SHOULD WE TEST CANDIDATES?

Zachary Sheinberg

Sunday, November 20, 2011

A few weeks ago, I suggested to the New York Times the idea of requiring candidates for federal office to take an exam as part of the election process. The purpose of such an exam would be to assess the level of knowledge that candidates have on the prevailing issues. Nothing on the level of testing whether candidates know the history of the Shi’a-Sunni divide (although I hope at least some elected officials understand this). But more on the level of testing whether candidates know that a divide exists and how it affects geopolitics in the Middle East. Because if members of Congress are legislating foreign policy, this, among other things, is something we might want them to know.

The New York Times posed the question on its website in its Room for Debate feature last Thursday (http://nyti.ms/uHRb5L). Four of the five contributors disagreed with the concept of a candidate exam.

Norman Ornstein titled his response, “It’s Up to the Voters.” He wrote, “Campaigns are like extended job interviews; at least for those running for visible, higher offices, the combination of debates, journalists' questions, opposition advertising and the pressure that comes with campaigning give a pretty good window into the qualities, including basic knowledge, that candidates have.” On the Presidential election level, I agree with Mr. Ornstein. Running the gauntlet of a Presidential campaign inevitably will expose the knowledge gaps of candidates (as it has this year for Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain). But how about candidates running for the House and Senate? Media scrutiny is sparse. Voters pay scant attention. And as a result, we elect candidates who don’t know the difference between Shi’a and Sunni and monetary policy and fiscal policy. And it is these elected officials who write the laws that govern these issues.

Linda Chavez, of the Reagan White House and the 1986 Republican Senate nominee in Maryland, wrote an interesting response. As someone who knew public policy cold, she still lost the Senate race to Barbara Mikulski, who, Ms. Chavez wrote, knew much less. Ms. Chavez wrote, “Raw intelligence, or even specific knowledge about policy and current events, doesn’t guarantee good judgment. Voters generally want someone who shares their values. They pick their elected officials based not on what the candidate knows at a given moment but on how they think the person will go about making decisions in the future. Character, temperament and values matter more to most voters than test scores.” Since the left-leaning views of Ms. Mikulski better lined up with Maryland voters, Ms. Chavez seems to argue, Ms. Mikulski should have won the election (which she did).

What Ms. Chavez wrote is true. Although I was not suggesting that we have an election or a test. I was suggesting that we have an election and a test. And certainly not a test with a “passing” score. Simply a test that provides a common metric by which all candidates can be judged by voters. Simply one more data point to add into the election mix.

There is no question that how a candidate will make decisions in the future, meaning the quality of the candidate’s judgment, is critical. But how can an elected official make good decisions on issues without a minimum level of knowledge of those issues? Would you want a lawyer making a decision on whether to do open heart surgery? And in races for Congress, without the intense media scrutiny and the voter interest of Presidential elections, how can voters know whether candidates have this requisite knowledge? The answer is that they cannot.

Lara Brown, a political science professor at Villanova, wrote, “A qualifying examination for elective office is far removed from the philosophy of the framers and far from constitutional.” The first part is true. The only Constitutional requirements for running for Congress are age (candidates must be at least 25 years old for the House, 30 for the Senate), citizenship (candidates must be U.S. citizens for at least 7 years) and district residency.

Ms. Brown cites the illegality of poll taxes and literary tests to support her claim. However, poll taxes and literary tests apply to voting, not to running. This is an important distinction because the several States (constitutionally) impose various requirements for candidates seeking election to Congress including filing fees and petition requirements. Ms. Brown seems to overlook Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution, which says, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.” The claim that imposing an exam requirement on candidates for federal office is “far from constitutional” is incorrect. Especially because, as far as I know, courts have never ruled on this issue.

I very much enjoyed the response written by Paul Butler, a law professor at George Washington University. Though I want to draw a distinction between the firefighter test he mentions, which test has largely excluded African Americans from positions with the New York City Fire Department, and the test that I suggest. Applicants must achieve a minimum score to obtain a position with the NYCFD. The test I propose has no “passing score,” but simply a score by which voters could judge the base of knowledge that a candidate has. Voters would be left to decide whether a candidate “passed” the test. The test would also be made public after candidates took the exam to allow voters to see the questions, which ones candidates answered correctly and which they answered incorrectly.

Dan Schnur, a Republican political consultant, wrote the fifth and final response. He raises a valid concern about a test for candidates, which the title of his response, “Who Tests the Testers?” makes clear. In referencing the SAT, Mr. Schnur wrote, “While striving for as unbiased a measurement as possible as part of the college admissions process is absolutely necessary, it’s questionable whether a similar standard for our political leaders could ever be developed or implemented in an impartial way.” Put simply, how can we create a fair test, one that solves the problem, that gets the answers we want, that does not become political? The answer is, very carefully. We make the panel that drafts the exam independent. And we focus on the basic knowledge that every federal elected official simply must know. Like how our Social Security program works. Like what nations possess nuclear weapons. Like where Egypt is on a map.

As an electorate, we should want as much information as we can get about the intelligence, motivation and values of candidates running for positions of public trust.

We should want to know that candidates know what inflation is, what causes it and how to combat it. Because how can members of Congress legislate fiscal and monetary policy, how can they vote on bills that will affect our economy, without having that knowledge? Further, if candidates have not spent the time reading and learning about these issues before becoming candidates, if they cannot, in the eyes of voters, “pass” the test that I propose, they simply are not taking seriously the awesome responsibility of governing the United States of America that will fall to them if ultimately they win election.

Recently, Herman Cain stumbled badly when asked whether he supported the way that President Obama handled Libya (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAGGpK7bSWc). In part because of his poor command of many public policy issues, Cain will not win the Republican nomination. But I have no doubt that if he ran for Congress, he easily could win.

Toward the end of his response, Mr. Schnur wrote, “Even if candidates who performed poorly on such an examination were still permitted to run [as they would be], they would begin their campaign at a significant disadvantage given the scarlet failing grade next to their name on the ballot.”

Indeed. And that is the point.