The Best & Worst American Politicians

Pete Stark, Rep. of California, and Phil Gingrey, Rep. of Georgia:  the Congressional best and worst.

Progressive Living recently embarked upon a detailed evaluation of the most powerful American politicians of 2008 (a majority of whom are still there in 2009), using criteria that would primarily reveal which representatives are actually representing working Americans, and which are instead representing corporations and billionaires.  (Those criteria are explained in greater depth at the pages for individual states, such as this one. However, 11% of the scores provided below also reflect how they stood on issues favored by fundamentalist Christians, in order to reveal the strong tendency for representatives voting for those concerns to also vote directly against the economic issues of concern to virtually all working Americans.)  To put the point bluntly, fundamentalists never hurt themselves and their families so much economically as when they vote for the sort of "representatives" to be found in the table below — all of whom are the sort who cheer wildly when wealthy CEOs get whopping pay raises, gut retirment plans, and send American jobs overseas.  The attempt to instill Christian values in Washington has had instead precisely the reverse effect.  Jesus was, after all, a liberal populist — the polar opposite of this elitist crowd.

This outcome is sobering indeed, and goes far toward making clear how and why America was so disastrously misgoverned under the Bush administration.

Beginning with Bush and Cheney themselves, we had perhaps the worst President, and certainly the worst Vice-President on record.  But Bush and Cheney could not have damaged America as severely as they did over the course of their eight years by themselves.  They also needed anti-democracy legislative enablers — and they had them, aplenty. 

Of the 458 2008 legislators we evaluated, only 35 (that's less than 8%) consistently voted in the manner one would expect from representatives who are supposed to be committed to government of the people, by the people, and for the people.  An additional 160 (35%) sided with working people at least half the time or better.  Unfortunately, though, a staggering 207 legislators (45%) voted against the economic and political interests of working Americans half the time or worse, while another 56 misrepresentatives (12%) legislated on behalf of government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, and for the wealthy 95% of the time — or even more often.  (These percentages are based on the economic components of their scores alone.)

In a healthy democracy, conduct this disgraceful would be considered severe malfeasance of office, and would swiftly result in criminal prosecution and lengthy prison terms.  In America today, it goes almost unnoticed:  there is not a single corporate mass media news outlet that has named these names.  That is surely because the corporate mass media are themselves big businesses, and participants in the corruption game.  Indeed, the national umbrella organization for news and entertainment broadcasters, the National Association of Broadcasters, is engaged in bestowing political bribes right there with the worst of them, and employs a virtual fleet of lobbyists in Washington.  (The NAB is also strenuously opposed to providing free airtime to candidates for political office; yet — or is it because? — this would greatly reduce the influence of big money in politics.)  Notice, by the way, that their membership in the NAB allows the big broadcast corporations to actively participate in promoting political corruption without actually being named as individual corporations.  Pretty sneaky— and very much par for the course.

We think it's about time that Americans knew specifically who the most plutocratic of their politicians are — and also that it's time for the antics of the worst of the worst to receive far more scrutiny than they presently do.  The details of their destructive and thoroughly anti-democracy legislative records will shortly be found at Progressive Living in web pages devoted to each individual state; and the legislative activities of the worst of the worst will be scrutinized throughout the next year. For now, though, we're simply naming the names and providing their scores, as well as links to the Open Secrets web site, where our readers can determine which corporations and PACs bribe them.  (This effort, incidentally, was censored by Google for several months.)

While all of the misrepresentatives to be found below are exceptionally and consistently corrupt, those color coded in red are especially reprehensible, scoring in the bottom 10 (which primarily means they voted against the economic and political interests of working Americans more than 90% of the time).

Incidentally, it's worth noting that the lion's share of completely toxic politicians hale from just four states:  Florida, Georgia, Texas and Virginia.  If American citizens there would more closely scrutinize the actual legislative records of these individuals (instead of listening to their phony campaign rhetoric), the country could much more quickly recover from the disastrous Bush years.

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*Marilyn Musgrave lost in the 2008 election cycle.

Funding Trends Among the Worst American Politicians

The Progressive Living analysis of the most common "contributors" to the worst American politicians yielded a number of surprises.  In order, these corporations and organizations are:

National Auto Dealers Association
American Bankers Association (tied for 2nd)
AT&T, Inc. (tied for 2nd)
UPS
Associated Builders and Contractors
Koch Industries (tied for 5th)
National Association of Realtors (tied for 5th)
National Beer Wholesalers Association

If you've been wondering who is most responsible for the current economic plight of working Americans, the officers and members of these organizations would certainly deserve some consideration.

And Now for the Good News . . .

After browsing through the rogues' gallery above, one might be left with the impression that nobody in Congress is doing what they were sent there to do — represent the political and economic interests of their electorates.  Unfortuantely, this, by and large, actually is the case, but there are a few brave exceptions.  You can get to know four of the best in their own words by signing up for the newsletters linked below; and you can also sign up for a newsletter from the Progressive Caucus, far and away the Congressional group doing the most for working Americans.

John Lewis Newsletter
John Conyers Newsletter
Dennis Kucinich Newsletter
Gwen Moore Newsletter
The Progressive Caucus Newsletter