Follow the Money to See Lawmakers' Votes (AP computer analysis)

[Nambe]

By JONATHAN D. SALANT, Associated Press Writer

The Associated Press looked at six measures in the House — medical malpractice, class action lawsuits, overhauling bankruptcy laws, the energy bill, gun manufacturer lawsuits and overtime pay — and compared lawmakers' votes with the financial backing they received from interest groups supporting or opposing the legislation. The House passed five of the six bills and defeated an amendment that would have stopped the Bush administration from rewriting the rules for overtime pay.

In the vast majority of cases, the biggest recipients of interest group money voted the way their donors wanted, according to the AP's computer-assisted analysis of campaign finance data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Groups that outspent opponents got the bills they wanted in five of the six cases examined by the AP.

For example, House members voting to ban lawsuits against gun manufacturers and distributors averaged more than $173 from supporters of gun owners' rights for every $1 those groups gave to bill opponents.

Overall, gun rights groups gave $1.2 million to House members during the 2002 elections while supporters of gun control gave $27,250. ---

[johnny_red]

1. the best deocracy money can buy...

one dollar= one vote.

[gristy]

2. thanks for the link to VerifiedVoting

I just sent the following letter to each member of the Minnesota State Plan Commission, the MN Secretary of State, and a couple others:

Hello,

The push to provide for generation of a voter-verified paper trail in current and future electronic voting machines is not going away, and indeed is picking up steam. Please take a look at the web site http://www.verifiedvoting.org/

On this web site you will find a very long list of endorsements which I encourage you to add your name to.

From the page http://www.verifiedvoting.org/resolution.asp:

"Deployment of new voting machines that do not provide a voter-verifiable audit trail should be halted, and existing machines should be replaced or modified to produce ballots that can be checked independently by the voter before being submitted, and cannot be altered after submission. These ballots would count as the actual votes, taking precedence over any electronic counts."

Contact me with any questions or comments.

Regards,

[LauraK]

4. Very good write-up Gristy! Not surprisingly....

I spoke to our Dem Rep's (Peter DeFazzio) aid in her Oregon office on the paper trail subject and she said Peter see this as a strictly partisan issue in DC at this time. The Dems are unanimously in favor and the repugs are unanimously opposed so he doesn't foresee anything done on the federal level until Dems get a majority. You are wise to contact state officials. IMO this will be fixed but not in time for the '04 elections. Very worrisome.

[jamesinca]

3. I just sent my e-mail to verified voting

Thanks for the link. I have always know that money talks, it is now disgustingly obvious in the congress..They don't represent their districts, they represent money.

[indictrichardperle]

5. How about foreign policy ?

Get some courage and show contributions from big oil and foreign lobbies. In light of the recent war, that might be "revealing".

[tlb]

6. There is a chicken and the egg factor though difficult to quantify

by the raw numbers. To illustrate, were I elected to Congress I would be inclined to support Israel moreso then I would support Arafat. Therefore in the normal course of politics I would expect to draw more contributions from jewish sources then I wouuld from islamic donors. Still I would not be " bought " since that was my inclination before the contributions.

This study is a good starting point but I would be interested in a more in-depth study finding who had changed stated positions immediately after receiving material contributions from lobbyists.

[indictrichardperle]

7. i would hope

the Law-maker would vote on what was "best" for America, the constituents he represents and what was in his judgement morally right. Rather than turning tricks for the highest bidder like a political whore.