Fewer answers

COEUR d’ALENE — The folks at Project Vote Smart have been testing the political mettle of the nation’s state and federal election candidates for years, by asking them to take a “Political Courage Test,” a set of questions regarding key issues.

The issues, deemed important to all Americans, are determined through research by more than 200 experts from both sides of the political spectrum.

Project Vote Smart, founded in 1992, is a Montana-based national nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. Its goal is to arm voters with accurate, rhetoric-free information when they go to the polls.

In recent years, a rising number of candidates have been refusing to take the Political Courage Test because, according to Project Vote Smart, they are unwilling to share their views on issues, fearing their opponents will use the information against them during their campaigns.

“We started out with 70 percent of congressional candidates responding. Now, about 43 percent is our average,” said Kristen Vicedomini, Project Vote Smart’s Political Courage Test director. “It’s really declined over the years. This is our real concern.”

The 2010 tests were mailed to Idaho candidates on June 2 and their deadline was July 14. During that six weeks, Vicedomini said Project Vote Smart staffers and volunteers contacted the candidates several times to make sure they received the test, to answer questions about it and remind them of the deadline.

“For congressional candidates, that usually works out to eight contacts,” Vicedomini said.

In Idaho this year, 40 percent of the candidates seeking office in November refused to take the test.

The issues broached include abortion, budget and spending, campaign finance and government reform, crime and public safety, the economy, education, environment and energy concerns, gun rights, health insurance, and social issues like same sex marriage, stem cell research and affirmative action.

Of this year’s five gubernatorial candidates, four refused to take the test — Keith Allred, Democrat; Ted Dunlap, Libertarian; Jana Kemp, Independent; and Butch Otter, Republican.

Neither Walt Minnick, the Democratic candidate for Idaho’s first Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, nor his GOP opponent, Raul Labrador, completed the Political Courage Test. The Libertarian challenger for the same seat, Mike Washburn, refused as well.

John Foster, Minnick’s campaign manager, said the Project Vote Smart survey “seems to be a series of pledges, for the most part,” and as a rule, Minnick does not sign pledges.

“Walt’s positions on issues are very easily defined and quite clear. We don’t have a problem discussing them,”Foster said. “Pledges tend to lock in an elected official without weighing the merits of a bill. Taking a pledge on an issue may prevent an official from voting one way or another.”

Representatives from Labrador’s campaign office did not respond to telephone or e-mail requests to find out why he did not respond.

Both parties’ candidates seeking election to Idaho State House seat 4B, Democrat Paula Marano and Republican Kathy Sims, did not answer the questions during the six-week period.

“What I’ve found most important is to go knock on doors, meet people, and listen to their concerns,” Marano said.

She said she prefers to answer voters’ questions in person, and does so by attending various community events.

“I even went out to a Tea Party,” she said. “I feel I need to get the pulse of that part of the community also.”

Sims told The Press she did not return a completed test by the July 14 deadline, and could not recall receiving it, likely because she was out of town at the time. After being contacted by The Press in early September, Sims accessed one of the tests and returned it to Project Vote Smart.

A representative from Project Vote Smart told The Press they would be updating Sims’ online profile with her answers as soon as possible.

Sims said she doesn’t mind answering questions, although she did not respond to every query on the Project Vote Smart survey, mainly because of the format.

“A yes or no answer isn’t exactly the best way to answer many of these questions,” Sims said.

Among local Idaho State Senate candidates, test refusers include Republicans Joyce Broadsword, Shawn Keough and Steve Vick; Independent candidate Jeremy Boggess, and Raymond Writz, a Constitution Party member.

Boggess, like Sims, had trouble with the simplified question-and-answer format being applied to serious issues like abortion.

“The first question is, ‘Are you pro-choice or pro-life?’ It’s either/or,” Boggess said. “I consider myself pro-discretionary. I don’t think the government should be involved in any way, but it’s not my personal views that count. It’s what the voters think.”

Not a first-time candidate, Boggess said he has completed the Project Vote Smart test in the past, but opted this year to fill out questionnaires that come from within Idaho only, since he’s running for state office.

Rep. Frank Henderson, R-Post Falls, did not respond to Project Vote Smart this year either. Henderson, running unopposed for State House seat 5B, said he believes Project Vote Smart is an informational source voters rarely use, especially in local district elections like his.

“I have never found evidence that anyone in any of my races ever referred to it. I mention it to people, and they say, ‘What’s that?’” Henderson said. “I think I’m so much out in the public, and people know they can just call me, or stop me on the street, or at the post office.”

To counter candidate refusals, Project Vote Smart took another tack this election season.

The organization launched www.VoteEasy.org on Sept. 1. The website pulls together hours of research on each candidate to provide voters with an easy-to-access, interactive tool. Users can tell where candidates stand on issues regardless of whether the candidate has completed a Political Courage Test.

Vicedomini said Project Vote Smart’s volunteers and staffers began the research for the VoteEasy tool a year ago using a variety of sources for each candidate. They gathered information from voting records, bill sponsorships or co-sponsorships, ratings or endorsements from public interest groups, speeches, pledges candidates attached themselves to and letters they wrote to other members of Congress.

The data is now plugged into the VoteEasy website.

“The information is instantly there,” Vicedomini said.

The VoteEasy tool asks voters where they stand on the issues, and matches them up with like-minded candidates in their areas.

People can dig deeper into the website for more information if they want to, Vicedomini said. They can access a candidate’s entire key voting record, get biographical information, see the ratings. They can review a candidate’s full political courage test if it’s available, as well as speeches and position papers.

“You don’t need to know anything about politics to use the site, or you might know everything and want to know more,” Vicedomini said.

Project Vote Smart was officially formed in 1988, operating from 1992 through 2000 from centers located on the campuses of Oregon State University, and Northeastern University in Boston. In those days, before the Internet was widely used, Project Vote Smart’s research was disseminated to the public through a voter telephone hotline.

During the 1992 election, 450 student interns and volunteers received 211,000 calls from citizens. The program continued to grow, running out of space and an available pool of student interns on the college campuses.

Needing room for computers and databases, and a place to bring and house volunteers and student interns from all over the nation, Project Vote Smart acquired 150 rural acres outside Phillipsburg, Mont. Since 1999, the location has been command central for the group’s efforts.

According to the Project Vote Smart website, the majority of those doing the research are unpaid volunteers.

The most recently available IRS documents filed by Project Vote Smart, as a tax-exempt organization, show the group claimed $2 million in annual expenses with $952,701 of those expenses paid in salaries and wages during the fiscal year ending March 31, 2009.

“We are funded entirely by individual contributions (we currently have about 30,000 members who give an average of $45 a year) and foundations that do not have corporate ties,” stated board member Adelaide Kimball in an e-mail to The Press. “In past years Carnegie, Ford, and The Pew Charitable Trusts have been our largest foundation funders. There is no membership fee — our services are free to all. However, we ask people who value our work and information to support it if they can.”

The salaries of Kimball and her husband, Project Vote Smart executive director Richard Kimball, are listed on the IRS documents. Kimball received an annual salary of $68,546 for 40 hours of work per week, and her husband Richard was paid an annual salary of $84,615 for an 80-hour work week during that fiscal year. Kimball lives on the center’s Montana property and oversees volunteer staff and interns residing there while they work.

The tax form discloses that the paid board members are husband and wife.

They were each members of Project Vote Smart’s founding board.

The group does not accept funding from corporations, PACs or any organization that supports or opposes candidates or issues.

The organization’s services are free to all Americans.