Lawmaker effectiveness is something that never seems to be measured in New Zealand although I’m not sure why. It certainly is something that is measured regularly in the USA.
The Center for Effective Lawmaking, based at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, is a non-partisan group tasked with cutting through the hype to find the truth of whether their elected representatives are making any sort of a difference, or whether they are merely taking up space and time.
A recent study of the group lists New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as almost the worst on the list of useless lawmakers, coming in 230th out of only 240, naming her as among the “least effective members of the last Congress”.
“Ocasio-Cortez introduced a total of 21 bills that the center defined as ‘substantive’ — but that is where the story ends,” the outlet reported. “Her legislation received no action in committees, no floor votes, and none ever became law, according to the center, which takes its data from Congress.gov.”
The Blaze
Gosh, it seems that AOC is all mouth and no trousers.
She introduced a lot of bills, but she was not successful at having them receive any sort of action in committee or beyond committee, and if they can’t get through committee, they cannot pass the House.”
Alan Wiseman, Vanderbilt University political scientist and co-director of The Center for Effective Lawmaking.
Sounds a lot like a Labour Government to me. I realise that we have a plethora of useless politicians to pick from with this, our most lack-lustre parliament since, well actually, probably since the beginning, but I wonder who would top our list of ‘Least Effective’?
There are certainly a few hopeless seat warmers on the conservative side of the chamber but I guess one must cut them a little slack at the moment as far as lawmaking goes as they just can’t get a look-in given the huge majority that the Reds have.
So how about on the Socialist side? So much choice, I hardly know where to start.
There are people like Grant Robertson, Andrew Little and our less than esteemed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who although distinctly unlikeable, do occasionally get things done, albeit usually either destroying something or sneakily ramming law through under urgency, hidden in the middle of other articles so us plebs are likely to miss it.
Even the ‘Nanaiapotamus’, the illustrious Ms Mahuta, has managed to wobble away from the trough for long enough to slide one particularly murky piece of anti-democratic, pro-Maori law through.
But when it comes to to utter ineptitude, we still have so many to choose from. Would our ‘Most Useless Member’ perhaps be Kelvin Davis? I can’t recall a single thing that he has done in the last four years other than break his promise to resign, go into hiding or blather on in Te Gibberous so no one has the faintest idea what he is talking about.
Or could the King of Uselessness be Phil Twyford? He has certainly had a crack at doing stuff, but he is so useless at getting things done, he is eventually quietly moved on with all targets re-set to zero.
Of course, we would have to take a long hard look at The Minister for Pies, Megan Woods, as a major candidate as she seems to get the job of trying to clean up Twyford’s messes, only to have no more success herself.
Maybe it could be someone who is less in our face now that she isn’t really in the government anymore, the ever-ignorant and useless Julie-Anne Genter, who was extremely good at believing she knew best when she was part of the last government but is thankfully much quieter now. It was indeed a shame to see her grinning American gob down in Queenstown recently telling everyone there how to park, but at least she was sticking with her area of expertise. She did manage to kill off much of the Auckland CBD traffic while she reigned so I guess she couldn’t really get the gong.
Maybe ‘El-Woko-Loco‘, old Ricardo Two Fathers, could be the one? He has been supping at the Green Party trough for quite a few months now and he certainly hasn’t done a single thing other than bunk off overseas for months while pretending it was to tend to his dear dying Dad when it was really to bring home his toy-boy. Other than that and sniping about White Supremacists and racists, I guess ‘nada’ is about all he’s done.
Actually, the entire Green list could probably be heading our ‘Biggest Waste of Space’ award as from memory, the only person to actually announce anything this year was the Head ‘Gunt’ herself, Marama Davidson. After being outed for having done a big fat nothing since she’s been in parliament, she was surreptitiously given a sly $4million to give away to gay homeless penguins or something equally useless. Although to be fair, she did try very hard to reclaim the ‘C’ word. Still not sure why though.
Surely though, our most useless MP award would have to go to the one who is also (in my personal opinion), the most obnoxious, most pointless, most despised: Golriz Ghahraman. I honestly can’t think of a single positive thing she has done either.
The fact that she looks quite a lot like a Kiwi version of America’s Most Useless, Alexandria Ocazio-Cortez doesn’t hurt either. They both have that ‘pretty to some’ look which is let down by the dead eyes and bewildered gaze. It’s almost like they can hear the snakes in their heads but can’t figure out where the hissing is coming from. As an un-named ‘Democratic House Insider’ in the report above mentioned, “Tweeting is easy, governing is hard.“
But what do you good folk think? Who have we missed? There are so many to choose from so please feel free to include any further nominations in the comment section below. #bekind!
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