Don Young Touts Phony “Most Effective” Rating

Amid the flurry of political ads this fall – mostly for Alaska’s hotly-contested federal races – one really stands out for anyone who’s more than an election season quarterback. And it is this: “Don Young was recently rated the most effective member of Congress.” Sorry if I made you spit your coffee.

So, how does one achieve this coveted “most effective” rating when, like Don Young, one has not even passed one single bill last session, and barely managed to squeak one by in only the House? Good question. Apparently the measuring stick for this phony rating is that you “co-sponsor” a bill, which is the legislative equivalent of raising your hand and getting your name slapped on a bill that already exists because someone else worked on it, and wrote it, and you just said “Yeah, put my name on that thing too!” It doesn’t require effort, it doesn’t make the bill more likely to pass. The only thing it does do, apparently, is get you the phony rating of “most effective.”

Don Young won’t tell you that the other “most effective” member of Congress on the Democratic side is the Representative for Washington D.C., who doesn’t even get full voting privileges because DC isn’t a state. But that’s a story for another day.

The bottom line is that any real power Don Young had, however many decades ago he had it, is long gone. And all he’s got is a rating that means nothing. We’ll see if Alaskans fall for the story, or if they finally send him packing after nearly half a century, and put Independent challenger Alyse Galvin in the seat. Then Alaskans can see what being effective really looks like.

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