Google this, Albany.

Andrea Batista Schlesinger

Google this, Albany.

Dysfunction is no longer an excuse.

Today DMI released "Fighting for New York's Middle Class: 2001-2005 NY State Legislative Scorecard."

We give every member of the New York State legislature a grade based on how they voted on bills of importance to strengthening and expanding our state's middle class from 2001 to 2005.

Yes, you heard me. We are grading Albany legislators, participants in the most dysfunctional state legislature in the country.

Look, just because the legislature is dysfunctional doesn't mean it is harmless. Every day state legislators make decisions that impact the lives and livelihoods of their residents, determining if and how New Yorkers can realize the American Dream. The problem is: nobody knows what those decisions are.

So in the name of accountability, today we are not only releasing our scorecard, but also a 30-day Google Ad word campaign highlighting the scores of every member of the legislature.

If you google your state legislator, or discuss a New York legislator on a "GMail" email account, you will be instantly informed of his/her grade on DMI's scorecard and provided a link to follow for more information.

We know this won't make us popular. Surely one of the reasons that the power of incumbency is so strong in our country is that very few actually know what their local legislators are voting on. But it's time to break that chain and make information as available as possible, otherwise we'll have no hope for creating the political will for reform.

If you want a print copy of "Fighting for New York's Middle Class: 2001-2005 NY State Legislative Scorecard," email us at [email protected].

You can download it and print here.

Or, you can hang out at our blog-friendly Online Edition, and access bill descriptions and see how your legislators voted. You can even download our Excel file data sheet and sort it any way you wish (as long as you credit DMI).

Public policy works best when elected officials know their constituents are watching. DMI is committed to creating the tools that enable working New Yorkers to know how their representatives are working to strengthen and expand New York's middle class.

(ps. For more on the middle class read here).

And now we invite you to discuss.

Posted by Andrea Batista Schlesinger at March 15, 2006 12:44 PM

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Comments

Six quick thoughts, since this 45 page document will take awhile to think through:

1) Wow! What a lot of hard work putting together the legislative outcomes on these issues. This report looks as though it will be, to me at least, very useful. Shouldn't the people who did all this work get some credit. Author! Author!

2) The injustice index for each bill is great, but I could use references to the data on which it is based. If you could add the references to the online addition it would be easier for me to use.

3) I am sorry to ask this but -- who are the middle class?

4) How did you pick the bill to report on? Education funding, minimum wage and other key issues that affect many middle class people were not in the analysis. Will you keep adding items later to the online edition?

5) I've just come back from Parent Lobby Day in Albany at which thousands (to be fair, 2 or 3 thousand, depending on how you count) public school parents together with teachers and others met with electeds and staffers to urge appropriate levels of funding for our schools. I was struck with the complexity of the ways in which deals are made.

A famous one, for example, was the WFP deal in which the Republican controlled Senate voted to increase NYS's minimum wage in exchange for WFP support for Nick Spano, a Yonkers moderate Republican facing a strong challenge from a progressive Democrat (Andrea Cousins).

In this report we lose a little of that sort of subtext. Why did some of these legislative efforts fail? As a practical matter I understand that this sort of thing could make for a report as long as War and Peace and take too long to write to be useful.

6)Some state legislators take the intitiative and become leaders. Others, although they vote in ways I agree with, are as inert as tree stumps. Here, the live wires get the same report card as the dead wood because only votes are tallied. How can we give out extra credit where due?

Posted by: Daniel Millstone | March 15, 2006 10:27 AM

This scorecard is an amazing piece of work. Like Daniel said, it's going to take a while to digest! But I did notice that the MINIMUM WAGE is in there. It's the fourth piece of legislation they list -- the Empire State Wage Act.

Posted by: $5.15 was not enough | March 15, 2006 11:57 AM

Yes, i did see the minimum wage law, after I posted my note. I am a sloppy reader.

I also googled my state senator: Efrain Gonzalez, Jr. and while I got many hits for him, got no DMI rating. Why Not? If this is a persistent problem, I suggest get your money back or get them to put the ad up for a longer time.

Posted by: Daniel Millstone | March 15, 2006 12:29 PM

Daniel - Try it without the Jr. He's up there! (But please pass any errors on to us. There are bound to be some).

More on the rest of your questions soon.

Gracias!

Posted by: Andrea Batista Schlesinger | March 15, 2006 12:37 PM

An outrageously cogent, easy-to-read, trenchant piece of analysis. Wow. And the google pop-up grade is a brilliant stroke.

Who ARE you guys? This was outrageous. Congratulations. I have bookmarked you and am forwarding links to my large group of democratic friends. Knock my socks off.

Posted by: Peter Swiderski | March 15, 2006 01:45 PM

Andrea Batista Schlesinger