Supporting the Senators who Support Manufacturing
Senatorial voting records are public information but less observed than the batting average of a second-string shortstop struggling somewhere in major league baseball. Unfortunately, the voting records have more impact on each person’s life.
Now that we’re done with mid-term elections, it is important to know who represents the constituency and who simply votes the party line. Unfortunately, it seems like our senators pay more attention to party politics than to their constituencies.
The following data was compiled by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) before the November elections to evaluate the pro-manufacturing votes of the Senate and House.
This tally is not a political endorsement, but rather an opportunity for manufacturers to identify those legislators who consistently support a pro-growth, pro-jobs, pro-manufacturing agenda.
Setting 70% favorable votes as the threshold for recognition, NAM recently recognized 52 senators and 224 House members.
The official voting record of the 109th Congress can be accessed for the full Congress at www.nam.org/votingrecord.
From the Democratic side of the aisle, 13 senators voted against manufacturing-related legislation more than 80% of the time. This group was led in its negativity by Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) who voted against manufacturing legislation 95% of the time. Other notables voting against manufacturing initiatives include: Ted Kennedy (D-MA) 89%, John Kerry (D-MA) 88%, and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) 84%. Dick Durbin and Barack Obama (D-IL) voted against manufacturing 89% and 84% respectively.
Conversely, some Democrats (albeit a few) were more disposed to vote in favor of manufacturing include: Ben Nelson (D-NE), who voted against manufacturing only 16% of the time; Mary Landrieu (D-LA), 37%; Mark Prior (D-AK), 47%; and Tom Carper (D- DE), 58%.
In total, the Democrats voted against manufacturing oriented legislation 74% of the time.
Republicans were much more favorable toward manufacturing, with 20 senators (two of whom were not re-elected in ’06) voting with NAM every time. In fact, there were 35 Republicans who voted favorably more than 90% of the time. Overall, Republicans voted favorably 89% of the time. However, some Republican senators shunned the rubber stamp identification by voting against pro-manufacturing legislation, such as Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), 61% of the time; Olympia Snowe (R-ME), 47%; and John McCain (R-AZ), 37%. (Chafee wasn’t re-elected in ’06.)
The tally was created by observing the voting record on 19 manufacturing-related bills.
It appears the vote basically breaks down along party lines, like everything else. State lines seemed to have little influence. States such as New York, New Jersey, Michigan, California, West Virginia and Illinois saw anti-manufacturing votes from both senators, despite large manufacturing concentrations in those states. Ohio and Pennsylvania saw both senators vote favorably. It appears that constituency has little to do with voting positions. Political orientation had a major impact on the votes cast.
If the trend continues, the loss in the 2006 election of six Republican seats in the Senate and 29 in the House does not look promising for manufacturers. However, according to NAM, “The election upheaval should not be seen as a radical shift to the political left, but rather an expression of widespread frustration...We are optimistic that the incoming legislators share our interest in strengthening the U.S. economy and creating more jobs. During the campaigns, most clearly staked out their positions in the political center, not the extreme.”
Regional Hospitality
Last year, SMI co-sponsored four evening dinner programs at which Luke Zubek, SMI technical director, spoke about how springmakers can maximize their information from any failure analysis. Determining root causes of failure is the key to understanding what went wrong and how to eliminate future occurrences. Just as important as the educational aspect of the meetings was the opportunity for springmakers to connect and network with others in their region.
With four programs completed (Michigan, Mid-Atlantic, Pittsburgh/Ohio and Canada), SMI will look at 2007 and schedule more programs.
Time and distance are always a consideration, but with earlier programs being planned for April and running through the year, it is hoped that SMI representatives can host events in the remaining regions by the end of this year.
