The Bono...OK, Lugar-Cardin Amendment

Thanks to those who have asked to add non-defense (and non-tourism-idiocy) -related foreign policy criteria.

Bono, the Africa-trotting, HIV-trouncing friend of W. who used to write insightful pop lyrics, now writes insightful pop-eds.  In one a few weeks ago that I just got around to reading, he calls out the Lugar-Cardin amendment to Dodd-Frank that increases transparency for US-traded extraction companies re: their payments to government officials in Africa.

Bono concludes: "And the cost to us is zero, nada. It’s a clear thought in a traffic jam."


This is how to judge members of Congress.  Unfortunately, it was withdrawn before coming to a separate vote (Sen. Leahy "championed" it in committee, making a separate vote unnecessary).

And so the search goes on for additional criteria.  For now, I'm going to stick with the plan: a rating system based on important votes, vs. the "votes with Pelosi 93% of the time" sort of nonsense that reflects every vote to rename a post office.  But in TheCenterline's Congressional Ratings 2.0, the first thing I'm going to do is build cosponsorship of key pending (or failed) legislation, which expands the palette meaningfully.