GRADING THE GOV

The Maine League of Conservation Voters last week chose Gov. John Baldacci to try out its first gubernatorial report card and decided the governor ranked a middling B -. Many of the comments in the report card are well informed and useful. But it is at best deceptive to conclude that the performance of several hundred state officials, the actions of the Legislature, the largess of the federal government in addition to the governor’s effort on behalf of the environment can be boiled down to a single grade or a set of grades.

The league based much of its review on a speech Gov. Baldacci gave as a candidate in 2002 on what he would do to protect and improve Maine’s environment. It judged him on such issues as air quality (A+), land conservation (B-), toxics (A-) and water quality (D). It is certainly fair to hold a candidate accountable to promises made, but the league goes beyond this.

In school, a letter grade is based before the school year begins on a numerical score – students scoring an 82 on a test knows that will result in that B- received by the governor, for instance. The league approached this process from the opposite end. According to Executive Director Eliza Townsend, a league committee decided what letter grade to give the governor in each of the categories and “those letter grades were then assigned a numeric value and averaged for the overall score.”

And while it is clear that some decisions by the governor were more important than others, no category was given more weight when being graded. It could be that the work of an underperforming commissioner – now gone and replaced by one with a better performance – is valued in importance similarly to land purchases that will benefit the state for a hundred years. Or that the failure to add more money for removal of school toxics is equivalent to, in the league’s opinion, the fact that “the administration’s environmental program lacks leadership in many areas” or that the Legislature didn’t agree to as much money for land as the governor proposed. We say “may” because there are no standards available to judge how the grades were derived.

It’s easy to understand why any organization would use a grading system to rate elected officials – it’s eye-catching, quick to digest and makes headlines. But it also detracts from what is, in this case, a very good summary of the governor’s environmental strengths and weaknesses. If grades are absolutely necessary, the standards for producing them should be more exact.

Overall, this effort is a B-. More or less.