The Voter’s Speakeasy

We recently received a thank you letter from the United States Department of State. The letter recognized our accomplishments and the knowledge we were able to provide for the international reporters. The letter reads as followed:

Dear Richard & Adelaide,

Thank you again for hosting the group of foreign journalist visiting the United States on the Foreign Press Center reporting tour “The Nuts & Bolts of an American Election: An Insider Look at How to Run an Election.”

Our June 4 visit to your beautiful ranch was really a highlight of their trip to the U.S. And I’m not just saying that—their evaluation forms and comments proved how impressed they were by Project Vote Smart’s goals, work, and spirit. One of the journalists wrote that the visit to Project Vote Smart “showed than even ordinary citizens can make a difference when it comes to elections.”

The visit helped them understand the idea of transparency and voter education, two crucial components of our democracy. And several of them commented after our visit how surprised they were that American youths have such a strong sense of volunteerism and activist spirit.

I hope that you would be willing to let future groups visiting the United States come to your ranch. Thank you again!

Sincerely,

Stacy MacTaggert

Program Officer for East Asia & the Pacific

Washington Foreign Press Center

Having visitors at our Great Divide Ranch is an essential part of spreading the word about PVS. They have visited the Ranch and found it to be a beneficial and unique way to understand the workings and the mission behind Project Vote Smart. We encourage national journalists to take advantage of the opportunity to learn about PVS by visiting us here in beautiful Montana. If international journalists can recognize our hard work and dedication, national journalists should be elated that such valuable information is available through our organization. This is a big step in Project Vote Smart’s history, and we will continue to work hard and be available to the public to help increase our awareness.

Today marks the first day Project Vote Smart will attempt to keep an updated blog for all to see. The Voter’s Speakeasy blog has been revamped to include up-to-date valuable material. The renewed blog will be dedicated to providing the public with relevant and factual information that goes hand in hand with Project Vote Smart’s mission. It is vital that citizens are provided with an honest inside look at what politicians are actually doing and saying. The comprehensive blog will cover information ranging from statistics, to test results, and even important bus tour updates. Past interns, as well as members and the general population will have an opportunity to observe the diligent work the dedicated staff and interns perform on a daily basis.

The blog will be updated weekly to ensure consistency. A student intern will be responsible for weekly updates connecting the rest of the world to the efforts on The Great Divide Ranch. For new information on a wide range of PVS related topics, check back every Monday by 5 p.m. to be fully enlightened.

It has been nearly a month since our last update here on the legislation Congress has been voting on.  Below are very brief descriptions of the votes we have selected for the Key Votes program over the last month.  You can view all Congressional Key Votes selected in 2008 here.

Note that when viewing a Project Vote Smart summary, you can see the yeas and nays by clicking “How Members Voted” in the upper right.  Also, when viewing the yeas and nays, you can sort the list by clicking on the titles of each column.

On May 13, the House passed HR 6022, a bill suspending the acquisition of petroleum for the strategic petroleum reserve.  This bill passed by a vote of 385-25.

The Farm Bill, HR 2419, had previously passed the House and Senate, and then went to a conference committee.  The conference report was adopted by the House on May 14 by a vote of 318-106.  The Senate adopted the conference report by a vote of 81-15 on May 15.  View the PVS summary of the legislation here. The farm bill was vetoed by the President on May 21.

Because of a clerical error, the printout of the bill that was sent to the White House was missing Title III, dealing with trade and other international issues.  This error was not noticed until after the House had their veto override vote on May 21, which passed 316-108.  The Senate decided to have their veto override vote anyway, even though at that time it had been discovered that the bill was missing Title III.  The Senate veto override vote passed 82-13 on May 22.

Because of legal questions regarding the constitutionality of passing a bill through Congress and then sending it to the President in an incomplete form, Congress later decided to repass the bill in its entirety.  The new Farm Bill is HR 6124, and is identical to the conference report version of HR 2419.  It has passed the House and Senate and was vetoed by the President on June 18.  Congress is expected to once again override the veto.

Read the rest of this entry »

Despite the constant rain that blanketed the Great Divide Ranch on June 4, 2008, 27 foreign journalists arrived at Project Vote Smart with smiles and enthusiasm. Within Project Vote Smart’s 16-year history, this event marks the first time any national journalist has visited the Ranch. These journalists traveled from countries such as Afghanistan, Niger, and Tajikistan—just to name a few—to gain a better understanding of the U.S. Government and American society so they could more accurately cover events in their home countries.

“The main goal is to find out about American government and its transparency,” said Doris from the Washington DC State department.

The visit to the PVS ranch was just one stop on the 10-day reporting tour themed “The Nuts and Bolts of an American Election: An Insider Look at How to Run an Election.” Through the collaboration of numerous foreign embassies, these journalists traveled from Washington D.C. to the Montana Rockies to get a diverse and inside look at the American election system.

For Moleka Ido Lekota, a political editor for The Sowetan in South Africa, he hoped to learn how to help the people of his country vote intelligently. “My people vote out of fear. They vote emotionally and that must change.”

To get an insider look at Project Vote Smart, each department provided a short presentation highlighting how their work aids voters. The journalists were then given a tour of the office and allowed to conduct one-on-one interviews with the staff and interns. Overall, the journalists found the atmosphere at the Great Divide Ranch quite refreshing. The crisp mountain air combined with the sight of nearly 30 student interns working to serve their fellow citizens left many of them in awe.

“In my country, people expect something in return. There is not a good system of encouragement,” admitted Sultan Mohammad from Afghanistan. He was impressed by the dedication of these young adults who are living and working in the middle of nowhere. With Afghanistan’s first presidential election just four years into history, Mohammad was skeptical about being able to implement such an organization in his country, but he believes Project Vote Smart is an excellent example for other countries to emulate.

After the tour, everyone joined together for lunch and mingling. The lodge was lit with smiles, conversation and numerous photo opportunities; it was truly a scene of convergence and cooperation. At the end of the 3-hour visit, the journalists left well-equipped with exactly what they had come to gain: new knowledge and power to bring back to their own country.

Project Vote Smart released the 2008 California, Idaho, and Iowa Political Courage Test results this week, showing that a majority of primary candidates for State Legislature and Congress in these states were unwilling to answer questions on the issues that are of top concern to voters, such as questions regarding hate crime legislation, the employment of undocumented immigrants, the possible constitutional convention, the death penalty, access to health care and the licensing of gun possession. Percentage of candidates completing Political Courage Test listed below:

California Congressional Candidates: 20%
California State Legislature Candidates: 14%

Idaho Congressional Candidates: 32%
Idaho State Legislature Candidates: 23%

Iowa Congressional Candidates: 15%
Iowa State Legislature Candidates: 4%

The Political Courage Test asks all candidates one central question: “Are you willing to tell citizens your positions on the issues you will most likely face on their behalf?” It is conducted nationally over the last 12 months of each election season. Illinois legislative and Congressional candidates were contacted repeatedly over three weeks and asked by prominent leaders of both major parties and by Project staff, if they were willing to provide their issue inclinations in the public interest.

Candidates advancing to the general election will have the opportunity to respond to the test again, when tested later this year.

Since 2000, Project Vote Smart has found that party leaders and consultants are advising candidates not to respond to the Political Courage Test for two primary reasons: it will limit the candidates’ ability to control their campaign messages, and it will expose them to opposition research.

Kimball counters this cynical attitude. “If candidates are afraid of letting their opponents know where they stand on key issues, how can they possibly let the voters know how they will handle the job if they are hired? Candidates have lost sight of who their prospective employers are. One campaign consultant told us, ‘It’s not our job to educate–it’s our job to win.”

The Political Courage Test has been created, designed, and drafted by more than 200 of the nation’s most prominent journalists, political scientists, and leaders of the major and third political parties.

The results of the Test for California congressional candidates can be found HERE

The results of the Test for California state senate candidates can be found HERE

The results of the Test For California state assembly candidates can be found HERE

The results of the Test For Idaho congressional candidates can be found HERE

The results of the Test for Idaho state senate candidates can be found HERE

The results of the Test for Idaho state house candidates can be found HERE

The results of the Test for Iowa congressional candidates can be found HERE

The results of the Test for Iowa state senate candidates can be found HERE

The results of the Test for Iowa state house candidates can be found HERE

For more information about the Political Courage Test HERE or call our toll-free voter’s hotline at 1-888-VOTE-SMART

My name is Peter Quist, and I am a staff member here at the Project.  I have been working in the Key Votes Department here for a little over a year and a half, tracking and summarizing state and Congressional legislation.   I was hired in November of 2006.

Like most of the staff here, I was a recent college graduate when I applied for a research position at the Project.  Our staff is comprised of people from all over the country.  I am from South Dakota and attended South Dakota State University (go Jackrabbits!).  I graduated with a degree in political science.  While I was in school I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do when I got out.  I chose to study political science primarily because I was not well versed (frankly I was almost completely ignorant) about the activities of my government or other areas of the world.  I studied political science just to educate myself about politics and the struggle of different people to attain different ends through government.  Most of my studies centered on international politics.

At the time I graduated from SDSU, I still had not determined what I wanted to do.  During my studies I had not come across any causes I wanted to join, any politicians or levels of politics I wanted to be involved with, or anything else that had lit a fire under me.  I moved from my college town of Brookings, SD to Sioux Falls, SD and spent the summer working an internship for the South Dakota Department of Transportation and spent most of the fall looking for a career and living cheaply off of the money I had left over from college.  In October, as the 2006 elections drew near, I went online to see if I could educate myself about my state legislative candidates.  I did not even know at that time who the state legislative officials were for my district.  Little did I know what I would find…                Read the rest of this entry »

This is a brief recap of the votes that have taken place recently in Congress that Project Vote Smart has selected to summarize under the Key Votes Program (Click here to view our selection criteria.).  We have selected eight votes since the last recap on April 28th (Click here to view similar recent posts recapping Congressional votes.).

On April 29, the House passed the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008 (S 2739).  Among other things, this bill extends certain federal labor and immigration laws to the Northern Mariana Islands, give the Northern Mariana Islands a delegate in the U.S. House, and establishes the Wild Sky Wilderness Protection Area in Washington state, creates heritage areas, and provides for certain water projects around the country.  It passed the House by a vote of 291-117 (Note that on the roll call lists on our website, you can reorganize the list by state, district, name, party, or vote simply by clicking on the column headers.).  This bill was signed by the President on May 8 and became Public Law 110-229.

The following day, the House passed HR 5522, a bill requiring OSHA to establish combustable dust safety standards within 18 months of the bill’s enactment.  This bill passed the House by a vote of 247-165.

The first Key Vote from May happened on the first of the month.  On this date, the House had a concurrence vote on HR 5715.  The concurrence vote passed 388-21.  This bill sets up provisions regarding school loans.  It increases the amount limits undergraduate and graduate students are able to borrow and provides for the federal government to purchase loans from lenders if there is a shortage of capital for making new loans.  The President signed this bill on May 7 and it became Public Law 110-227.

Read the rest of this entry »

For the month of April, we hit up the college campus circuit. We went to 11 college campuses in 5 states in the past three weeks. We were covered by 30 media outlets, including live morning shows in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Toledo. Some of the highlights were a beautiful day at Notre Dame with the enthusiastic help from student group NDVotes, a great day at the University of Evansville, and a busy day at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa. Overall students were receptive. You have a very short amount of time to converse with them, but they usually seem to be interested in what we have to say.

I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to go out on the bus. For one, you get to travel and see a lot of cool places, but more importantly you get to talk to people face to face. I get to see some tangible results for the hard work we put in. Some people in the office just do research all day or input data or try to get candidates to fill out the Political Courage Test or process donations. Being on the bus gives us the opportunity to see people excited about the services we offer, to introduce new people to PVS, and to hear a lot of people say this is exactly what they have been looking for. I hope this excitement will stick with me as I head back to the Montana and transcend throughout the entire office.

Last week Congress had close votes on a couple of notable pieces of legislation that we selected for the Key Votes Program.  Here is a recap:

On April 23, the Senate had a cloture vote on HR 2831.  This bill makes changes to discrimination laws.  It adds unequal pay to the list of acts that violate the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Rehabilitation Act.  It also amends the Age Discrimination in Employment Act to read that each time an unequal payment is made, it is a new violation.  This bill passed the House last year 225-199, and the cloture vote in the Senate failed 56-42 (60 votes are needed to invoke cloture.).

Also on April 23, the U.S. House passed HR 5613.  This bill postpones for one year the Medicaid changes that are scheduled to take place this year.  It passed the House 349-62 and has been received in the Senate.

When I first began on the bus, I did not anticipate the reception that it would receive from citizens, tv stations, and newspapers alike. Now, after a few months away, I can really see why the bus is so well received. Sure it is bold in color and huge in size, but it really is the message that people are attracted to. Being in California before Super Tuesday allowed me to see the ridiculous amounts of political ads. Citizens are inundated with ads on every issue. The same thing was witnessed again this week in Pennsylvania. Every commercial break contains political spots for both democratic contestants, as well as spots for the local races. It is clear that the things that Project Vote Smart is trying to navigate through- rhetoric, spin, money- are only increasing in the political process. It is an uphill battle, but you take the small victories - a class of Erie high school students eager to vote for the first time, a Howard University janitor asking how to register to vote, multiple Howard Students asking how they can donate money, a St. Joe’s student telling us she would tell all her friends about PVS, a Youngstown State student saying that we made her week. Yeah it’s the little things that keep you going, the little things that make living on a bus, traveling each day, being away from home, a bed, a working toilet tolerable, and it is the little things that will hopefully help Project Vote Smart make big changes