Know the Score

 In Peace Action West News

After a ridiculous government shutdown, you don’t need me to tell you how important it is to hold Congress accountable. But I can point you toward a new tool to make it easier.

While the shutdown dominates the headlines, not everything Congress does happens in the spotlight. If we’re going to push Congress to be pro-peace, we need to know what’s happening under the radar—like the vote on funding nuclear weapons while good programs suffer we alerted you to this week.

That’s why I’m excited to share Know the Score, our new congressional accountability tool. We took the congressional voting record, our most popular resource, and made it even more useful. We’re tracking Congress in real time. Every time there’s a vote in Congress on peace issues, every representative’s record will be updated and the vote will be searchable on our site. Here are just a few of the things you can do with this tool:

We’ve seen what an informed, organized peace movement can do. We helped pull the US back from the brink of war with Syria by understanding the political landscape and flooding Congress with overwhelming opposition. With Know the Score, we can be watchdogs and make our voices count.

Let us know what you think about our new tool in the comments, and please share it with your friends so we can make sure Congress doesn’t operate in the shadows.

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Showing 20 comments
  • Leo Bistak
    Reply

    Lynn Jenkins will never agree with anything except the generals in the field know best, which means leave peace sense to them. Wrong.

  • Christopher C. Currie
    Reply

    Your focus on Congressional voting records relative to peace issues is great. But we ALSO need the same approach (now that you have established a reliable way to do it) to focus on the Congressional voting records relative to whether they voted to favor the financial interests of corporations and the rich rather than the financial interests (and well being) of American voters in general.

    • Rebecca Griffin
      Reply

      That would be great. We focus on the issues directly related to our mission, but hopefully we can provide a model that will be helpful to other organizations.

  • Karen Isley
    Reply

    This is a fantastic tool. I just hope I’ll be intelligent enough to figure out how to use it. (Not very computer savvy)

    • Rebecca Griffin
      Reply

      Glad you like it! Hopefully it should be easy to navigate, but feel free to contact us if you have trouble or ideas to make it more user friendly.

  • Laura Avant
    Reply

    This is very helpful. I called both my senators to ask them to vote no on the fast track of the Transpacific Partnership act which would do great damage to our country. This particular piece of legislation, written by 400 corporate heads, would go a long way to ending worker rights, environmental protections, even the sovereignty of our court system. If war is construed as being profitable for them, which it is, they could sue us for refusing to go to war or for anything else that threatened their perceived future profits.

  • Patrice Summers
    Reply

    I love your new tool! I know the voting records of my U.S. Senators, and my Congressional Representative, but to see it in this format was quite exciting. Although we have 2 outstanding Senators, in California, I had no illusions about their voting records and my personal positions on the issues. My Congressional Representative’s voting record is much closer to my positions on the issues, and when she doesn’t vote the way I would prefer I realize that she is thinking about the fact that she has to run every 2 years, and there is a strong Republican opposition in her district, and they would love to take her out. Peace, Now!

  • david adam
    Reply

    nice tool BUT,I couldn’t access Tulsi Gabbard[Hawaii]when I tried to use the first part;I’m on an android phone which I do all my work on ….Good page you have here but,it would be nice to”hit a button “by my reps name^see their votes on ALL matters………Aloha Nui

  • Dorothy BlackCrow Mack
    Reply

    This way of keeping track of our “representatives” helps to clarify if indeed, they are representing us. Very informative. Also, to see the Honor Roll reminded me that there are many on DC who work for the good of the people (even if they aren’t my reps). Kudos!

    • Rebecca Griffin
      Reply

      Thanks! It is a nice reminder to see how many representatives are working hard for a better foreign policy.

  • James Hosley
    Reply

    I’m a supporter from afar. I love the graphic sense of “what areas vote how” that Know The Score offers us. What a sad thing to have such weak support nationally on so many common sense (to me) issues. This is very interesting tool.

  • Jim Engelking
    Reply

    Great new tool. Updating in real time is the best idea. I can speak with my Congressman quite easily, so a “heads up” on upcoming key votes on war and peace issues would be even more helpful. Cheers.

    • Rebecca Griffin
      Reply

      Thanks! If you are on our email list, we will definitely update you when key votes are about to happen so you can contact your representatives, and then you’ll be able to use the tool to see how they voted.

  • Jeannie Jackson
    Reply

    Your new tool sounds great!! I still live with the illusion that soon the “representatives” will start actually representing things other than those that will give them a payback and I think most Americans are SICK OF WAR, as my son has orders to go for his 5th trip to Afghanistan in April.

    So thanks for your constant efforts at peace making. I would love to see Ehud Barak’s record of war with Hamas, whereby they used missile interception, bombs were obliterated before hitting ground, and they discontinued the war, because no one was dying. Never read much about that issue–was it last year?

  • Kathleen Williams
    Reply

    This is great! And has lost Chris Gibson a LOT of points with me. He was against war with Syria, so I thought he was on my side. And he’s so affable. But his rating is 38% on your chart. Yikes! I guess I’ve got to look for a replacement.

    • Rebecca Griffin
      Reply

      There are definitely a lot of people from both sides of the aisle who have been good allies on some of our issues but fall short on others. Gibson has been a leader on some important war powers issues, but we’re clearly not always in agreement.

  • Loan Tran
    Reply

    Voting record will play a key role in 2014 election and Know The Score would help voters make the right choice.

  • Trina Sonnenberg
    Reply

    My name is not important, but my demographic info is. Therefore, allow me to introduce myself… I am a woman between the ages of 45-50. I am a married mother of two almost adult children. I subscribe to no particular religion and I consider myself of the democratic slant.

    As many Americans, I was relieved to read about the government re-opening this morning. However, this latest political stunt by the Republicans, has me pissed off and I demand my say.

    Truth be told, the Congressional salaries bestowed upon our so-called representatives is the biggest waste of tax dollars ever. If the republicans want to do so much cutting, why don’t they start there? I’ll tell you why: they don’t seek public office to work for the American people; they do it for the MONEY and POWER. THEY work for us. We need to reorganize our staff in Washington.

    The problem isn’t with the Black President; it is with the White men in Congress. I mean think about it. They shut down the government, putting thousands of people on furlough, but did they get furloughed? Nope.

    If they wanted to create jobs, the solution is simple: write legislation that demands American companies manufacture goods in the U.S. if they intend to sell them here. Tax everything that comes across the border; including drugs. Make them legal and cut the expense of the DEA. Place former DEA employees with local law enforcement and boost the agencies’ budgets to accommodate. In other words, put the money where it matters.

    Can you imagine the jobs we’d have if Apple, alone, had to produce iPods in the U.S. in order to sell them here?

    I vote in every election and I vote for the person I think is best for the job. The problem is the lip service we receive before the election compared to the actual service we receive after it. As I said before: they are not committed to public service they are committed to the pay check. Congress should have to pay into the system as we all do. They should have to live on social security and Medicare, as we do. They have written their own ticket for far too long. It is time that We the People take our government and country back.

    Our Congressmen cashed pay checks while we got kicked off food stamps. Think about it.

    James Allen was right, “Man does not think…

  • Victor Capaul
    Reply

    I hope more people read this because there are tools like this out there.

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