JOSEPH N. BELL -- The Bell Curve

Those of us who write for the Daily Pilot have one cardinal rule pasted

to our foreheads: Keep It Local.

That’s what reporter Alex Coolman was doing when the results of a study

titled “Congressional Scorecard 2000” -- released by an organization

called the U.S. Public Interest Research Group -- crossed his desk.

Like any good reporter, he looked up our two local congressmen,

Christopher Cox and Dana Rohrabacher, and found they scored very badly on

20 pieces of legislation deemed matters of public interest by PIRG.

Well, from the reaction to that story, you could only conclude that the

Pilot had gone straight to Karl Marx -- or maybe Fidel Castro -- for its

authority.

The complaints, which ranged from the outrage of Gil Ferguson to the

scalpel of Congressman Cox, took two principal directions. First, that

the Pilot had erred by not identifying the source of the study as a

“left-wing” group, and second, that “public interest” was not properly

defined.

So let’s have a look at both of these charges -- especially since

Ferguson called the Pilot story “one of the most irresponsible, unethical

pieces of reporting that I have ever seen,” which should surely qualify

him for the overstatement of the new millennium.

Perhaps the favorite ploy of politicians who have been nicked and are

bleeding a little is to attack the messenger, thus diverting attention of

the reading public from the substance of a story to the performance of

the publication printing it.

Cox, in his letter, said he was “surprised at the Pilot’s willingness to

uncritically parrot this obscure group’s press release.” Ignore the split

infinitive and note all the wonderfully loaded words in this single

sentence: “willingness,” “uncritically parrot,” “obscure,” “press

release.”

The “press release” was a full-blown, lengthy study. It wasn’t

“uncritically parroted,” it was reported. And this “obscure group”

presently has 350,000 members (60,000 in California) and is growing

steadily.

If you want to check out the Public Interest Research Group, you can go

to o7 https://www.pirg.orgf7 and do your own research.

Among other things, you’ll find that the idea for such an organization

was first put forth 25 years ago by that old lefty, Ralph Nader, whose

original intent was to create more public interest advocates among the

citizenry.

The idea grew state by state and now there are 19 independent state

organizations (no longer connected to Nader) and a national lobbying

office in Washington, D.C.

By far the largest source of funding is individual citizen contributions

in support of a bipartisan organization to keep citizens informed about

how their elected officials vote on an array of public-interest issues.

In lobbying for legislation designed to preserve the environment and

protect consumers, PIRG has worked with many conservative groups. Just

recently, for example, it teamed up with Heritage Foundation and Concord

Coalition on ending taxpayer subsidies to polluting industries.

But we’ve already spent too much time on the messenger. It’s the validity

of the information that should primarily be weighed, not its source. So

here are some of the issues on which both Cox and Rohrabacher voted “no”

in the 106th Congress.

* A “Defense of the Environment Amendment” that would have prevented

Congress from rolling back environmental laws without an open debate and

public accountability;

* A motion to prevent attaching such anti-environmental provisions as

toxic waste dumping and overgrazing on public land to unrelated

legislation for funding national parks;

* An amendment to the Interior Appropriations Bill that would have cut

$23 million from the timber subsidy and shifted it to fish and wildlife

habitat and watershed restoration;

* A broadly bipartisan, pro-consumer managed-care reform bill ensuring

that physician decisions prevail over health plan objections if upheld by

external review;

* Another bipartisan bill enacting modest reforms in campaign financing

that would prevent very wealthy donors from giving unregulated and

unlimited “soft money” contributions to political parties and other

groups seeking to influence election outcomes.

Once again, according to the PIRG research, both Cox and Rohrabacher

voted against all of these reforms -- votes they haven’t denied in any of

their heated complaints about this story. (If you want to see the entire

list of 20 issues -- with considerable more detail -- you can call the

PIRG California headquarters at (916) 448-4516).

It puzzles me why Cox and Rohrabacher are so distressed at these

revelations.

Do they consider their voting records above critical examination? These

votes presumably reflect their convictions, and their constituents have

every right to this information. Shouldn’t the congressmen be ready --

even eager -- to defend those convictions?

Instead, they irrelevantly list all the conservative lobby groups that

give them high scores and make general -- and mostly unsupportable --

charges about PIRG.

For example, Cox’s assertion that PIRG is “opposed to free enterprise and

small business” can be refuted simply by going to PIRG’s Web site, where

its strong opposition to mergers that stifle competition and its “green

scissors” program in partnership with conservative taxpayer groups seem

rather clearly to promote both free enterprise and small business.

But don’t take anyone else’s word. Go there and have a look for yourself.

Then, if you’re uneasy about some of the positions your representative in

Congress is taking -- as reflected above -- write or call him.

Don’t let him off the hook by talking about a liberal conspiracy.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column appears

Thursdays.