AFL-CIO rates Oregon lawmakers on 2007 session

By DON McINTOSH, Associate Editor

SALEM — The Oregon AFL-CIO has completed its ranking of state lawmakers for their 2007 session of the Oregon Legislature.

This year, the Oregon AFL-CIO used a new and more complicated methodology to rate legislators, in order to better describe the full picture of support or opposition to Oregon’s labor movement priorities. In the past, the Oregon AFL-CIO rated lawmakers according to their votes on a list of priority bills, and expressed the ratings as a percentage. For example, you could say a given lawmaker voted in accord with the Oregon AFL-CIO 90 percent of the time. Those scores were known as COPE ratings, after the AFL-CIO’s Committee On Political Education. The national AFL-CIO still rates members of Congress that way.

The new method weights different bills according to how important they are, and gives lawmakers “points” for acts besides voting, such as co-sponsoring bills, giving bills hearings in committees they chair, testifying or lobbying in favor of bills, even walking union picket lines.

Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain said the new method will ensure that those legislators who go the extra mile for labor will get credit for it. In cases where legislators are on the opposite side of the AFL-CIO, points are deducted. Legislators with the highest points are grouped in gold, silver and bronze categories as “Working Families Champions.”

In the Senate, five lawmakers — all Democrats — tied for the top spot: Brad Avakian and Kate Brown of Portland, Floyd Prozanski and Vicki Walker of Eugene, and Ben Westlund of Tumalo. All but Prozanski are running for higher office in 2008.

All but three Senate Democrats got a gold, silver or bronze designation. Those three, in effect the least labor-friendly as tallied by the Oregon AFL-CIO, were Joanne Verger of Coos Bay, Ginny Burdick of Portland, and Kurt Schrader of Canby.

Among Senate Republicans, Frank Morse of Albany was the most labor-friendly at minus-38, while Ted Ferrioli of John Day took the title of most anti-labor senator in 2007 at minus-347.

In the House, the top rankings went to Democrats Diane Rosenbaum of Southeast Portland with a whopping 815 points, and Speaker Jeff Merkley of East Portland with 725 points.

Rosenbaum, a long-time member of Communications Workers of America Local 7901 and current president of the National Labor Caucus of State Legislators, is vacating her House seat in 2008 to run for an open Senate seat in District 21, where Kate Brown is giving up that post to run for secretary of state.

Merkley is leaving the House to run for the U.S. Senate.

All House Democrats received the Oregon AFL-CIO’s gold, silver or bronze designation for the session. John Lim of Gresham was rated the most labor-friendly Republican with a minus-15, followed closely by Vicki Berger of Salem (minus-26), and Bob Jenson of Pendleton (minus-43). The lowest ranking in the 60-member House went to Republican Wayne Scott of Canby with a minus-485.

The Oregon AFL-CIO will provide a breakdown for individual lawmakers who ask how their scores were computed, but otherwise that information won’t be made public — just the final scores for each legislator.

Because the new method is based on points, whereas the old was based on percentages, it will no longer be possible for lawmakers to speak of a “lifetime COPE rating” of a certain percent. But it will be plain enough who labor’s friends are, at least as rated by the state’s largest labor federation.

The new ratings will be considered along with the candidate questionnaire when the Oregon AFL-CIO makes future endorsements.

“It’s going to be very difficult to get an endorsement from us if you’re not a ‘Champion of Working Families,’ ” Chamberlain said.

Sen. Ginny Burdick was a good example of how the new rating methodology better captures who labor’s friends are, Chamberlain said. Two years ago, Burdick had a 100 percent COPE rating, based on her votes on bills. Burdick might have had a high rating this session too, if only votes had been counted; but in fact she was a vocal opponent of several high-priority right-to-unionize bills, and helped to prevent them from getting a vote in the Senate.

“This session I think people’s true colors came out,” Chamberlain said. “What we’re looking for is activist legislators. Our goal is to elect more working people to the Legislature so it’s not a retirees and rich person’s club.”

“Not that we’re throwing rocks at anyone in the bronze section,” Chamberlain said, but lawmakers with a gold rating “are going to be the folks we want to see elected to statewide office.”

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