U.S. Rep. Harry Mitchell told the crowd at last week’s second-annual Statesmen’s Breakfast in Chandler that he learned the hard way that there are certain topics that are best treated with utmost respect – particularly in Snowflake, Ariz.

The town in the White Mountains was established by Mormon pioneers Erastus Snow and William Flake in 1878, and named after its founders.

Mitchell recalled traveling through the picturesque town a while back and stopping at an ice cream shop, where two girls were working behind the counter. He struck up a conversation with one of them.

“I was being a little flippant and I said, ‘Are you a Flake or a Snow?’ And she said, ‘I think I’m mainly a Flake.’ So there is a proud tradition there!” Mitchell said.

Absolutely. And that tradition extends beyond the White Mountains.

Mitchell shared the stage at the Statesmen’s Breakfast on Friday with one of the ice cream girl’s relatives, U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake, another descendent of William Flake.

In just its second year, the Statesmen’s Breakfast already has become a highlight on the local political calendar because of its bluster-free treatment of important policy matters. My story on the event is available here.

Congress.org’s latest annual Power Rankings of the members of Congress provides some interesting talking points concerning Arizona’s 10 member delegation.

First a little background: The deep thinkers behind the rankings score each member on a number of factors, including position, indirect influence, legislative activity, earmark passage and “sizzle/fizzle.”

Clearly, nearly all of that is subjective. For example, racking up federal expenditures for earmarks is considered a positive factor in the rankings. Congress.org’s deep thinkers associate earmark passage with political influence. Sure, there’s an argument to be made for that.

Of course, other deep thinkers associate earmark passage with self indulgence, wasteful spending and stains on congressional records. So, what of Sen. John McCain, and Reps. Jeff Flake and John Shadegg who specifically don’t request earmarks? The Power Rankings knock their scores for that. 

Furthermore, Democrats get an automatic edge because they comprise the majority party in both the Senate and House and as a result will score higher in the position and legislative activity categories. That’s to be expected.

So with that preamble…

On the Senate side, Congress.org ranked Republicans McCain is 10^th and Jon Kyl 18^th, or second and third overall among Republicans. Interestingly, McCain’s presidential rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barak Obama place ninth and 11^th in the Senate respectively.

Congress.org attributes McCain’s ranking in part to position as a ranking party member of a committee, his frequent media coverage, positive sizzle and for successfully amending bills.

He’s knocked for running for higher office, because doing so allegedly reduces or defuses his power to help current constituents. Other deep thinkers could offer the argument that emerging as his party’s nominee for president may give him a certain amount of added clout, but, of course, it’s Congress.org’s rankings so their deep thinkers get the final word.

Kyl should climb in coming years with the real and perceived power associated with his new No. 2 position in the GOP leadership team.

On the House side, Congress.org ranked Democrat Ed Pastor 84^th; Republican Shadegg 211^th, Democrats Raul Grijalva 246^th, Gabrielle Giffords 277^th and Harry Mitchell 334^th; and Republicans Jeff Flake 372^nd, Trent Franks 387^th and Rick Renzi dead last at 435^th.

Also of note, Renzi was the only member in either the Senate or House to get a negative score.

Jeff Flake

So much for all the talk by U.S. House Republicans about getting back to GOP ideology of limited spending.

The Republican Steering Committee had the chance to appoint pork-buster Jeff Flake to fill a vacant on the Appropriations Committee. Flake had promised to use the insider position to choke off earmarks.

Instead, the Steering Committee appointed Rep. Jo Bonner of Alabama, who made no such promises. Bonner, like most members of both parties, regularly writes legislation to use federal funding for pet projects in his district.

Flake’s appointment was widely supported by taxpayer watchdog groups. Yet, the talk around the Capitol was that Flake would put the Republicans at a competitive disadvantage in reforming the earmark process, because he would have gutted GOP earmarks immediately.

That’s right, Republican leaders were afraid of spending less first. That kind of thinking only makes sense in Washington, D.C.

Then after giving Bonner the appointment, members of Congress adjourned for Presidents’ Day, which for them, requires more than a week.

A report in Tuesday’s edition of Roll Call could be sobering for the Republican challengers seeking to oust Democratic U.S. Reps. Harry Mitchell’s and Gabrielle Giffords in the fall.

Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Congress, reported that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has a huge financial advantage against the National Republican Congressional Committee.

The committees direct political expertise, and more importantly funding, toward selected races nationwide. At least they do that most years.

Roll Call writer Nathan L. Gonzales reported that through 2007, the DCCC had collections of $35.1 million, while the NRCC had $5.4 million.

Gonzales wrote, “Both committees generally give first priority and focus to incumbents, followed by open seats and then challenger races. With a number of vulnerable incumbents and more than two dozen open seats to defend, GOP challengers shouldn’t expect much more than a pat on the back from their campaign committees.”

Using that formula, Arizona’s Republican incumbents Reps. Jeff Flake and Trent Franks will get first-priority funding, though in reality, they won’t need it because they’ll only face token opposition.

The second-priority funding will go to whichever candidates emerge from the GOP primaries for the open seats currently held by outgoing Republican Reps. John Shadegg and Rick Renzi.

The third-priority funding will go to the Republican challengers for Mitchell’s and Giffords seats, which could be competitive. That is, if there’s any funding left.

There must be an intersting backstory to this press release that Jeff Flake released today under the headline “Speaker Pelosi on earmarks.” I’ll try to ask him about it Friday. In the meantime, here’s the entire, unedited, text of the press release. Oh, Nancy Pelosi’s quote was in red in the e-mail version of the press release…

“I myself am personally not a supporter of earmarks.” – Speaker Nancy Pelosi, January 28, 2008 in a conference call with reporters 

“Whew, good thing!  I can’t imagine what this list would look like if Speaker Pelosi actually supported earmarks.” – Congressman Jeff Flake 

Partial List of Speaker Pelosi’s Earmarks for Fiscal Year 2008: 

• $588,000 for the San Francisco Mayor’s Office of Housing for construction of permanent supportive housing for homeless individuals as part of the Mason Street Project in
  San Francisco, California

• $980,000 for Muni-Bus Rehabilitation in
  San Francisco, California

• $1,176,000 for the San Francisco Housing Authority for demolition, planning, design, and construction of mixed-income housing at the Hunters View Housing Project in San Francisco, California

• $490,000 for
  

  Sfgo Market Street

  Improvements in
  San Francisco, California

• $1,470,000 for South Access to
  Golden Gate
  Bridge,
  

  Doyle Drive

  in
  San Francisco, California

• $11,760,000 for the
  

  Third Street

  Light Rail Transit Project-Central in
  San Francisco, California

• $689,000 for the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission for the Lower Mission District in San Francisco, California

• $1,267,000 to the San Francisco Department of Public Health in
  San Francisco, California for enhancements to the HIV/AIDS service delivery system

• $1,462,000 to the San Francisco Department of Public Health in
  San Francisco, California for mental health and substance abuse services for homeless persons in supportive housing

• $243,000 for Envision Schools in San Francisco, California for the Metropolitan Arts and Technology High School, which may include equipment

• $292,000 for the Exploratorium in
  San Francisco, California for its Bay Area Science Teacher Recruitment, Retention, and Improvement Initiative

• $243,000 for the Glide Foundation in
  San Francisco, California for substance abuse services

• $243,000 for Jumpstart for Young Children in
  San Francisco, California for an early childhood enhancement project to provide student mentors to preschool children

• $97,000 to the KIPP Foundation in San Francisco, California for curriculum development and the recruitment and professional development of school leaders, teachers, and administrators

• $243,000 to the Mission Language and Vocational School in
  San Francisco, California for a training program in health related occupations

• $438,000 for San Francisco Medical Center Outpatient Improvement Programs, Inc. in
  San Francisco, California for facilities and equipment

• $1,000,000 for the Department of Emergency Management for the City and

  County of
  San Francisco

• $282,000 to the
  San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, SPUR Urban Center

• $2,000,000 to Ardica Technologies for Advanced Wearable Microcell Power System Process Development

• $2,000,000 to BioQuiddity Inc. for Disposable Unit Dose Drug Pumps for Anesthesia & Antibiotics

• $9,300,000 for Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in
  San Francisco, California

• $2,000,000 to the Prevention Medicine Research Institute for Impact of Intensive Lifestyle Modification on Chronic Medical Conditions

• $4,000,000 to the Neuroscience Center of Excellence at the Northern California Institute for Research and Education for Neuroimaging & Neuropsychiatric Trauma in
  U.S. War-fighters

• $3,200,000 to Prosetta Corporation for Novel Viral Biowarfare Agent Identification and Treatment (NOVBAIT)

• $2,000,000 to Inter-4 for Operator Situational Awareness System – MEDEVAC

• $2,400,000 for

  Port of
  San Francisco Site Investigation and Remedial Action

• $2,000,000 to Presidio Trust for Presidio Main Post

• $2,000,000 to SA Photonics for Satellite Coherent Optical Receiver (SCORE)

• $282,000 for Back on Track, Goodwill Industries of San Francisco, San Mateo & Marin Counties, California

• $1,551,000 for the San Francisco Forensics Services Crime Lab -
  San Francisco, California

• $1,034,000 for the

  San Francisco Community Justice
  Center

• $1,504,000 for Ex-Offender Reentry Services in
  San Francisco, California

• $423,000 for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office Community Response Networks

• $314,900 for the Zero to
  

  Three Court

  Team for Maltreated Infants and Toddlers Project in
  San Francisco, California

Jeff Flake

Arizona Republican Reps. Jeff Flake and John Shadegg voted against the House tax rebate measure Tuesday, despite overwhelming support in the House and President Bush’s push for the policy in his State of the Union Address on Monday.

The remaining six members of Arizona’s delegation in the House supported the economic stimulus package that was approved with a 385-35 vote.

The legislation is designed to provide tax rebates of up to $600 for individual taxpayers with adjusted gross income of $75,000 or less a year, or $1,200 for couples who jointly file and have a combined adjusted gross income of $150,000 or less a year.

The measure also provides tax benefits to businesses, as well as mortgage relief.

“If this package had been a simple rebate to those who have paid taxes, I could support that,” said Flake, who represents Arizona’s 6^th Congressional District, which takes in parts of Mesa and
Chandler, plus Gilbert, Queen Creek and Apache Junction.

“I don’t believe that rebates provide much of a long-term economic stimulus, but taxpayers can certainly spend their money better than Congress can. However, a large number of those receiving rebates do not pay income tax and the Senate is likely to add unrelated spending items to the bill,” Flake said.

 Democrat Rep. Harry Mitchell voted in favor of the measure because, he said,  the economy is a concern.

“Unemployment rates are up in Arizona and we have a record numbers of foreclosures in the Valley,” said Mitchell, who represents the 5^th District, which takes in Scottsdale, Tempe, Fountain Hills, Ahwatukee Foothills and west
Mesa.

“I am disappointed that the package did not include my bill to stop members of Congress from taking yet another pay raise,” he said. “At a time when so many families are worried about making ends meet, I think it is just plain wrong. The American people haven’t gotten a pay raise, why should we?”

Incidently, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, the presidential candidate who is Mitchell’s co-sponsor on the bill to block an automatic Congressional pay raise, parted with Mitchell and voted against the tax rebates.

Shadegg said the federal government doesn’t have the money to pay for the rebates.

“It makes absolutely no sense to me to go give away money we don’t have. These rebates will push us even further into debt to China and Saudi Arabia and impose the burden of this debt on our children and grandchildren,” said Shadegg, who represents the 3^rd District, which includes central and northern Phoenix, plus

Paradise
Valley, Cave Creek and Carefree.

“Temporary rebates will not stimulate economic growth.  The most they’ll do is make politicians feel good,” Shadegg said.

Harry Mitchell, No. 221½.

Democrat Reps. Harry Mitchell and Gabrielle Giffords have established themselves as true moderates during their first six months in the U.S. House, according to an op-ed piece headlined “For Freshmen, Fresh Voting,” by John Fortier, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

In fact, Fortier writes that he was surprised to find that most of the freshman Democrats in the House are voting on the conservative side of their party. “None of the 30 Democrats who replaced Republicans are among the most liberal 20 percent of Congress,” Fortier writes.

Fortier bases his findings on Voteview, a statistical rating compiled by political scientists Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal, who have been in the congressional ranking business for decades. Their latest rankings are based on the House members’ voting records during the first six months of 2007.

Fortier compares the new Democrats’ voting records against their Republican predecessors’ records. “Among the biggest changes, J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., and Chris Chocola, R-Ind., who had voting records among the 10 percent most conservatives, have been replaced by Harry Mitchell, D, and Joe Donnelly, D, respectively, who rank almost exactly in the middle of the 110^th Congress,” Fortier writes.

A little background is in order here. Voteview ranks all 435 members of the House each session, though Poole told me the rankings frequently include more than 435 spots to account for representatives who serve part of their terms, leave office and are replaced by others.

The most liberal representative is assigned the rank of 1. The most conservative representative is assigned the rank of 435, or higher if circumstances dictate. Using that scale, here’s how the
Arizona delegation ranked during the first half of 2007:

Raul Grijalva, Democrat, tied with four others for 26½.

Ed Pastor, Democrat, tied with nine others for 77½.

Gabrielle Giffords, Democrat, 219.

Harry Mitchell, Democrat, tied with one other for 221½.

Rick Renzi, Republican, 261.

Trent Franks, Republican, 426.

John Shadegg, Republican, 432.

Jeff Flake, Republican, 433.

Statistically, the middle of the pack is 217½, so both Giffords and Mitchell fell into the conservative half of both the Democrats and the entire House. Another interesting note is that the latest Voteview rankings only had 434 spots because of ties, so Flake was the second-most conservative at 433, while Shadegg was the third-most conservative at 432. The most conservative spot was held, as it has been for the past several years, by presidential candidate Ron Paul, R-Texas.

Poole told me the rankings are based on an optimal classification algorithm, which I suppose means something to people who know what that means. “It’s one of those things where the reason why it’s not out there more in the mass press … is our method is based upon statistical basis that are not real easy to explain, but are far more precise than all those other ways to measure,” he said.

I’ll take his word for it.

Anyway, Fortier’s piece is available here: www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,publD.27087/pub_detail.asp

The Voteview rankings and more background on the researchers’ optimal classification algorithm are available here: www.voteview.com

Jeff Flake (Courtsey Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce/Vermillion Photography)

Rep. Jeff Flake, who grew up on a ranch in Snowflake, is duded up in blue jeans on the cover of the November issue of Impact Magazine, a publication of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce. The headline: “Maverick: Arizonan Jeff Flake is a Different Voice in D.C.”

Hey, it wasn’t that long ago that another politician from Arizona had exclusive personal rights to the “Maverick” treatment. Yep, there’s a new maverick in town, pardner.

Anyway, reporter David Lucas writes, “As with most of the native Arizonans (Flake) represents, he has a streak of independence that is manifested in his voting record. On votes for fiscal policy considered beneficial to taxpayers, he has been ranked number one out of 435 members of the House of Representatives for the past three years by the National Taxpayers Union.”

Lucas also writes about Flake’s campaign against earmarks and notes that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has given Flake a 67 percent pro-business rating.

Jeff Flake

A reader named Mark asked a reasonable question concerning my story today about the sabotage of an online poll about the potential Jeff Flake-Russel Pearce congressional race. The story was headlined “Results are in; online poll doesn’t add up.”

The story can be accessed here: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/97050

Question: “I fail to see how this is even remotely newsworthy. Covering online polls?? If you were to believe some of these so-called online polls, Ron Paul would be a shoo-in for president. Janet Napolitano would have had no chance at getting reelected last year, and Sen. Jon Kyl is in real danger of being recalled. A poll from GOPUSA?? Come on!”

Answer: Mark is correct in that online polls are garbage. That was explained by legitimate pollster Mike O’Neil within today’s story. Heck, the results of the online poll weren’t even included in the story.

But the story really wasn’t about the GOP news site poll. It was about how Pearce and someone apparently aligned with Flake tampered with it.

Pearce admitted to me that he sent an e-mail to supporters telling them how to manipulate the poll to favor him. Then three hours later, he said, he sent another e-mail asking his supporters to ignore the poll. Meanwhile, Flake’s spokesmen Matthew Specht and Mike Haller told me they encouraged Flake’s supporters to vote in the poll, but they denied knowledge of who hacked it to favor Flake.

Integrity and honesty are going to be key themes of a potential Flake-Pearce race. Pearce challenged Flake on those points when he announced that he was forming an exploratory committee as he considers running. Specifically, he said Flake has been less than honest in discussing immigration. Those are strong words for the opening interview of a congressional race.

That’s what makes the story newsworthy. Thanks for asking.

Jeff FlakeSome of the best parts of my recent interview with Rep. Jeff Flake at Macayo