The League of Conservation Voters has published a website with presidential candidate stances on environmental issues, including global warming & energy, public health, natural heritage, funding and the larger context. There's a lot of good information on candidates' positions and history on environmental issues, including a lifetime environmental voting record rating.
The presidential candidates' lifetime environmental voting record scores from LCV are as follows (out of 100):
- Obama – 96
- Kucinich – 92
- Clinton – 90
- Biden – 84
- Richardson – 82
- Dodd – 77
- Edwards – 59
- Ron Paul – 30
- John McCain – 26
- Brownback – 14
- Fred Thompson – 12
- Tom Tancredo – 11
- Duncan Hunter – 9
There is no score for Romney, Guiliani and Huckabee, since their lack of legislative experience leaves them without a voting record on these issues. There is also no score given for Gravel, for reasons unknown to me.
Global warming and the environment are hot (sorry) topics at the moment; it's interesting to see which candidates have a strong lifetime environmental record and which may just be talking the talk for the election season.
Anyone know what that’s about?
The League of Conservation voters counts an absence as equivalent to an “anti” vote. Thus, Edwards, who was out campaigning for 2004 and much of 2003, has a dismal score for those years (so, incidentally, did their primary endorsee John Kerry, who normally is in the 95-100% range then drops to the 20s–resulting in the group having to publicly declare that their score for the year should be ignored because their methodology is stupid. But God forbid they do something which makes sense like just ignore absences or maybe count one as 50% of a vote or maybe excuse folks who are running for top office…)
As detailed below, if you look at the votes he actually took, John Edwards was in the high 70s. Slightly lower than the Dem. average, though a good deal better than the Southern white Dem. average.
If absences are ignored, a rep can duck tough votes and still get a high score. There seems to be persistent confusion in this thread on what voting records are for. Scores are useful to summarize – high scores are meaningful to show congruence with the LCV's environmental agenda (or the agenda of other organizations that produce these scorecards) for the period in question. You have to look at the detail behind low scores to know if they represent missed votes or votes against the LCV recommended position.
Edwards' 2004 low score shouldn't count against him to the extent it was driven by missed votes during the presidential campaign. However, that excuse doesn't work for his votes in 2002, when he was rated a 59, and took some votes that don't look very impressive for a candidate now running “green”. I've outlined the details in a comment further on in this thread.
Obama's been Senator for one and a half years, and has missed numerous votes during that period because he's been out campaigning, and Richardson hasn't voted in Congress for ten years. I guess if you need numbers to slap on people, this will serve, but if you want to know something about their environmental records, this is a poor way to do it.
Obama's good voting record shouldn't count, since it was recent (the 2005 and 2006 sessions), but Richardson's relatively unimpressive one shouldn't either, because it dates back some years?
On whether the scorecard is a “poor way” to know something about candidates voting records, the LCV reports that the scorecard
I'm sure those 20 environmental organizations that collaborated with the LCV in creating the scorecard will cease and desist immediately now that you've enlightened them about what a bad idea it is. How shocking that they should think that people could learn something about candidates' voting records by actually examining how they voted. How naive of me to have been taken in by this approach!
On your contention that missed votes are a factor, the scorecard records votes from Obama on all of the issues they tracked – no missed votes – and since the LCV scores skipped votes in the negative, no other candidate could have gamed his or her score by ducking out on the tough votes. (To David's question, I'd guess missed votes might be part of the reason for Edwards' surprisingly poor average – in 2004, he only rated a 17. I haven't downloaded that year's detail to confirm, though, but it is available on the LCV's website.)
It's inconsistent to say an established record of Dodd or Biden, say, is equal to those that are scant (Obama) or outdated (Richardson). This exercise might be appropriate for them, or even Clinton or heck Edwards. But Obama doesn't have enough votes to make a decent sample, and Richardson's votes are as relevant as Gravel's. I don't care how rigorous the method is, when you're using bad data, all the consensus in the world doesn't matter.
I will admit that I was guessing on Obama's missing these votes — the odds were in my faor and I took a shot. I will also admit that I dislike how this metric favors legislators by discounting actual concrete work done by executives such as Governor Richardson in afvor of Senators' meaningless votes in the minority (or expecting a veto) when everyone knew they wouldn't amount to a whole lot.
I'm not as interested in the potshots people invent because they don't like a candidate or the excuses or obfuscations they create because they do.
I've provided some links to factual information I found surprising and interesting. There's nothing “bad” about this data – it's the actual record of how candidates voted on just those matters that the LCV deemed worthy of including in its scorecard for each year. Obama's high rating was my headline, because I like the candidate and am happy to see the LCV affirming him, as well. But the story in the ratings is the not-so-impressive voting records of those who are running as greener-than-thou – Edwards and Richardson.
Old votes aren't meaningless votes – Edwards only scored a 59 from the LCV in 2002, voting to exempt pickup trucks from fuel efficiency standards, against drinking water protections, for certain subsidies for environmentally-damaging factory farms, for liability waivers for harmful consequences of certain renewable fuels (such as groundwater-contaminating ETBE) and for the Yucca mountain facility for nuclear waste. LCV thought these votes were meaningful enough that they included them among only 16 selected for that year's scorecard.
Then let's take your buddy Richardson. He now does some actual work, you say, by signing and then implementing the legislation that arises from the meaningless deliberations and votes of legislators? Back when he was taking those meaningless votes himself, between 1991 and 1996, his anti-environmental votes according to the LCV included (among others – I'm not going to do all the research for you) subsidies for sugar production – a leading cause of the pesticide and nitrogen-laden runoff that is destroying the Everglades, support for pork-barrel water projects LCV deemed environmentally harmful, failure to protect public lands, including voting to continue leasing them for grazing at below-market rates and to allow logging of old growth forests, and the kicker, voting against the Global Climate Protection Act in 1992, which would have stabilized CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by 2000. But that's outdated, isn't it? Who cares about how someone voted on a global warming bill 15 years ago? No harm done by the last 15 years of inaction, right?
Sure, these guys could have had recent conversions a la Romney, have seen the light, and now really are true environmentalists. Maybe they will make the right judgments early on other matters. You know, the way Edwards opposed the Iraq war from the start – oh wait, he voted for it, didn't he?
Well, maybe independent judgment doesn't matter, voting record doesn't matter, all that matters is whether you've decided to like a candidate or not. Here's some information for you, anyway. It's your vote, you decide.
Let me know if you're going to address my points — now summarized in handy bullet point.
Do you believe that a methodology which equalizes the long records of Dodd and Biden, the aging one of Edwards, and the scant record of Obama is legitimate and valuable?
Do you believe that a methodology that ignores the most recent accomplishments of major candidates (Edwards and Richardson) is legitimate and valuable?
I'm guessing yes. But I'm the one who's blinded by candidate loyalty, not you.
is not a moral or ethical judgement. It's a valueable judgement.
Too little data has little worth. Data that is too old has little worth. That's what sabtui means about bad data. You can argue that in Obma's case there is enough data, or that Richardson's data isn't old in this context if you like, but do understand that a collection of data points is both precise and accurate and yet not very useful — or even unuseful*.
* leading to incorrect conclusions; the negative direction of useful.
But go to battle with your straw man if you like.
LCV is presenting voting record data. I at least have downloaded and looked at the detail, instead of just making up claims about the candidates' voting records off the top of my head as we see admitted by others in this thread above. That attention to the actual detail appears to be found boring. Oh well!
One vote could be critical to your voting decision – if it related to an issue that mattered to you – or twenty votes could mean nothing if you don't care about the issues. LCV is just telling you how they voted on issues deemed important by the 20 environmental groups that produce the scorecard. You decide if two years' data doesn't give you enough feel for a candidate or if votes taken over 10 years ago are too old to matter to you.
I obviously think it's interesting and relevant that candidates now running “green” took a number of past votes contrary to the LCV-environmental positions. This does not equate to a claim that other sources about the candidates – such as their records in non-legislative positions – are irrelevant. If you've got additional information that should be considered, post it. That this data only includes what it purports to include – voting records – does not make it bad, methodologically unsound, or irrelevant.
But of course presenting additional information would take actual work – how boring when compared to just making stuff up or attacking the LCV's “methodology”.
Quite frankly this just doesn't pass the smell test.
Beany – you say this isn't presented as statistical analysis but it really is. They explicitly say “The lifetime LCV score represents the career average for all years served in office.”
I do find it useful to know how they voted in office but to completely disregard pre and post Congressional activity and still present their “lifetime score” as a measure seems disingenuous.
I'm a big fan of LCV (actually I just realized I'm wearing my LCV shirt today) but this isn't fair. I do not have a horse in this race yet but I agree with some of the statements earlier:
-Richarson has taken many significant actions. To ignore them and give him a “lifetime score” without taking those into consideration is silly.
-Obama has definitely taken positive votes, but he's been in office so short a time it would be nice to consider some of the actions he took as a state legislator into consideration (supporting ethanol subsidies, for example.)
-With the idea of taking policy stances, even if the bills never came to a vote, seems like Kucinich should get a higher ranking.
That is exactly the problem with this – people will see this as a ranking of their enviro platforms BUT IT IS NOT. The site is put up to look like an analysis. This is designed to look like the summary view of each candidate's enviro-cred, but the “lifetime score” makes it look more like an analysis.
with Obama's unconscionable coal-to-liquid flirtation?
Not flirtations, trial balloons, musings etc.
I decided to check out Edwards' 17 for 2004. Being a numbers guy, I immediately recognized it as the rounded to two decimal places version of one sixth.
Sure enough, Edwards got a 1/6 for his votes in 2004. The five he voted “the wrong way”? He was absent — on the campaign trail running for POTUS/VPOTUS. LCV counts those as automatic negatives. How about 2003? There were 18 votes mentioned in the report. Edwards voted “the right way” 7 times, and “the wrong way” twice. The other 9 votes? Absent, presumably for (V)POTUS reasons.
For Edwards, I'd initially revise his 2003 number to 78 and his 2004 number to 100. If either of those bills needed one or two more votes for a favorable action, I'd count it as a negative; otherwise he gets a pass.
The thing is, this means that the LCV considers each of those twelve votes equally meaningful, without context. Is a 25-75 vote as meaningful as a 51-49? How about a 60-40 [to overcome a filibuster] or 67-33 [to overcome a veto]?
Is the toxics-right to know bill exactly as important as the drilling royalties bill exactly as important as the Tongass Logging royalties exactly as important as ANWR? I doubt it.
These metrics are really crude, because they don't weigh the importance of each bill, nor the importance of that legislators vote. They also count absence as a negative [even if pairing off with an opposing absence? even if in the hospital? running for (V)POTUS? etc]
Bottom line: the LCV does a disservice by sandbagging Edwards, a consistent environmentalist in his votes, who missed votes running for (V)POTUS.
I culled out some of them above. His 59 that year was based on how he voted, not on absences, and he voted for some stinkers.
2004 I'll give you – I made the same point myself in my earlier post.
The issue isn't his 59 in one year [a year that included lots of farming envirnomental issues like pickup trucks and and factory farms, where NC interests vary from national ones]. The issue is his 59 overall score, and how the absences completely sandbag him. So, let's see what happens when we take out the absences:
99: 7/9
00: 7/7
01: 8/9
02: 9/16
03: 7/9 [9 absences]
04: 1/1 [5 absences
Total: 39/51 = 76
It doesn't change the standings, but it's a much fairer representation of where he really stacks up methinks.
In the big picture, you and LCV ignore that not all votes are not equal — some are much more important than others, and an individual senator's vote in some situations is far more important thano thers. To weigh them all equally is just insanity, and that's what happens when you simply calculate a lifetime batting average. I'll take a .270 hitter with a .400 RISP average over a .280 hitter with a .220 RISP any day of the week. Some hits, and some votes, are more important than others, and to ignore that is foolish.
RISP = runner(s) in scoring position. A hit with RISP results inat least one run scored the vast majority of the time; a hit with no runners in scoring position generally doesn't result in a run scored.
For those who care how candidates who have been legislators have voted on matters deemed significant by the LCV and its partner organizations. I am not ignoring anything here, nor is the LCV. I am using these scorecards as intended – not as a statistical analysis, not as a total statement of the candidates' enviro-cred, because they aren't and don't purport to be anything other than what they are – LCV's summary of the voting records of those candidates who have a legislative record. I am grateful to the organizations that compile this type of data – I doubt I would know anything about candidates' voting records and how closely they do or don't conform to their current rhetoric if not for the organizations who take the trouble to compile this type of information.
There is no “sandbag” here. Edwards took the votes he took and missed the votes he missed. Ditto for the other candidates. The LCV provides the detail on what those votes were. Look at them and decide what they mean for you.
I give you a six for the baseball stats analogy. If any organization brokedown legislative voting stats to the details the average baseball statician does that would be excellent.
I'm happy to see that Obama scored well, but I don't think the LCV or anyone thinks that simple average should be the be all end all of who is “greenest”. Especially given most of this voting period covered involved Republican control where bad laws were often in bill that had good parts, so simplistic vote against or for is not enough to evaluate.
So I like being at the top, but I don't think it means all that muich alone. When I get a chance I want to look through how they evaluated it and find out what it means about each candidate.
…”pairing.” We’ve discussed this quite vigoruously here recently.
<
p>
But I have two questions.
<
p>
One, who is this group? Who comprises it, and who financially supports it. I could found a group with a benign name that has nothing to do with what the name purports to stand for. Ever hear of bait&switch?
<
p>
Two, I would have considered Obama’s expressed support for coal liquifaction a substantian downside, whatever his votes in Congress or even the IL legislature. Did LCV not take that into account then they gave Obama the Oscar? If they didn’t, their recommentations are–how shall I put it?–stupid.