MNpublius.com

Every year the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy (a non-partisan institute founded in 1961 that researches into public policies and the middle class) releases scorecards analyzing the impact that key pieces of legislation have on middle class Americans and ranking members of Congress according to their votes (more info on how this works here). Well, guess who might be held back a year: yes, Senator Norm Coleman scored an abysmal “C.” on the rankings. Fortunately for Minnesotans, however, Senator Klobuchar received an “A+,” hopefully balancing out negative Normy.

The other aspect worth noting is that Coleman actually got “Fs” for several years but seems to be making an upturn recently. Hmm… I wonder if that’s because he has had a sudden change of heart or if there’s something else happening this year that has prompted a flip in a new direction… huh, can’t think of anything.

Looking to the rest of the Congressional delegation doesn’t add much surprise: Bachmann, F; Ellison, A+; Kline, F; McCollum, B; Oberstar, A+; Peterson, A+; Ramstad, C; Walz, A+.

I’m sure that many of our readers will cast aside these rankings as mere partisan foolery, but if you look at the list of bills that lead to these rankings, it is a bit eye-opening. We’re talking about housing issues, negotiating medicare drug prices, job creation, bankruptcy bills, class action fairness, headstart, overtime compensation, the Wellstone mental health act, Pell grants, I mean, stuff that has a tremendous, direct effect on millions of Americans and issues that are crucial to the quality of life of many middle class Americans. These are meat and potato issues and, apparently, some of Minnesota’s Congress members just don’t care…