Various observers have ranked South Dakota as a pretty good place to retire. Strangely, our Congressional delegation isn’t helping. The National Retiree Legislative Network gives Senator John Thune, Senator Mike Rounds, and Rep. Kristi Noem all zeroes on their voting records for retirees so far in the 114th Congress. The voting score card only lists one vote, so maybe we shouldn’t get too excited.
But NRLN also lists several bills awaiting action that their organization supports and finds that Rep. Kristi Noem is co-sponsoring only 13% of those bills before the House. Senator Rounds is co-sponsoring 16% of NRLN’s Senate bills of interest; Senator Thune is co-sponsoring 20%.
Just across the border, the only member of the Minnesota Congressional delegation with lower NLRN co-sponsorship scores than South Dakota’s Congress critters is Rep. John Kline, who lays a goose egg for pro-retiree legislation. Minnesota’s other seven House members are all above 20%, with Reps. Collin Peterson and Rick Nolan both topping 50%. Senator Al Franken is at 48%; Senator Amy Klobuchar is at 52%.
Funny that retirees would come to South Dakota, then elect people to Congress who don’t support their interests.
I wonder if all those retirees are actually here, or just signed up with MyDakotaAddress.com? If the latter, then they really don’t care how Noem, Thune, Rounds, et al vote, because they’re not here, and they’re not paying taxes.
Retirees need more respect. There is no vacation from this full time job, no sick leave and not even a coffee break. And no COLA to pay increasing Medicare premiums. It’s a tough go out here :( we need a government bail out!
Rep. Kline is retiring, presenting a good pickup opportunity for Minnesota Democrats in a competitive district.
If you actually look at this group’s ratings that are linked in this post you will see that our congressional delegation is listed as supporting this group’s positions on the entirety of their pending legislative agenda. The entirety! 25 separate bills.
The only difference between our congressional delegation’s positions and the positions of Minnesota’s senators is the one bill that has been voted on. They agree on all 25 bills that are still pending. The thesis of this blog post seems to be a bit off.
Rohr-you are sadly mistaken that wingnuts wholly support these bills. The green support sign is the NRLN’s position. Dakota’s own wingnuts voted yes for 4 bills and no on the rest.
So the green support sign doesn’t mean the legislators support the bills. It just means the group supports the bills. But the fact that any legislator hasn’t signed on as a sponsor does not mean that legislator will vote against the bill. It just means they didn’t sign on as a sponsor.
So no conclusions can be drawn from any of this except that in two actual votes, our delegation sided with this group once, and the Minnesota senators sided with the group both times.
Ironically, the vote where the Minnesota senators sided with the group was on a cloture procedural motion. The Minnesota senators voted in favor of continuing the filibuster of a bill so it could not be voted upon. South Dakota senators voted with 13 Democratic senators to end the filibuster. For once it looks like Thune and Rounds were on the right side of this procedural vote.
The NRLN appears to be comprised of retirees covered by traditional employer sponsored pension plans which are only offered by large companies and government and are usually negotiated as part of union contracts. This style of retirement plan is fast disappearing in favor of the self directed 401k’s. They only represent about 2M retirees (compared to AARP membership of 37M+) and are hardly representative of the typical retiree. Not a wonder at all that South Dakota’s Congressional fares poorly in this organization’s ratings considering the background of it’s board of directors.
http://www.nrln.org/BOARD.htm
http://www.nrln.org/about-us.html#organizations
Coyote … are you really Troy Jones?
Porter Lynn on the other was taught a lesson by you tonight keep up the good work.also lanny to.
@PorterL: Nope. cah and I have exchanged emails and he knows I’m not.
My pension was not negotiated by a union. It was established when corporate America cared about its employees’ futures. It is also guaranteed through a highly regulated trust fund, unlike 401 k’s, which are at the mercy of the casino stock market…. Oh I know what your come back will be, that pension trust funds invest in the market too, but that is highly regulated and placed in the most conservative of investment funds. Next, can’t you do that with a 401 k, you will probably ask. Yep, but most people don’t understand their 401 k’s, the program is rigid against them. Ignorance is the greatest ally of the hedge fund manager and the true intent of those who promote 401 k’s over a good old pension program.
And questioning who Don Coyote is doesn’t refute the point he offers about the source of the information. Try harder, Porter!
If Mr. Coyote were in fact Troy Jones it would bolster the argument that his information is part of a plan to refute anyone’s validity in criticizing the ethics of those involved in this scandal. Mr. Jones is back stroking like the Olympics have already started. My apologies to the Coyote but only for this inquiry. His brand is weak in it’s opposition to what’s on the “right side of history”.
Coyote and Troy take distinctly different tacks in their rebuttals.