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Congress’ most effective lawmakers aren’t generally its household names

Despite high approval ratingsor wide popularity, well-known members of Congress are not the most effective lawmakers, according to a report from the Center for Effective Lawmaking.

The center recently released its effectiveness scores for members of the 116th Congress, which ran from Jan. 3, 2019, to Jan. 3, 2021. The bottom line: The lawmakers often in the news — particularly from the House of Representatives — aren’t generally the ones sponsoring bills that make significant headway through Congress or making substantial policy proposals. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is one exception.

Through a partnership between the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and Vanderbilt University, the Center for Effective Lawmaking, created in 2017, aims to understand and communicate the effectiveness of lawmakers and the congressional legislative process.

“We’re the Center for Effective Lawmaking, so we’re particularly interested in the lawmaking component of what members of Congress do, so we set aside oversite and constituency services and so on,” said Volden, who also is a professor of public policy and politics at the University of Virginia. “In that lawmaking space, we’ve generated the legislative effectiveness scores.”

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Media Mistakes in the Biden Era: the Definitive List

1. Friday, Jan. 8, 2021

The New York Times reporters Marc Santora, Megan Specia and Mike Baker report Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was killed by “pro-Trump supporters” who “overpowered” him and “struck him in the head with a fire extinguisher.”

But other reports the same day referenced Sicknick dying from a stroke.

The Times waited until mid-February to issue a correction, but still claimed– citing no evidence and no autopsy report– that Sicknick had died “from injuries in pro-Trump rampage.”

There was no explanation as to who fabricated the fire extinguisher story.

2. Saturday, Jan. 9, 2021

The Washington Post‘s Amy Gardner, AP, CNBC, Rolling Stone, and others falsely report that President Trump pressed a lead Georgia elections investigator to “find the fraud,” and told the investigator it would make them a national hero.

However, the actual recording of the call later made public revealed that Trump did not say either of those things.

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Facebook, Twitter Campaign Donations Overwhelmingly Go to Democrats on Oversight Panels, Group Finds

A conservative non-profit advocacy group monitoring Big Tech claims almost all Facebook and Twitter employee and committee campaign contributions went to Democrats on House oversight committees.

The Internet Accountability Project (IAP) said in an April 1 statement that, based on campaign finance data compiled by opensecrets.org, Facebook and Twitter (employees and PACs) combined “contributed more than 12 times more money to Democrats (more than $5.5 million) than Republicans (less than $435,000) in 2020.”

The group cited a leading self-proclaimed socialist in the House of Representatives as an example of the extreme bias in favor of Democrats in political giving by employees of the two Internet giants.

“As just one example, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez received a combined $36,346 in 2020 compared to less than $1,950 for all Republicans on the House Oversight Committee combined. Twitter employees did not give a single dollar to Republicans on the Oversight Committee,” IAP said in its statement.

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Good News: Bill Gates’ Geoengineering Plot To Block The Sun Is Scrapped…

An effort to dim the sun to stop global warming has been scrapped by the Swedish Space Agency, who announced that the program, funded by Bill Gates, has ‘divided the scientific community’ and will therefore not be carried out.

The Swedish Space Corporation (SSC) released a statement saying that the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx), which also had secured Harvard funding, will not go ahead as planned in June.

“SSC has had dialogues this spring with both leading experts on geoengineering and with other stakeholders, as well as with the SCoPEx Advisory Board,” the statement reads, adding “As a result of these dialogues and in agreement with Harvard, SSC has decided not to conduct the technical test flight planned for this summer.”

It also notes that “The scientific community is divided regarding geoengineering, including any related technology tests such as the planned technical balloon test flight from Esrange this summer.” 

The Gates funded idea would have seen the release of calcium carbonate, essentially chalk dust, into the atmosphere from a high-altitude balloon to observe the effect it has on sunlight reaching the planet surface.

The ultimate goal of the study was to reduce the temperature on the planet in an effort to stave off global warming.

However, not surprisingly, the notion of blocking out the Sun proved somewhat unpopular, with environmental groups warning of potential “catastrophic consequences.”

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