tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7592841981416728347.post4587021816503829835..comments2023-05-25T03:08:18.166-06:00Comments on Montana Headlines: Where's my Senator: Part III (dateline -- Cynicism, MT)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7592841981416728347.post-29569598988666087182007-03-26T23:38:00.000-06:002007-03-26T23:38:00.000-06:00We are perhaps going around in circles. Your resp...We are perhaps going around in circles. Your response on 4&20 BB made it sound like Montana Headlines was saying that schedules would create <I>more</I> corruption, when we weren't maintaining any such thing.<BR/><BR/>The only reason that the Tester schedule meant anything to us was that Montana Democrats have been unfavorably comparing Rehberg's honesty with that of Sen. Tester based on the level of detail in scheduling information provided. <BR/><BR/>We fully expect that Sen. Tester, being a Democratic Senator whose win in a red state gave control of the Senate to his party, is going to spend a lot of time being a rock star on the coasts -- the New York City event is part and parcel of that, and is unsurprising whether it was on a schedule or not .<BR/><BR/>Democrats have been making a big deal out of Sen. Tester's transparency, and yet when a fairly major discrepancy was right in front of them, they ignored it -- and if transparency and honesty were the agenda, they would been all over it. We explained in our post why we ourselves didn't pursue the matter.<BR/><BR/>If only partisan opponents of a particular politician care enough about the details of a schedule to pursue it, then it is -- at least in this case -- political gotcha. This is quite separate from the intentions of your organization.<BR/><BR/>A lot more debate and business used to get done on the House and Senate floors before proceedings were televised, from what we understand. It is precisely for that reason that the members of the U.S. Supreme Court -- regardless of ideological bent -- are opposed to having television cameras in their chambers.<BR/><BR/>We will watch with interest to see what effect the publication of schedules has. Our own admittedly cynical view is that they will join MySpace pages and netroot blogs as yet one more staged tool of media manipulation.<BR/><BR/>With every such tool, political power will increasingly be wielded not by the honest and prudent, but by those who best know how to manage the imagery of transparency.Montana Headlineshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16149094528547382638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7592841981416728347.post-62145571682376795842007-03-26T12:59:00.000-06:002007-03-26T12:59:00.000-06:00The Punch Clock Campaign never said schedules woul...The Punch Clock Campaign never said schedules would eliminate corruption. They will let citizens engage and communicate better with their elected officials. The goal is to find out what they do as elected officials, and to encourage the habit of disclosure. The idea is that better management creates better Members of Congress by creating a situation where they have to keep their constituents in mind all the time not just during the election season. Montana might have the most access to them but that doesn’t mean you know what they do in Washington and why they do it. Would the New York event have meant much to you if you didn’t have Tester’s schedule to compare it with? Now that you do, you can ask why he was there and what purpose it served. This is about creating communication between citizens and the Senator’s office, where before there wasn’t. <BR/><BR/><B>You Said “We stated that a schedule can give a false sense of security -- this isn't a reason not to have one, but it is a reason to understand its limited value as a tool to determine whether a legislator is up to no good.” </B><BR/><BR/>Will schedules give people a false sense of security? The question I ask is; Has C-Span and financial disclosure forms lead to more oversight or less? When C-Span started it showed that Members of Congress are in fact regular people; who aren’t the smartest or the best speakers. Even though the speeches are staged the fact of the matter is that they are clearly staged. Citizens now know that the House Floor is not where work is done and can now start looking for where it is. The same way Financial Disclosure forms are tools to understand how money might affect decision making. A schedule is a tool that allows people to see what the process for the decision might be. If there are people who in fact do look to schedules with a sense of security there will also be people who do not.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com