Editor’s note: This story is part of a series of profiles on Maine organizations that attempt to influence the Legislature, the governor and the media through their research and advocacy.
When legislators are asked to decide on bills dealing with taxes, business regulations or wages and benefits in this state, inevitably someone in the Statehouse halls makes a crack about how the vote will affect their MERI rating.
For the uninitiated, the acronym stands for the Maine Economic Research Institute and the rating is based on 15 or so bills a year that are being monitored by two self-avowed statistical “nerds,” who rent a small office in the Maine State Chamber of Commerce building in Augusta.
Since 1999, MERI has been keeping track of the voting records of all legislators in both the House and Senate and trying to let business people know how the candidate they may be supporting is treating their interests in Augusta.
Democrats criticize the rating system as being stacked against them – pitting business issues against consumers. Invariably Republicans get the highest scores while Democrats end up near the bottom.
But Ed McLaughlin, who runs the organization, said it’s not about politics.
“I don’t care if the Statehouse is all Democratic as long as they treat the economy well,” said McLaughlin, who was once a registered Democrat, but is now independent. He quickly adds he doesn’t care if it’s all Republican either, as long as the votes are pro-business.
McLaughlin, who served as the commissioner of agriculture in the King administration, was approached by a group of business leaders to start MERI in 1999 based on the success of a program in North Carolina that helped launch about two dozen similar organizations nationwide.
“They thought the Maine economy could and should be a lot better,” he said, but no one was holding legislators’ feet to the fire on their voting records.
“There was no need to be accountable on economic issues,” because no one was watching, McLaughlin said, and all candidates say they support jobs and a strong economy when they are running.
Glen Foss, a former manager with Madison Paper who joined McLaughlin in 2001, was once one of those business leaders. He supported candidates based on what they said but not on what they did for business.
Once he saw his senator’s MERI rating, he stopped his support. “If I’d known what his MERI rating was I never would have given it and never did again,” Foss said.
How it works
Half of the MERI rating is based on actual roll call votes made by legislators on an average of 15 bills each session. Those bills are selected through a winnowing process that starts with a list of broad topics identified in a senior management survey.
McLaughlin said the survey is sent out to 3,500 businesses and about 20 percent are returned. “Taxes are an enormous issue,” he said.
They also get advice on what bills to watch from a survey of about 90 business lobbyists, who identify what’s important to them. A smaller group of 14 lobbyists forms an advisory board, which meets every two weeks to make recommendations as the session moves along, but the ultimate decision on what bills are used is made by the board of directors. Its chairman is Peter Vigue of Cianbro, but even critics agree the board is made up of Republicans, Democrats and independents.
Legislators are told what bills MERI is watching through a “Watch List” issued four times during the long session of the Legislature and three times in the short one, in the second year. The list changes depending on whether a bill is killed in committee, amended or replaced with something deemed more important.
The other half of a legislator’s end-of-session score is affected by the 90 lobbyists MERI consults. They report back on how individuals act in committee or even in the halls. The idea is a legislator can work behind the scenes to defeat a bill, but then vote in favor on the floor to keep his constituents happy.
That so-called “qualitative” piece of the overall score is criticized by Democrats, who generally get anywhere from single digits to mid-30 ratings based on a possible 100 points.
“It’s some group of unidentified people’s opinion of you,” said Rep. Ben Dudley, D-Portland, the new head of the state’s Democratic Party.
Dudley, who got a score of 5.5 out of 100 for 2005, said Democrats largely feel “no matter how you vote, they’re going to make you look bad.”
Sen. Richard Nass, R-York, who got a 96.5, thinks the rating system may be a little too nuanced, saying the organization should just tell people “who the black hats and the white hats are.” That said, he thinks the rating system has made a difference by measuring how legislators vote on jobs and the economy.
“It think it’s the best thing that has happened on behalf of the citizens of Maine in my 12 years as a legislator,” Nass said.
Funding sources
MERI is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt, 501 c-6, business organization – a designation that is also given to chambers of commerce. The bulk of its money comes from subscribers, who pay a fee to belong and get the growing number of report cards the group puts out. Additional sales of those reports also brings in up to 20 percent of the money the organization has to spend.
The group claims 325 subscribers or businesses, including local chambers and trade associations, and McLaughlin said his goal is to get 1,500. In the first year there were just 40, he said.
Tax returns from 2004 show MERI had revenue of $332,000, and McLaughlin said that is now up to between $370,000 and $400,000.
The greatest chunk of that money goes into salary and benefits for the two-man office. McLaughlin earned $105,000 in 2004, not including pension and other benefits.
The second biggest expense is the production of its legislative report cards, which include a paperback almanac every two years, voter guides and an annual roll call or interim report on the two-year legislative session. The organization also spends money on market research to track voter opinion on business issues.
At the center of all its publications are the MERI ratings, and McLaughlin and Foss are always looking for new ways to reach the public with the scores. Between the two of them, they do 70 presentations a year.
One of their newer publications, Roll Call, goes out in bulk to chambers and business associations, and they encourage business members to hand it out to their employees.
While the latest one was just eight pages, with an explanation of the bills used in the rating process and a few short articles and charts along with the individual legislators’ rankings, McLaughlin said the feedback shows people want it more to the point.
“They just want the ratings and pictures,” of senators and representatives next to their score, McLaughlin said. “The feedback we got was there were too many words.”
Send questions/comments to the editors.
