More Milyo; Another Example of Photo ID Defender's Specious Research

Over at BradBlog, Tom Klammer of Kansas City's KFFI radio recounts some of his experiences with University of Missouri academic Jeffrey Milyo, whose recent testimony before a committee of the U.S. Senate we posted on here.  Milyo had testified there about an incredible study he had done which purported to show that Indiana's photo identification voting law had no negative effects on voter turnout in 2006.  The study was released just as a case involving the law was making its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Klammer points out another situation where Milyo's "research" claimed to support conservative orthodoxy on a policy matter that had just been decided by a federal regulatory body (this time the FCC):

When I interviewed Milyo last February, it was about a different study he had done, this one about cross ownership of television stations and newspapers in the same markets. The findings of this Milyo study were just as dubious, just as friendly to the Bush Administration's political objectives, and just as fortuitously timed...

In late January, I received an email copy of a press release from the University of Missouri headlined "Cross Ownership has Positive Effect on Local Media Coverage, MU Researcher Finds". ...

A web search shows other studies by Milyo on subjects from media, to healthcare, to campaign finance. Professor Milyo’s credentials appear, at least at first glance, to be quite impressive.

But in light of his recent Senate testimony, and a quick look at some of his studies, such as this one on media bias, or his study on the effect of Photo ID polling place restrictions, I can’t help wonder if his research isn’t ideology in search of a justification.

I actually feel sorry for Milyo, in spite of myself.  How dehumanizing it must be for a man who poses as an academic, who works in academic circles, who may actually consider himself an academic, to earn his living as a useful stooge, turning out stage-managed studies with predetermined "results" at whatever time his corporate or political paymaster says will be most advantageous.  For his sake, I hope the wages are good.

And speaking of wages, it strikes me that one of the questions raised and never answered at the Senate hearing we wrote about a few weeks ago centered on who exactly paid Milyo for the Indiana photo ID study.  Milyo, however implausibly, claimed to have forgotten the exact name of the group that gave him the grant for the study.  Based on his partial answer, it sounded as though Milyo might have been trying to avoid copping to having been paid by the tainted Center for Ethics and the Free Market. 

At the hearing, Sen. Chuck Schumer asked that Mr. Milyo be allowed to amend the record with his answer. Anybody know if he ever did?