Calendar events referring to former members

[PaulClark2]

We need to rethink how we include former members' names in calendar events related to special elections and their associated reporting requirements. The seat doesn't belong to the former member.

If the former member's name is helpful to users, we should include it parenthetically or in some other way that does not make the seat a possession of the former member.

Perhaps something like: House Special General Runoff Election for CA-34 (election to replace former member Xavier Becerra) or CA-34 House Special General Runoff Election (election to replace former member Xavier Becerra) or something better.

Examples in June 2017:

24-Hour Report Period of Independent Expenditures begins for the GA-06 House Special General Runoff Election Rep. Tom Price's Seat (if necessary). Ends on Jun 18, 2017.

24-Hour Report Period of Independent Expenditures begins for the SC-05 House Special General Election Rep. Mick Mulvaney's Seat.. Ends on Jun 18, 2017.

House Special General Runoff Election Rep. Xavier Becerra's Seat

GA-06: House 12SGR Rep. Tom Price's Seat Report is Due Today

SC-05: House 12SG Rep. Mick Mulvaney's Seat. Report is Due Today

Electioneering Communications Period begins for the AL Senate Special Primary Election Sen. Jeff Sessions' Seat.. Ends on Election Day- Tuesday , Aug 15, 2017.

Electioneering Communications Period begins for the UT-03 House Special Primary Election Rep. Chaffetz's Seat.. Ends on Election Day- Tuesday , Aug 15, 2017.

House Special General Election Rep. Mick Mulvaney's Seat.

House Special General Runoff Election Rep. Tom Price's Seat

MT-00: House 30SG Rep. Ryan Zinke's Seat Report is Due Today

[noahmanger]

This is a really good point, and echoes feedback that's come in from others. Flagging for @jameshupp for content advice (not urgent).

[jameshupp]

Seems like we can emphasize either how the person left, or what we're doing with the seat. I like the to replace former member formulation but would suggest being more specific than "member" if possible: former Rep. [name], former Sen. [name], and former President/Vice President [name].

Another way to think about it is to emphasize the departure rather than the replacement. Maybe:

House Special General Runoff Election for CA-34 (seat vacated by Xavier Becerra)

"Seat vacated by" should work in all instances, even if it's shorter: House Special General Runoff Election, Seat Vacated by former Rep. Tom Price

The only question is whether that word — vacated, or one like it — feels right for, say, deceased members. Similar for expulsions, though I know those are quite rare.

Does either of these approaches seem preferable?

[amypike]

@jameshupp I like where you are going with this and thought "seat vacated by" was the best option. However, with deceased members as part of the calculus, "seat formerly held by" seems like a kind, one-size-fits-all option. @AmyKort @dorothyyeager

[noahmanger]

Why's it necessary to even include the former holder of the seat? Isn't the seat itself the most valuable piece of information?

[AmyKort]

I think our preference would be to not name the former officeholder. We're already cramming a lot of information into a small space on the calendar, and we have other cool ways to identify the officeholder and candidates in a district, even directly from the homepage. I agree with Noah that the seat itself is the most valuable piece of information.

[PaulClark2]

I don't have a strong option either way, including or excluding the former member's name. I just know I really dislike the way we are doing it currently.

I agree the seat and the election are the most important pieces of information we need to convey. I understand how having the former member's name might provide context for users.

I asked Christian (Press) about this. He said don't include the former member's name.

[PaulClark2]

Just spoke with Greg (Info Div.), I would much prefer to just list the state and district.

[dorothyyeager]

I am checking with Kathy in our office who does the calendar entries for these. She agrees with Greg and we never included the former officeholders before. There's no need for them for reasons said above.

[noahmanger]

Weird. Given the consensus on this I'm not sure how we got to where we are. I'm not sure if this is something that needs to change on the data entry end or if it's just a change we can make to the way we create the titles on the API end. @LindsayYoung ?

[amypike]

If it is a space issue on the calendar, I am agnostic about including the former Member's name. I think it is very helpful context, but agree that we might be crowding too much info into a small place. I will say, however, that I have PTSD from the old site w/r/t special elections. This page in particular.
http://classic.fec.gov/info/report_dates.shtml

It lists all this information about special elections (with all of this wide, open, unoccupied white space) but does not provide the name of the Member who formerly held the seat. For members of the public and people named Amy who work in Congressional Affairs, "GA-6" means little but "seat formerly held by Tom Price" means a lot, particularly when you need to quickly find information on reporting dates. Not including the name of the departing Member just forces users to do extra googling/searching. I disliked it on the old site, callers complained to me about it (specifically, committee staff who use that info) but it wasn't my page to maintain. We are talking about the calendar, which has specific space constraints, but for other areas of the site, including the name of the former Member when listing special election information is helpful. I'm sorry, rant over.

[LindsayYoung]

So those are shown because there is a section called notes that sometimes has important information that would make things incomplete without. We were not trying to pull that information specifically, but if we remove it other information will be missing- I could find an example if you need it.

I would love to remake the entry for the calendar as part of the cms, because I think we could make a better user experience for data entry and get better data quality.

[FECHoosier]

While I see your point, Amy P, there are entries on June 20 that err in the opposite direction: "House Special General Election Rep. Mick Mulvaney's Seat." and "House Special General Runoff Election Rep. Tom Price's Seat" To me, that's a much bigger problem.

[AmyKort]

Thanks, Lindsay. That makes a ton of sense. Is our first tier solution to go with the language James provided and then we can have a fuller solution later when we rebuild the calendar?

[LindsayYoung]

Ok, that text all comes from the election_notes column in fecapp.trc_election

[AmyKort]

Issue moved to 18F/fec-cms #1579 via ZenHub