Congress Funds Study on How To Avoid Constituents, Stay in Office
I’ve thought about doing something like this for a while, but I heard something today that is so unbelievable that I have to pass this along. So I’m going to continue to comment on news items that I think we should all be aware of. Obviously I don’t have a staff to research all of these but I will make my best effort to only pass along what was said or what happened, and you can interpret for yourself what it may mean. (Although I will add my own thoughts as well. It’s my blog.)
I welcome comments or questions, and especially additional information that might color the interpretation. I also welcome suggestions of additional resources, especially those that offer an opposing view.
This is an article is from the Heritage Foundation:
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/28/congress-funds-study-on-how-to-avoid-constituents-and-stay-in-office/
(Underlined words are links.)
Congress Funds Study on How to Avoid Constituents, Stay in Office•
Posted October 28th, 2009 at 5.13pm in Ongoing Priorities.
This Friday, the tax payer funded Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) is hosting a briefing for Members of Congress and their staff on their new study: Online Town Hall Meetings: Exploring Democracy in the 21st Century. The CMF study consisted of 21 town hall meetings where Members of Congress and CMF provided a moderator: “spoke via voice over IP, and constituents asked questions and made comments by typing them. Only off-topic, redundant, unintelligible, or offensive questions were screened, and only questions asked by people who had not yet asked a question were prioritized.”
CMF does not say what qualifies as offensive, but if this summer is any indication that definition would include anything that the Congressman did not want to talk about. In other words, this report urges Congressmen not to actually interact with their constituents, but to avoid them altogether by holding safe town halls they can completely control. And what did CMF find where the results of these Potemkin town halls?
The online town halls increased constituents’ approval of the Member. Every Member involved experienced an increase in approval by the constituents who participated. The average net approval rating (approve minus disapprove) jumped from +29 before the session to +47 after. There were also similar increases in trust and perceptions of personal qualities – such as whether they were compassionate, hardworking, accessible, etc. – of the Member.
The lesson: avoid your constituents’ inconvenient questions and your approval ratings will rise. And this is a taxpayer funded study. Here is the grant from the National Science Foundation.
Congress is actually using your tax dollars to pay social scientists to find ways they can avoid actually talking to their constituents while improving their chances of reelection.
Here are some interesting details. The grant was funded in 2004. Twenty of the facilitated online town hall meetings took place in 2006 with U.S. Representatives and one took place in 2008 with a U.S. Senator.
The report was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. In other words, our taxpayer dollars went to fund a study on how to avoid the people who elected them. We elected them to represent us. And we pay their salaries, and their pensions, and their healthcare when we pay our taxes.
Not only did this manipulative study look at how to avoid us, the results show that in the process their approval ratings soared.
Remember this when congressional elections come up next time. Did any member of congress think this was outrageous enough to tell us about it? And did any member of the press think this was worth telling us about?
More later.
Carol
I’ve thought about doing something like this for a while, but I heard something today that is so unbelievable that I have to pass this along. So I’m going to continue to comment on news items that I think we should all be aware of. Obviously I don’t have a staff to research all of these but I will make my best effort to only pass along what was said or what happened, and you can interpret for yourself what it may mean. (Although I will add my own thoughts as well. It’s my blog.)
I welcome comments or questions, and especially additional information that might color the interpretation. I also welcome suggestions of additional resources, especially those that offer an opposing view.
This is an article is from the Heritage Foundation:
http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/28/congress-funds-study-on-how-to-avoid-constituents-and-stay-in-office/
(Underlined words are links.)
Congress Funds Study on How to Avoid Constituents, Stay in Office•
Posted October 28th, 2009 at 5.13pm in Ongoing Priorities.
This Friday, the tax payer funded Congressional Management Foundation (CMF) is hosting a briefing for Members of Congress and their staff on their new study: Online Town Hall Meetings: Exploring Democracy in the 21st Century. The CMF study consisted of 21 town hall meetings where Members of Congress and CMF provided a moderator: “spoke via voice over IP, and constituents asked questions and made comments by typing them. Only off-topic, redundant, unintelligible, or offensive questions were screened, and only questions asked by people who had not yet asked a question were prioritized.”
CMF does not say what qualifies as offensive, but if this summer is any indication that definition would include anything that the Congressman did not want to talk about. In other words, this report urges Congressmen not to actually interact with their constituents, but to avoid them altogether by holding safe town halls they can completely control. And what did CMF find where the results of these Potemkin town halls?
The online town halls increased constituents’ approval of the Member. Every Member involved experienced an increase in approval by the constituents who participated. The average net approval rating (approve minus disapprove) jumped from +29 before the session to +47 after. There were also similar increases in trust and perceptions of personal qualities – such as whether they were compassionate, hardworking, accessible, etc. – of the Member.
The lesson: avoid your constituents’ inconvenient questions and your approval ratings will rise. And this is a taxpayer funded study. Here is the grant from the National Science Foundation.
Congress is actually using your tax dollars to pay social scientists to find ways they can avoid actually talking to their constituents while improving their chances of reelection.
Here are some interesting details. The grant was funded in 2004. Twenty of the facilitated online town hall meetings took place in 2006 with U.S. Representatives and one took place in 2008 with a U.S. Senator.
The report was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. In other words, our taxpayer dollars went to fund a study on how to avoid the people who elected them. We elected them to represent us. And we pay their salaries, and their pensions, and their healthcare when we pay our taxes.
Not only did this manipulative study look at how to avoid us, the results show that in the process their approval ratings soared.
Remember this when congressional elections come up next time. Did any member of congress think this was outrageous enough to tell us about it? And did any member of the press think this was worth telling us about?
More later.
Carol
You asked for comments. Try not to just point to other web links. For example site where and when the CFM meeting will be held. Give people a reason to check your blog on a regular basis. This is how the web site Politico.com got its start. And don't just limit it to national politics. We have the most screwed up political system in ga. It makes for good reading.
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