However, Representative Faircloth also made some comments about the Maine Economic Research Institute (MERI), the state’s most well-known organization rating legislative performance, which mischaracterized our methods and mission. I am writing to set the record straight.
Maine Economic Research Institute (MERI) was incorporated in 1999 to help Maine employers and voters understand what is going on in Augusta relative to economic issues by providing accurate, nonpartisan information on the economic performance of state legislators. We are perhaps most well-known for our election-year Voter Guide, which rates legislators according to their stand on issues important to Maine business leaders
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This is how it works: MERI begins with a scientifically designed survey of employers throughout the state. (Our reason for surveying employers is simple: Without employers, there are no jobs. If employers aren’t able to create and sustain profitable businesses, all other economic questions, such as how to distribute tax revenues, are inconsequential.) MERI’s statistically rigorous employer’s survey (the Senior Management Survey or SMS) questions owners, CEOs, and other senior managers to determine what is critical to their success, and to their ability to create and keep jobs in Maine.
While the needs of Maine’s largest employers are considered, it’s important to understand that two-thirds of the responses to MERI’s 2005 SMS were from employers of 50 or fewer employees. These small businesses are the backbone of Maine’s economy, and their views should be front and center with every state legislator.
MERI’s goal is to capture all the key issues affecting Maine’s economy and connect them directly to the state policies most responsible for their impact on the economy—positive or negative. MERI does this by reviewing hundreds of legislative documents during each session of the legislature and matching proposed legislation with the key issues identified by the Senior Management Survey. A vetting process includes review of proposed legislation during the legislative session by 14 experts (MERI’s advisory committee), and a final survey at the end of the session of an additional 76 experts (90 in total) narrows the list.
The winnowing process reduces hundreds of proposals to the 15–20 key bills each legislative session that would have the greatest potential to affect Maine’s economy.
To ensure politics stay out of MERI’s decision path, its board of directors is comprised of Democrats, Republicans, and those not associated with either major political party. This was done by design to keep MERI away from the politics of politics and focused on the economy.
By chance, MERI’s board chair and vice chair are Democrats. I am a former lifelong Democrat and currently president and CEO. (To keep a safe distance from politics, I became an unenrolled, independent voter when asked to help start up MERI.) The other staff member at MERI happens to also be a lifelong Democrat. While the board officers are currently Democrats, MERI’s board officers could just as easily have been a different mix of party affiliations since the board is politically diverse. At MERI, party affiliation doesn’t matter; MERI is about a strong economy and economic opportunity for every Maine citizen—period.
In his comments in Bangor Metro, Representative Faircloth made an astute observation when he wrote about votes not being the only way to measure legislators. He noted that: “The best legislators go beyond ‘yea’ or ‘nay’—initiating good bills, blocking bad bills.” We agree—one needs to also measure legislator behavior in committees, on issue advocacy, and general support for important economic and business issues. When this behavior is combined with voting records, a more accurate picture of individual legislator performance on these important issues emerges.
Votes don’t tell the whole story and the rest of the story is exactly what MERI’s Qualitative Survey helps capture. The survey is sent to 90 legislative experts who closely follow business and economic issues (lobbyists—they are the experts in these matters) to get the whole story on legislator performance. We ask these experts to rate legislators on the percentage of time each Senate and House member can be counted on to advocate the interests of business—the engine of Maine’s economy. We ask that when they rate an incumbent to consider voting support, that they also consider leadership and advocacy on key business issues.
This well-established process is similar to when we survey economists to glean from their expertise a greater insight to the economy than simple numbers can give us. MERI combines voting records on key issues with its Qualitative Survey to provide the final annual rating for each Maine legislator, which is published in MERI’s Voter Guide and Almanac each election year, and in its Roll Call annually. As one Maine senator said recently, “not everyone likes their MERI rating, but we all know what ours is.”
The fact is, every legislator will tell you they are for jobs, for a strong economy, and that they want to help our state’s employers. They have been saying this as long as anyone can remember, yet we have results that tell us something different. Maine holds the distinction of being the highest state-and-local-tax-burdened state in the nation, and future job growth is forecast to be the lowest in New England. Young Mainers are leaving the state for opportunity elsewhere at a rate four times the national average. If our state legislators are actually performing the way they promised while running for office, why is Maine’s economy still underperforming?
A major reason for our underperforming economy is the policies our representatives in Augusta have enacted over the years. MERI exists to bring a research-based, nonpartisan source of accountability to the lawmaking process.
Accountability may be uncomfortable for some in Augusta, but it is only through accountability and understanding of the facts that Maine’s citizens will be able to ask informed questions of their representatives and thus affect positive change.
At MERI we believe when it comes to the economy, citizens should listen to what politicians say, but measure what they do. It is good for us, and it is good for them.
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Ed McLaughlin is president and CEO of the Maine Economic Research Institute (MERI). You can read more about MERI’s legislative ratings at www.fixmaine.com.
