Heiner's Voting Record -- What Does It Tell Us?

For some time, I've been reading and hearing people say "Heiner is running to the left of Fischer" and "I'm a progressive, and I think Heiner is more progressive, so I'm voting for him." With the statements all three candidates have made about the bridges, it was easy to see why people might say these things.

My question, though, was this: Is Heiner a conservative, a moderate, a sorta-progressive? Or, is he just saying these things to grab some votes from the middle and left? I've wanted to figure out a way to crack that question, and the best way seemed to look at his voting record.

So, I did some digging, and guess what? There's an online database (sorta) of every council person's votes, maintained by the Courier-Journal. You can find the list of Hal Heiner's votes right here, sorted by date. The list shows a topic heading, then a brief description of the item being voted on, followed by Heiner's vote. Unfortunately, the link in the description only takes you to a list of everyone's vote on the issue, instead of more info on the topic itself. Still, many of the topics and the issues are pretty clear from the title in the voting table, such as "Ordinance to ban smoking in most public places."

So, I went through the entire list, vote by vote, to see what I could learn about Candidate Heiner from the record of Councilperson Heiner. Here's what I found:

Positives

Heiner is relatively progressive on some issues. For one thing, he's not afraid to spend money for good causes. In these days of "government can't make a difference," Heiner apparently believes that it's okay to use taxpayer money for the General Welfare. He spends money on the arts, on education, and on pensions for firefighters, police officers, and their widows.

He is also okay with spending money to help people. I was impressed with how often he voted in favor of appropriations to local service providers: Coalition for the Homeless, Harbor House, AIDS Project, Center for Women and Families. He voted in favor of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. And this past March, even in a tough budget year, he voted to give over $95,000 to the Association of Community Ministries for utility assistance.

Finally, Heiner is also interested in being transparent with taxpayers' money. He voted in favor of the online database of Metro Council expenditures. He voted to require a monthly report on all professional service contracts greater than $5,000. And, he voted against the Center City project, saying that Cordish wasn't putting in enough of its own money.

It is obvious from these votes that Hal Heiner is not a slash-and-burn regressive, at least not when it comes to using the city's money to move things forward. He doesn't believe all charity should be done by churches, nor does he have a problem with supporting the arts. On these votes, at least, he seems reasonable and reasonably moderate.

Negatives

Looking through Heiner's voting record is like viewing a topographical map of the work of Metro Council for the past seven years. You travel through mile after mile of votes on zoning, appointments, zoning, resolutions, zoning, and more zoning ... then you suddenly come upon a mountain of an issue, sticking up above the plains of zoning votes, and you remember when that topic made the news. And it is on those signature topics where Hal Heiner is often notable for being on the wrong side. Here are the ones that caught my attention:

Fairness -- This has already gotten lots of attention, so I'll just point out again that yes, Hal Heiner voted against the Fairness Ordinance giving equal protection to gays. He tried to modify it, make it apply only to larger businesses, and to delay it, but when the final vote was taken he voted No.

STAR Program -- Again, Heiner tried to delay the program with another study. When that failed, he voted against it.

Smoking Ban -- This issue presents an interesting study in changing positions. In the beginning (2004), Hal Heiner voted against the ban. In 2005 he tried to modify it to exempt smaller businesses, and when that failed still voted against it. In 2006 he voted to include Churchill Downs in the ban (which failed, if I remember correctly), then voted against the ban without Churchill in it. Two months later (Dec 2006) he voted FOR banning smoking in all government buildings. Finally, in 2008 he voted FOR the ban on all workplaces in the city. So, whether because of changing convictions or because he saw the writing on the wall, Hal Heiner moved to being in favor of the smoking ban.

Living Wage -- Voted against the Living Wage motion for city workers. Interestingly, he voted for other benefits instead (education, childcare, transportation assistance).

Labor and Unions -- This is one of the most obvious examples of Heiner standing with the right-wing and against working people. Every time there is a vote in support of unions, local workers, wage laws, or any other issue involving workers, Hal Heiner votes with management and business owners.

He voted against a resolution urging LG&E to use local workers when building its Trimble County plant. It wasn't an ordinance; it was just a resolution, just the Council saying "pretty please, Mr. LG&E, would you at least consider using some of our local workers -- who will be funding your plant through their utility bills -- when you build that plant? Please, with a cherry on top?" And Heiner voted against it.

He voted against the Blackwell Amendment to the Arena project, which would have allowed unions to negotiate at least some of the terms of the contract. (He did vote for the unions to have an "advisory" role, though. How thoughtful.)

He voted against requiring companies to pay prevailing wages on city projects, no matter how big and no matter how egregious their use of outside workers. Even if the city is giving you $500,000 to build something for us, we can't ask you to pay a fair wage, according to Mr. Heiner. Apparently, this is another type of Fairness that Hal Heiner objects to.

Conclusions

So, there you have it. I'm sure I've missed something, and I'm sure there are nuances in these issues that I've missed. Sorry -- no one's paying me to analyze these things. At least not yet.

Still, I think there are some obvious conclusions we can draw.

• Hal Heiner is not an extremist. He is not into Grover Norquist, and is willing to spend money on general welfare issues.
• Hal Heiner is a classic Republican: management over labor, free market over regulation, that sort of thing. As far as I can tell, he is not crazy, nor a Tea Party disciple.
• He is a believer in good management of the people's money, and in transparency. Those are good things, and I think most rational citizens would support those ideas.

However,

• Hal Heiner will not protect local workers in any way. He will not stand up for labor, and will stand against Labor.
• Hal Heiner is not progressive. He voted against the STAR program, against the Living Wage proposal, and against the Fairness Ordinance. As far as I know, he would vote exactly the same way if these issues came up again. And if similar issues arose in the future, I would expect Mr. Heiner to vote against the progressive position.

I realize that Heiner seems to be making more sense about the Bridges project than Fischer. In fact, Heiner is attracting interest from the left because of this. I am a supporter of East-End-First-Then-See when it comes to the bridges, so I like his position on this. But riddle me this, Batman:

If you elect a conservative as mayor based on the single issue of the Bridges, and the bridges don't get funded and built till after he's out of office, what have you done? You have allowed a single issue to cloud you to the rest of his agenda, which is a traditional Conservative Republican agenda.

Do I think that a thinking progessive could come up with a rationale for supporting Hal Heiner over Fischer and Green? Perhaps, especially if one believed that the Metro Council could be both a firewall against regression and also a progressive force. You could also say that you think the main job of the Mayor is to manage, not legislate, so you think Hal would be a better manager.

But it is foolish to say "I'm voting for Heiner because he's more progressive." Based on Heiner's voting record, that is just not true.