Category: Lauren Smith
Women Set New Records in Congress
WOMEN11.8
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
11/8/06
WASHINGTON, Nov. 8 —Tuesday’s elections produced historic gains for women in Congress, in both the House and the Senate.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is likely to become the nation’s first female Speaker of the House as the Democrats gained more than the 15 seats they needed to take the majority, and the number of women in the House and the Senate will rise to record highs.
“When I hear President Bush reach out to Nancy Pelosi, I think that is the ultimate achievement of last night’s victory,” said Ellen Malcolm, founder and president of EMILY’s List, a political action committee committed to recruiting and contributing money to pro-abortion rights women candidates.
The number of female senators will increase to 16, with Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) joining the ranks. Outstanding races in the House make it hard to predict exact numbers, but analysts predict a net gain of two or three women.
“It’s an issue of fairness,” said Barbara Palmer, assistant professor and affiliate faculty with the Women and Politics Institute at American University. “The fact is that women make up 50 percent of the population, but we’re not even close to that when it comes to our representation in Congress.”
But Maine has long been an example of female leadership.
The late Margaret Chase Smith (R-Maine) was the first woman to serve in both the House and the Senate, as well as the first woman elected to the Senate without first having been elected or appointed to fill a vacant Senate seat, according to the Congressional Research Service.. Smith’s 24 years of Senate service is still a record for a woman.
Today, Maine is (along with California) one of two states whose senators are both women. In the 109th Congress, Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) both hold chairmanships, the only time two women members from the same state have chaired Senate committees.
“The increased number of women serving in both the House and the Senate as well as succeeding in national politics is clearly a sign of progress, and I believe we will continue to see more of it in the future,” Snowe said. “The entire nation benefits when intelligent, dedicated women choose to serve their country as public servants.”
Malcolm also praised the women elected Tuesday as governors. “They clearly have shown that women know how to find consensus, know how to be tough when it’s necessary, but know how to make government work,” she said.
Palmer pointed to research that shows how women change the agenda. For example, in the early 1990s when there was a large influx of women into Congress, they were able to get former President Bush to sign the Family and Medical Leave Act as well as provide more money for breast cancer research, she said.
“Women don’t vote differently than their male counterparts,” she said. “But different things get talked about.”
There are 86 countries in the world that have more female representation in their parliaments than the United States, Palmer said. But she remains optimistic.
“There is clearly a role model effect here,” she said. “Nancy Pelosi becoming speaker will have a huge impact. That visual is really important.”
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Maine Representatives Have Little Power, Ranking Says
Congress.org
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
11/1/06
WASHINGTON, Nov 1 – A ranking of the most powerful and effective members of Congress has placed Maine Democratic Reps. Michael Michaud and Thomas Allen in the bottom 10 percent of the House.
Allen placed 397th and Michaud 414th, out of 437, according to Congress.org, a non-partisan service of Capitol Advantage, a company that specializes in facilitating civic participation. The rankings, announced Monday, were based on 20 criteria that demonstrated power and the ability to be effective in Congress, according to the Web site of Congress.org.
But the Maine lawmakers’ low rankings could change next week if the Democrats gain the 15 seats they need to take control the House.
If that happens, Michaud would be bumped up 101 places and Allen would skyrocket 215 places, reported Congress.org.
“The primary consideration has to be whether you’re in the majority or not, so after Nov. 7, I expect to be in the majority, and that would be a big leap,” Allen said.
The Maine representatives’ weak rankings are a result of a number of factors. The number of years in Congress drives assignment to key committees and eventually status as chairperson or senior minority member. Michaud, although the senior Democrat on the Health subcommittee of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, is only in his second term.
Both representatives also have low rankings because of their party’s minority status.
“Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-NY) {who rank at the top of the House list] are very powerful people,” Allen said. “But what they’ve done with that power is to help the pharmaceutical industry, the insurance industry, the oil industry, and the coal industry take in billions of dollars. They haven’t served the interests of middle-income Americans.”
The rankings were created by a team of academic experts and congressional staff that sifted through thousands of media articles and amendments and hundreds of bills and campaign contributions, according to the Web site of Congress.org.
The team created a “Sizzle/Fizzle” factor that accounts for variables that are harder to measure, such as a legislator’s unique background (Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.), newfound popularity (Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.) or diminished power due to scandal (Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio).
The ranking did not take into account members' ability to steer federal funds to their states through the appropriations process (also known as earmarking), their effectiveness in assisting constituents in their states and districts, or their visibility in their home states. While these variables are crucial to members’ reelection and important to their constituents, they are hard to measure and rarely contribute to power in the House or Senate, according to Congress.org.
“If they ignore helping your constituents and getting money for the state, it’s clearly lopped off a significant part of the job of being a congressman,” Allen said.
Michaud was traveling and unavailable for comment, but his press secretary, Monica Castellanos, agreed with Allen, pointing to the transportation reauthorization bill that provided $48 million for Maine’s 2nd.
In the 100-member Senate, Maine’s Sen. Susan Collins ranked 42nd, while senior Sen. Olympia J. Snowe was positioned 14 places behind her in 56th.
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Facebook Engages Young Voters
FACEBOOK
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
10/26/06
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26--Justin Hunt likes to play rugby and go to toga parties. The 18-year-old Yarmouth resident listens to the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Neil Young and other bands famous before he was born. Like many college freshmen since 1951, one of his favorite books is “Catcher in the Rye.”
Like most of his fellow college students, Hunt logs onto Facebook, a social networking Web site, each day. But instead of messaging friends, he’s scanning political candidates’ profiles.
In the 11th hour before next month’s elections, Web sites like Facebook are trying to engage the elusive 41.9 million eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 29.
Facebook was founded only two years ago with the aim of connecting people through social networks. Now, the site has more than 9.5 million registered users in over 40,000 geographic, work-related, collegiate and high school networks.
The site launched its “Election 2006 network” on Sept.1, and has put on line 1,400 profiles of candidates and other members of Congress. A few weeks later it started “Election Pulse,” a page that ranks candidates and tallies top campaign issues by how many supporters each has.
“Election 2006 was started to give younger voters a voice,” Brandee Barker, a Facebook spokeswoman, said. “They are very active with their opinions on the site.”
Already more than a million users are engaged in campaign issue groups or in supporting candidates, she said.
Hunt, for example, is a member of “Snowe for Senate 2006” and “Woodcock Block,” groups that rally around political views in support of or in opposition to political candidates.
“I think that Facebook works very well for getting the word out to younger voters,” Hunt said. “I believe it can provide a solid definition of certain issues to people who
would otherwise never know if they didn't surf Facebook for hours on end.”
On each candidate page, people can post messages for visitors to read. While some messages are humorous--one person posted “Greek Pride!” on the page devoted to Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (RMaine)--most are political analyses of issues.
Hunt posted a message on the Snowe page after he read a statement he considered to be untrue. A heated debate between two Snowe supporters ensued.
“Online discussion can often get quite heated, and [Facebook] allows people to post links
and use resources to show information that supports their arguments,” Hunt said. “This
often allows already decided voters to see new information they hadn't considered” and which might lead them to change their minds.
Hunt said that if he hadn’t been interested in politics and current events in the first place, he doubted he would ever have glanced at Election Pulse.
That is where Rock the Vote stepped in.
A non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to building political power for young people, Rock the Vote joined forces with Facebook early October in an attempt to spread political awareness and register voters. Already, the organization has registered 2,300 young people to vote through Facebook, and 12,500 Facebook members have joined Rock the Vote, said Hans Riemer, political director of Rock the Vote.
“Young people are taking over and building a lot of community on the Internet—that’s a space where politics can come alive,” Riemer said. “Information can be shared much more easily and issues can be discussed much more readily, and I think it’s going to have a huge impact over time.”
This year’s elections follow a presidential contest that witnessed the highest level of participation by young voters in more than a decade, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, an organization that conducts research on political engagement of young Americans.
In Maine, 59 percent of 18-29-year-olds turned out to vote in the 2004 presidential elections, up eight percent from 2000, according to the center. Maine ranked 5th overall in turnout among that age bracket.
“States that have same-day voter registration, like Maine, have a much higher voting turnout,” Riemer said. “And millions of kids across the country would vote if they had those laws.”
But it would be a mistake to compare this year’s voter turnout to 2004’s since presidential elections draw more voters. Instead, the closer comparison would be to the 2002 midterm elections, and even to 1994, the last time midterm elections followed a surge in youth voting in a presidential election.
While the general trend in national voter turnout among young people during midterm elections was down between 1982 and 2002, the center reported, Maine’s turnout has been on an upward swing. In 2002, voter turnout among young people in Maine was higher than national youth voter turnout by 9 percentage points.
Not many young people vote in off-year elections, which are usually dominated by hard-core partisans, Riemer said.
But with so many tightly contested House and Senate seats this year, young voters could have an enormous impact on the outcome.
“I think that young people are going to have a huge impact on this election because they are going to be voting two to one Democratic,” he said. “In terms of how young people can make a difference, if they really turn out two to one Democratic, they’ll probably throw a lot of elections” to Democratic candidates.
Facebook is not the only mainstream Web site where profiles and information about candidates are displayed for young voters to browse. MySpace, a similar social networking site, and YouTube, a site where anyone can display home videos, are loaded with political information and arguments.
“What’s happening with a lot of our kids who are interested in politics is they’re going not just to Facebook, but to YouTube and others, and seeing things that I don’t see,” said L. Sandy Maisel, director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement at Colby College.
Anyone with an email address can sign up for a MySpace or Facebook account, just like anyone with a home video can upload it on YouTube. While tighter restrictions on Facebook allow its members to see only the profiles of their friends and people in their networks, unlike MySpace, it still leaves room for the creation of mock profiles.
“We monitor the site closely for fake profiles and various things in violation of our terms of use,” Barker said. “If we determine that a profile is fake, it will be terminated.”
Placing politics in a loosely monitored environment can have negative consequences, Maisel said. Fake profiles and satirical campaign commercials, for example, can do harm.
Thus a search of YouTube for information on Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass) would turn up not only a video clip that Kennedy produced and uploaded about his stance on Internet neutrality but also a sing-along clip that features a drunken Kennedy as a Chappaquiddick lifeguard.
“Some of the stuff you see on YouTube is material that nobody would dare put out anywhere else” Maisel said. “Some of it’s scandalous, and it’s all unfiltered, and a lot of it’s unaccountable. The federal disclaimers which are necessary on mass media advertising are not necessary there. It’s negative to the democratic process.”
Similarly, political television programs aimed at younger viewers can also cross lines. “I think [Comedy Central’s Stephen] Colbert really is totally cynical,” Maisel said. “I think the Daily Show is in fact quite informative, and I think viewers see the difference between the two.”
The Internet, Maisel said, is “a pull technology, not a push technology. So you have to have somebody who is interested to go there in the first place.”
The interest may be there. A debate between Snowe and her Senate challengers at Colby College on Oct. 22 had a surprisingly large student turnout, Maisel said; he estimated that out of 350 people who attended, 250 were students.
A gubernatorial debate is scheduled for Thursday.
“In 2004 there were 21 million young people ages 18 to 30 who voted,” Riemer said. “It was one of the biggest turnouts ever. If a lot of them came back to the polls they could swing the election.”
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New Border Crossing Rules Cause Confusion, Distress
Border
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
10/24/06
WASHINGTON, Oct. 24--New identification rules for crossing the United States-Canada border are causing confusion and distress among local and state officials and business owners.
At issue is a 2004 law that required the Department of Homeland Security and Department of State to develop a plan for all travelers -- U.S. citizens and foreigners alike -- to present a passport, or other citizenship document, when entering the United States.
The law drew a border state protest that has federal officials scrambling to accommodate frequent border-crossers and locals confused about when the tough new standards will go into effect.
“On the emotional level, it’s almost like having the Berlin Wall,” Linda Pagels, Calais city manager, said. “I know it’s nowhere near as bad, but it’s that kind of feeling.”
Members of Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-Maine) staff planned to make themselves available Wednesday to discuss border issues at Bernardini’s Restaurant, in Calais, where citizens from both sides of the border will voice their concerns about border crossing regulations.
The new system did not adequately address the needs of border states, such as Maine, where frequent travel across the border is crucial, according to Collins, who chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. She introduced changes to the Homeland Security Department’s funding bill that delays implementation of the program, originally set to begin in January 2008, providing time for the department to develop alternative forms of identification.
The tougher rules must now be in effect no later than June, 2009. However, the rules could go into effect earlier. If the federal departments finalize the details of the new IDs before that time, the rules would then take effect three months after that action.
The departments have broadly agreed on a “Passport Card,” or PASS Card. The credit card-sized identification would include the bearer’s image, full name, date and place of birth, passport card number, dates of validity and issuing authority, and fit easily into a wallet, according to the Bureau of Consular Affairs in the U.S. Department of State. Compared to a passport, which can cost upwards of $100, the PASS Card would cost significantly less, possibly around $45, although exact prices have not been made official yet.
But the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security must still agree on a number of different details, said Wendell M. Hannaford, senior policy analyst for the Eastern Regional Conference of the Council of State Governments. These include criteria such as the cost of the card, the way of dealing with school busses of children crossing the border, and the technology used in the card.
“It does not seem likely to me that they’re going to meet all of those criteria before the deadline,” Hannaford said. “So in effect, the June (2009) deadline is when it will probably become effective.”
The confusion of when and how the new identification requirements will take hold is causing distress in border cities, like Calais, where people cross the border to go to work, see a movie and buy groceries.
“People are just taking it personally because most of the times when people cross that border they’re doing personal business, and they’re being stopped in the process of doing something personal,” Pagels said.
Canadian Bill Francis has owned a gift store and year-round Christmas shop in Calais for 20 years, crossing the border every day to get to work. Not only has he seen a drop in the number of tour operators crossing the border, but he has also talked to many Canadians who feel unwelcome to the United States with the coming changes.
“It’s not a one-way street here,” he said. “I’ve talked to a lot of tour operators out of Halifax and Detroit, and all of a sudden they won’t think about crossing the border. It’s too much of a hassle.”
Francis has been in contact with Collins about the new border requirements for more than a year now. He said he believes the new plan makes a lot of sense.
“People who aren’t on the border don’t even think about it,” he said, referring to the way people who live in a border city live. “We know that it’s got to be an open border.”
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Congressional Incumbents Have Money Advantage
FECBangor
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
10/18/06
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 – Two years ago, 98 percent of House incumbents seeking reelection and 96 percent of Senate incumbents seeking reelection won. Their victories were largely due to financial advantages that incumbents have, according to political finance experts.
“It takes money to get elected,” said Massie Ritsch, communications director at the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization based in Washington that tracks money in politics and the effect of money on elections and public policy. “If you don’t have money, you stand a very small chance in coming to Washington.”
In Maine this year the disparity between the amount of money raised by members of Congress up for re-election and the amount raised by their challengers is glaring.
According to the latest campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Democratic Reps. Michael Michaud and Tom Allen and Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, who are all up for re-election, have raised significantly more money, and had considerably more cash in the bank, than their challengers going into the final weeks before the election.
“In 2004, if you raised any less than $1 million, you had zero chance in winning,” Ritsch said. “I would expect the threshold to be higher this election.”
As of Sept. 30, the most recent campaign finance filing deadline, Michaud had raised $658,342 for the 2006 race and spent $424,793 on such things as campaign consultants, fundraising, and contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Maine Democratic Party. He had $232,025 in his campaign account while his Republican challenger, L. Scott D’Amboise, has only $7,841 in the bank.
“Donors are looking for candidates that are going to win and that they think are going to be in Washington in the upcoming session, and that tends to be where they invest their dollars,” said Richard Powell, political science professor and director of the Maine Congressional Internship Program at the University of Maine in Orono.
In the same fashion, Allen raised $835,716, spent $555,873, and still had $379,423 left. His two competitors, Republican Darlene Curley and Independent Dexter Kamilewicz, had only $32,037 and $15,504 respectively.
Ritsch said of Maine’s House members: “Compared to the other incumbents, their fundraising is probably lower. But they don’t have any real competition.”
According to her campaign’s filing with the Federal Election Commission, Snowe raised more than $3.2 million for the 2006 election cycle, and still had $1,674,520 left for the last weeks of the campaign. Her strongest challenger, Democrat Jean Hay Bright, raised only $43,118, out of which $119 remained at the end of September.
“Snowe is a well-known, well-liked senator who has millions of dollars, who raised millions of dollars, and it’s hard for anyone to compete with that,” Ritsch said.
The two biggest sources of contributions for most members of Congress are political action committees, specifically those from business interests, and large donations from individuals.
Democrats also tend to get a substantial amount from labor union PACs. In 2004, labor unions gave $55.4 million to candidates, 89 percent of which went to Democratic candidates, according the center’s Web site, www.opensecrets.org.
This is especially true for Michaud, who before becoming a congressman was a union-card carrying paper mill worker for three decades. PAC contributions account for 68.4 percent of Michaud’s source of funds, and nearly 50 percent of that PAC money is from labor unions, according to opensecrets.org. In addition, the top four industry groups contributing to Michaud are transportation unions, public sector unions, building trade unions and industrial unions, totaling $171, 500.
In Snowe’s case however, individual contributions account for 57 percent of her campaign fundraising, totaling more than $2 million, according to opensecrets.org.
Candidates for the House of Representatives generally get the majority of their campaign dollars from donors within their home state, Ritsch said. Michaud’s campaign is 79 percent funded through Maine contributions, whereas D’Amboise is totally dependent on in-state donations, according to opensecrets.org.
Incumbents tend to get more out-of-state money than challengers because their status as a member of Congress makes them more well-known. Challengers are rarely known outside their state, so their ability to raise funds beyond their district is limited, Ritsch said. Snowe, for example, gets 71.2 percent of her fundraising from out-of-state.
“In most every race incumbents have a significant financial advantage,” Powell said. “They are tied into resources and networks in a much greater sense. Donators prefer to donate to campaigns they think will win.”
Incumbents have the added advantage of drawing money from Washington-area donors. Snowe got more money from the capital area than anywhere else, receiving $225,033. Donors from Washington rank second for Michaud, providing $12,250. Citizens from Bangor rank third for Michaud, contributing $11,800, and rank second for D’Ambroise’s campaign, donating $500.
Total contributions from Portland citizens topped the charts in both Michaud’s and D’Amboise’s campaigns, providing $33,800 and $2,100 respectively.
In 2006, incumbent senators running for reelection have raised an average of $9.3 million, while their challengers have raised an average of $1.2 million, Ritsch said. On the House side, the average for incumbents is $1.1 million while for challengers it is only $224,000.
Maine candidates have shown the ability to raise large sums of money, Powell said, referring to the 2002 election when Michaud and Kevin Raye both raised more than a million dollars in their campaign for an open House seat.
“But challengers in Maine are going to have a hard time when they’re facing an incumbent in a strong position,” Powell said.
“Money almost always wins,” said Ritsch. “Incumbents almost always win.”
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New Air Force Memorial Built by Pittsfield Company
CIANBRO
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
10/18/2006
WASHINGTON, Oct. 18-- Three stainless steel spires soar hundreds of feet into the air and arc slightly backwards, mimicking the “bomb burst” maneuver the Air Force Thunderbirds perform. Embedded in granite beneath the spires is the Air Force star.
Before last Saturday, the Air Force was the only branch of service without a memorial in the Washington area. But now, the Air Force Memorial bursts onto the capital’s skyline with help from Pittsfield-based Cianbro Corp., which constructed the concrete foundation and the mammoth spires.
“We are honored to have the opportunity to memorialize the men and women of the Air Force for their service to our nation,” Pete Vigue, Cianbro’s president, said in a statement. “This magnificent structure is a deserving tribute to their selfless commitment to our country.”
Cianbro is one of the East Coast’s largest civil and heavy industrial construction companies and one of the nation’s most diversified building companies, with gross annual sales in excess of $300 million.
It took Cianbro more than a year to construct the spires and lay the foundation, but today, the memorial sits on a promontory above Arlington National Cemetery, overlooking the Pentagon and the Potomac River. It was dedicated on Saturday before a crowd of 30,000, and with President Bush, among others, speaking.
The memorial honors the millions of men and women who have been and will be part of the Air Force, and some 54,000 who were killed in action while serving in the Air Force, whether in the active force, the Air National Guard or the reserves.
The three spires not only represent flight and the flying spirit of the Air Force, but also its stated core values – “integrity first, service before self and excellence in all that is done.”.
“We’re very proud to have been able to work on it,” Tim C. Walton, director of external affairs for Cianbro, said. “It was a great project.”
The foundation took five months to set, from April 2005 to September 2005, and includes 3,000 cubic yards of concrete. The construction of the spires took seven months, from February until last month, and used 500 tons of reinforcing steel and 350 tons of stainless steel. Each spire is a different height, the tallest reaching 270 feet into the air.
Other elements of the memorial include a bronze Honor Guard statue, two granite inscription walls and a contemplation wall. The Honor Guard statue depicts four eight-foot tall airmen, representing men and women who have served, are currently serving, and will serve in the future. The inscription walls are at either end of the central lawn, one honoring the values and accomplishments of the Air Force and the other representing the valor and sacrifices of Air Force members. The inscribed glass contemplation wall is meant to provoke thought and remembrance for those who have died.
“It is a memorial that generations will be able to visit and be proud of,” Walton said. “And certainly we at Cianbro are very proud to have been able to work on a project like that.”
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Page Program Overshadowed by Scandal
Page
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
10/11/06
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11-- The congressional page program has been thrust into the public view since Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.) resigned after sexually explicit e-mail and online messaging conversations with an underage male former page were made public almost two weeks ago.
The lewd conversations have been published, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is in the midst of questioning former pages, and a hotline number has been set up to handle any concerns from pages and parents. All the while, the prestigious, 177-year old program remains caught in the middle of an ugly situation.
“It gives the program a bad reputation,” said Bangor native Laura Aube, a former page. “It disappoints me that the only reason people know about the page program is because of this.”
The17-year-old senior at Bangor High School served as a page this past summer sponsored by Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine). Along with other pages in the House and Senate, Aube acted as a messenger, delivering copies of bills, amendments and other documents between offices.
“I can easily say it was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done and I hope people realize the importance of it,” she said in a telephone interview.
Sen. Daniel Webster appointed the first Senate page in 1829. Becoming a page today involves a highly competitive application process that begins with being nominated by a member of Congress. A page, who must be at least 16 years old and a high school junior, serves for a semester of a school year or for a month in the summer.
While pages serve primarily as messengers, they also prepare the House and Senate chamber each day by setting out the day’s bills and filling water glasses, among other duties, help in the cloakroom, and when Congress is in session they assist members on the floor.
Pages live in dorms only a few blocks from the Capitol. They are expected to be in their respective offices 45 minutes before the House and Senate go into session, and do not leave until the chamber adjourns, which, depending on the time of year, can sometimes mean past midnight. Pages who serve during an academic semester also take classes before each work day begins.
“It is intense,” Aube said of the program. “You come back a different person than when you went in. You learn so much about responsibility and politics.”
Having access to places only senators and staff can go provided an unusual experience, she said. “Now, if there’s an article in the paper or a story on the news, I know who they’re talking about and what’s going on,” she added.
But the page program is now in the spotlight, intertwined with Foley’s scandalous communications with underage House pages.
Aube said the issue of Foley or other members being overly friendly was never raised, and that she didn’t know of anyone in a similar situation. “We had heard some gossip that in the 1980s there was a scandal involving a House page, but no one knew anything for sure,” she said, presumably referring to the 1983 scandal in which Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Gerry Studds and Illinois Republican Rep. Dan Crane were censured for having sex with pages.
Germaine Scott, 16 of Presque Isle, also served as a Senate page this summer and was sponsored by Snowe. The high school junior had never heard of any inappropriate communication between members of Congress and pages.
“I never expected anything like this to happen,” she said. “It was a horrible incident.”
But Scott said she does not believe it will tarnish the program’s reputation.
“There was nothing I didn’t like about the program,” she said. “I got to be in the same room with the 50 most powerful people in the U.S.”
Scott, who was able to sit in on the floor during a debate on the stem cell research bill and a defense bill, as well as listen to the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, speak, said it was an all-around incredible experience.
Upon arrival, Aube said, the pages go through a sexual harassment seminar—a power point presentation that defines sexual harassment and advises what do to if such a situation arises. Aube said it was never an issue, and if anything, it just spawned jokes in the dorm rooms.
Aube said carrying a mahogany box holding the splintered Senate gavel used by John Adams in 1789 and the ivory gavel in use today into the chamber was a program highlight, along with an ice cream party hosted by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.).
“I had so much fun. I made great friends and learned so much,” Aube said. “Just because one bad thing happened, I don’t want that to tarnish the program.”
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Excessive Western Canada Logging Puts Maine Jobs at Risk
Lumber
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Wire
10/5/2006
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5-- Excessive amounts of Western Canadian timber pouring into the United States have put Maine lumber mills at risk of shutting down.
The delay of planned Canadian export taxes on softwood lumber, coupled with a beetle infestation in British Columbia that is forcing mills there to harvest trees quickly before they die, has taken a toll on lumber mills in the Northeast.
“We have to make decisions on whether we’re going to continue to run or shut down,” said Ron Beaulieu, mill manager for Fraser Timber Limited in Ashland. “We’re doing everything we can to keep it going, but I’m not 100 percent sure if we can.”
Already, the mill has scheduled a two-week shutdown of its two New Brunswick, Canada, mills beginning Oct. 13.
The new Canadian export taxes, which were supposed to start Oct.1, are part of a settlement reached between the United States and Canada over the long-running softwood lumber trade dispute. But recently the two countries agreed to delay the settlement -- a delay that has placed thousands of Maine jobs at risk.
“I don’t think the workers here realize how bad the lumber market is right now,” said Michael Levesque, Fraser’s general manager of sales for the United States and Canada. “I’ve been here since 1982, and it’s probably the worst we’ve seen it.”
The agreement, reached Sept. 12, calls for replacing U.S. import duties totaling 10.8 percent with a Canadian export tax of approximately 15 percent. The delayed export tax followed requests from Canadian lumber producers seeking more time to meet the agreement’s requirement that private lawsuits filed against the United States be dropped.
“Each day that the terms of this landmark agreement are delayed is an additional day the Maine lumber industry will be subjected to the unfairly subsidized softwood lumber crossing from Canada into the United States,” Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine) said in a statement.
The softwood lumber dispute is actually part of a series of disputes that have stretched over 20 years between the United States and Canada. The heart of the dispute is the claim that Canada is unfairly subsidizing its lumber production.
The way the price of timber is set in the two countries quite different, according to Brooke Grantham, spokesman for Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. In the United States, when timber is harvested on private land, the price is negotiated between the timber cutter and land owner. In Canada, timber is cut on provincial-owned land, and a stumpage fee is set by the government.
Because these fees tend to be significantly lower than the prices that come out of the United States, the U.S. government contends that the low fees constitute a subsidy to Canadian producers.
The U.S. Coalition for Fair Lumber Imports, an organization that represents a number of saw mills around the country, says that Canadian lumber exporters are exploiting the implementation delay by unloading unusually large amounts of timber on the U.S. market, drastically lowering prices.
“The settlement agreement should ultimately level the competitive playing field,” said Steve Swanson, chairman of the U.S. coalition. “It is ironic that, in the short term, some are using it as an excuse to undermine the market and shut down U.S. mills.”
Snowe added: “This unnecessary delay, which is accompanied by a suspicious increase in the supply of Canadian softwood lumber and a precipitous drop in price, more than violates the intent of this hard-won agreement; it puts the jobs of thousands of Mainers in imminent danger.”
But the export tax delay is not the only reason Western Canadian companies have been pushing timber into the United States. British Columbia is plagued by a pine wood beetle infestation that is killing the trees. They can only be harvested for a short period of time after they have perished. Consequently, timber mills have been exporting as much and as quickly as they can.
“The big factor that we don’t hear a lot about over here is that there’s a lot of bug-kill wood in British Columbia,” Fraser Timber’s Beaulieu said. “In order to not lose that, they have accelerated the harvesting, and that is bringing a lot of lumber in to the U.S. and it impacts the prices. It probably has a greater impact than the trade agreement.”
The surge in lumber coming in from British Columbia, coupled with the weakened domestic housing market, have made timber prices plummet.
“Our customers on the retail side aren’t even buying wood,” Levesque said. “They don’t even care about the price and how low it is, they can’t take any more.”
He added: “British Columbia needs to stop production. We haven’t heard of them cutting back at all, so until the Canadian government comes up with some sort of production cutback or shutdown or something, it’s going to hurt all the other little areas.”
Anthony Hourihan, regional manager for sawmill and woodland in Maine at Irving Woodlands ,also in Ashland, feels the pinch as well, and cites Western Canadian timber producers, especially in beetle-infested British Columbia, as the biggest challenge the lumber industry faces today.
“We’re starting to see a fair number of shutdowns,” he said. Irving shut down its mill a month ago for a couple of weeks, and worries that it will have to again. “We’re hearing that some of the other local mills will be taking downtime in the next few weeks. We are already planning downtime for our mills in New Brunswick,” he said.
U.S. and Canadian officials are expected to sign the softwood lumber agreement, including the import tax, no later than Nov. 1. But in the meantime, with timber pouring in from Western Canada, mill managers brace themselves for shutdowns.
“The sooner they sign that agreement the better,” Levesque said. “This will kill our market for three months after the tax even goes into place. And we’re heading into the winter months, which slow up a little bit. It’s not one of the better timings for markets.”
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Women-Owned Small Businesses Struggle
Women
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
10/4/06
WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 —Women-owned businesses generate more than $3 trillion in sales in the United States and are growing at two times the rate of any other U.S. business group, panelists said at a recent hearing of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Yet only five percent of women reach top management and, in some cases, only three percent of government contracting goes to women-owned businesses, panelists said.
The statistics and examples presented at Tuesday’s field hearing at George Mason University highlighted the disparities women face compared to their male counterparts, and their difficulty in general in receiving federal contracts. In 1994, Congress passed an act that, among other things, set a federal contracting goal of five percent for women-owned small businesses. A decade later, in fiscal year 2005, only 3.3 percent of federal contracts were awarded to women-owned businesses.
“In 1988 the federal government began taking steps toward full recognition and effective elimination of economic discrimination against women-owned business,” panelist Erin Fuller, executive director of the National Association of Women Business Owners, said. “Unfortunately, awareness did not bring resolution or fairness to the procurement process.”
In Maine, women-owned businesses feel the pinch.
Jan Kaufman is one of those women. Along with Jill Fiore, she co-owns J Group Advertising, a company in Bangor that helps businesses develop marketing plans and branding identities. They launched their business in 2001 and have since struggled with obtaining federal contracts.
“That fact is,” Kaufman said of winning federal contracts, “it’s so hard that we don’t do it. It takes so much time to fill out the required paperwork, and often they want you to fill out more than is actually worth the work.”
“Women-owned businesses account for 47 percent of all Maine businesses, and are an increasingly important part of the Maine economy,” said Marita L. Fairfield, director and internet business counselor of The Women’s Business Center, quoting research from the Center for Women’s Business Research. These businesses employ more than 75,000 people and generate $9 billion in sales.
Kaufman and Fiore started J Group Advertising out of their homes. They grew the businesses until they had enough money to rent a small space. Just recently they moved into a larger loft office. “We grew as we could afford it and hired people as we could afford it,” Kaufman said.
They have never taken a loan and never received a federal contract.
They work with a third party that helps them obtain information about certain grants and other funding that would apply to them. But because of the tedious paperwork that comes with applying, they have not pursued any in over two years.
“The best way to support women-owned businesses in Maine is to provide funding to organizations like The Women’s Business Center, who can then support small-business ownership in the state of Maine,” Fairfield said. “Funds are needed for non-profit business developing organizations that target small businesses and women-owned businesses,” she said.
The Women’s Business Center at Coastal Enterprises Inc. is one such organization that helps women-owned businesses by providing workshops and seminars. It is a non-profit that gets some of its funding from the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Panelists from the Small Business Administration and the General Services Administration both testified that improvements in federal contracting had been made and that loans to women-owned small businesses had significantly increased. They also said they were investigating ways to better streamline the process of applying for federal contracts.
But still, for women like Kaufman and Fiore, running a business remains a challenge.
Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), who chairs the Small Business Committee but did not attend the hearing, expressed her concerns for women-owned businesses. “My goal is to ensure that every woman who owns a small business in America--or any woman who dreams of owning one--has access to the resources and support they need to make that dream a reality,” she said in a subsequent statement.
“Women entrepreneurs are driving innovation in our country, women-owned businesses grow at twice the rate of all businesses, and with the right tools their effort helps them keep America competitive,” Snowe said.
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Funds to Help Returning Vets Go Unspent
VETERANS
Bangor Daily News
Lauren Smith
Boston University Washington News Service
9/28/06
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 – The Department of Veterans Affairs did not spend all of the money it has budgeted to help returning military personnel with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a new government report.
The report prompted members of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs to lambaste VA officials over treatment of returning veterans.
“The tools are no good if the veterans cannot access them,” said Rep. Michael Michaud (D-Maine), senior Democrat on the committee’s Health Subcommittee.
The VA planned to increase its funding for treating post-traumatic stress disorder by $100 million in fiscal year 2005 and an additional $100 million in fiscal year 2006. But according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm, in fiscal year 2005, only $53 million of the new money went directly to medical centers and offices, while an additional $35 million was sent to VA’s health care network without instructions that it be spent on mental disorder programs. And $12 million of the new funds went unused.
In fiscal year 2006, the VA spent about $158 million out of $200 million, according to the report.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a psychiatric disorder that can affect people who have been in war zones, among others. It can result in nightmares, flashbacks, difficulty sleeping, and feelings of estrangement, among other symptoms. The VA estimates that 30 percent of men and women who have spent time in war zones experience post-traumatic stress disorder.
In July, Michaud asked the GAO to conduct a study of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ efforts to identify and treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and other such injuries. The request came after several newspapers reported 10 percent of returning troops suffered brain injuries during combat.
“The administration has critically shortchanged veterans by failing to spend needed funds to address gaps in access and quality of mental health care, instead offering false claims that VA is ready and able to provide these services,” Michaud said.
Michaud was especially concerned with the amount of funding and initiatives getting to rural areas, such as Maine. Roughly one in five veterans reside in small-town rural communities and 34 percent of the VA’s patients live in a rural area, reported the department.
Maine has one of the highest concentrations of veterans in the country, making up 16 percent of its population, Michaud said in early September when he introduced legislation for rural veteran health care. Providing quality care has proven difficult in rural areas because of distance, access to care and availability of resources.
“The administration is far short of fulfilling its commitments,” Michaud said. “Clearly, our oversight of the VA’s implementation and delivery of mental health services will have to be more vigorous.”
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