I think it's awful. Sure, you want to hear from the lobbyists, especially since they often times know inside stuff. However, using their word to rate the legislators is just wrong. It encourages the lobbyists to give bad ratings to great legislators who just refuse to "bow down" to the lobbyists and good ratings to those who kiss their butts.

It would be interesting if WW considered being down at Salem and doing some exit interviews, per say, of regular citizens. Of people coming to work sessions and committee meetings. Or watching the session. Or visiting a legislator's office.

Maybe a random sampling of those who live in the legislator's district who have contacted their legislator. Or maybe even pick, before the session, some people in each district who are going to be your test subjects. They'll commit to keeping an eye on their legislator and contacting them occasionally.

Maybe take into consideration things like:

• can you get a meeting with the legislator, or at least a staffer?

• do you get a response from calls, letters, and e-mails, and if so, how long did it take?

• how accessible is the legislator in their home district? do they hold town hall meetings?

• do they put out an e-mail newsletter during the session?

• do they put out a report at the end of the session?

I realize you can't just poll the average citizen since they probably don't even know who their legislator is, let alone what they've been doing in Salem. However, that doesn't mean you have to base everything on what the lobbyists have to say.

"Or maybe even pick, before the session, some people in each district who are going to be your test subjects. They'll commit to keeping an eye on their legislator and contacting them occasionally."

This is a SUPERB idea. Pick 10 people from varying parts of the spectrum in each of the 60 House districts, who will pledge to monitor their Rep and Senator during the session, and actively attempt to engage the lawmakers on issues. Then they can rate them on a set of evaluation questions.

Obviously the hard part is the legwork in choosing people to participate, and may be beyond the scope of WW. But the O has the wherewithal to do this, and should.

I agree with Jenni, it's awful. I emailed Nigel Jaquiss about it, essentially saying that lobbyists already have disproportionate influence, and giving them a chance to rate lobbyists anonymously only increases their influence on public opinion, without evaluating its accuracy.

He replied that he made a strong effort to seek out a variety of lobbyists, and didn't just base the results on the "most powerful."

I recognize that he's a Pulitzer winner with good judgment, but still, that is not enough for me. The ability to slam someone when anonymous is big in itself - all of us BlueO regulars know that. Add the stamp of approval of a major publication, regardless of the purity of their motives, and it becomes obscene.

A true public service would be to seek out opinions based on geography - after all, the legislators are there to serve a district, right? I'd like to see neighborhood associations and other community organizations used. Of course, that would make for much more difficult reporting, because such groups would have to be prodded into developing an opinion.

But if they were to develop opinions, I have no doubt they would be of more value than what we got.

The anonymity, to me, is the single most offensive aspect of this generally poor effort. Isn't anonymous sourcing only supposed to be used as a last resort - not a precondition of an article??

Rated by anonymous lobbyists, many with an ax or agenda to grind. I know it makes for great newspaper reading, but I don't feel there is any way to gauge how serious or real these impressions are.

How bout' BlueOregon engaging in some kind of survey that measures each legislator by other means?

1.) How well they work with other legislators 2.) Did they put forth bold or better ideas and not succumb to crass partisanship? 3.) Do they service their constituents well? 4.) Did they keep their campaign promises? 5.) Did they attempt to work across the aisle with the other party? 6.) What do they personally feel was the most important thing they accomplished this session?

And so on, and so forth....

What he said.

Steve:

That would be just as bad as the current reviews since it isn't an honest portrayal.

There are Rs that deserve higher ratings because they are accessible to their constituents, are willing to compromise, etc.

There are sometimes Ds who deserve lower ratings because they don't do the basics - town halls, responding to their constituents, etc.

There are people on both sides of the aisle who do good work. And do a good job of representing their constituents. We may not agree with their politics, but they may be accurately representing the people in their district. One candidate does not fit all.

We're not expecting them to give high marks to all Ds and bad marks to all Rs. We'd just like something that is actually representational of the work they've done. Right now you can be an excellent legislator, but get low marks because you wouldn't accept PAC money, won't take a lobbyist's facts without checking them yourself, etc. But you could be an awful legislator and get high marks just because you kissed the right butts.