Just in time for next week's special city council election, Sunlight is sneak-previewing our latest addition to Influence Explorer — DC campaign finance data — as well as our wish list for how it can be made better.
The tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary has brought gun policy back to the forefront of our national conversation. As a nonpartisan, nonprofit Sunlight takes no stance on the issue, but we have put together a collection of resources looking at the legislation, policy and influence around gun rights and gun control, plus the groups and lawmakers involved.
The Gun Lobby
Sunlight Foundation Senior Fellow Lee Drutman reviews the political influence of the National Rifle Association and the leading gun control group, the Brady Campaign to End Gun Violence. Read his full analysis in this blog post.
Lee notes that when it comes to the debate on gun policy, Congress is pretty much only hearing from one side. The NRA spends 66 times what the Brady Campaign spends on lobbying, and 4,143 times what the Brady Campaign spends on campaign contributions. Since 2011, the NRA spent at least $24.28 million: $16.83 million through its political action committee, plus $7.45 million through its affiliated Institute for Legislative Action.
According to Influence Explorer records, the Brady Campaign spent $5,800 this election cycle and reported $60,000 in lobbying costs.
With the Higher Education Opportunity Act up for renewal in 2013, either President Obama or Mitt Romney will need to address higher education, particularly funding and student loans. And although neither campaign has placed much focus on higher education, both candidates touched on the issue during the Presidential debates.
A recent New York Times Magazine article by Michael Pollan highlights the potential momentum for a new “food movement” in America if California voters decide to enforce the labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMO) foods by passing Proposition 37, the Genetically Engineered Foods Right to Know Act next month. Proposition 37 proposes to label all GMO foods, including processed foods that contain GMO ingredients, and to prevent GMO foods from being labeled or advertised as “natural.”
Agriculture industry giants opposed to Prop 37 are pouring money into California to defeat the ballot measure. According to the California watchdog group, Maplight, agribusiness giants have already sunk $35.6 million into defeating the prop with agrochemical titans Monsanto and DuPont emerging as the top two proponents with contributions totalling $7.1 million and $4.9 million, respectively. The bulk of that money has gone to the committee, No on 37: Coalition Against the Deceptive Food Labeling Scheme, Sponsored by Farmers and Food Producers. Other agrochemical and agroscience institutions like BASF Plant Science, Syngenta Co., Bayer Cropscience and Dow Agrosciences LLC have each contributed $2 million to the cause. Meanwhile, advocacy and industry groups in support of Prop 37 have only managed to raise $7.7 million in support.
An article in the New York Times last week reported that T-Mobile USA’s parent company, Deutsche Telekom, bought Metro PCS, another cell service provider. According to the Times’ reporting, this merger could strengthen T-Mobile against competitors like Sprint Nextel, and the buy was intended to help T-Mobile to better provide low-cost service to customers.
Companies within the Telecomm Services and Equipment industry make significant contributions to political campaigns and committees. The industry as a whole gave a total of $13.5 million so far this election cycle. Here’s a look at the contributions and influence of the industry players mentioned in this article:
‘Influence Explored’ takes an article from the day’s headlines and exposes the influential ways of the entities mentioned in the article. Names and corporations are run through Sunlight’s influence tracking tools such as Influence Explorer to remind readers of the money that powers Washington.
In the three months before congressional leaders announced that they are once again opening the process to suspend tariffs, at least 71 private companies have already lobbied to get their own exemption and nine more have registered. Each one has a product they’d like to import a little more cheaply. So far this year, the companies report lobbying expenditures of $14 million on issues including this one – but if history is any guide, it may be well worth the expense.
The last time Congress passed a miscellaneous tariff bill (MTB), in 2010, it cost taxpayers $298 million in lost revenue over three years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Members have until tonight to send in provisions they want included in this year’s legislation, according to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
In short, the MTB is legislation written for corporations, by corporations to save them money on products they import and use in manufacturing. The companies solicit members of Congress to introduce bills reducing their tariffs and those bills eventually get rolled into the MTB, a long green eyeshade document that few members of Congress likely will take the time to read. Call it “nearmarking.” With earmarks now banned, critics say the tariff bill offers members of Congress an alternate route to get special favors for pet concerns at taxpayer expenses. Republican Sens. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., have introduced legislation would send all tariff requests directly to the International Trade Commission (ITC), cutting Congress out of the process.
“There is no good reason why businesses go to members of Congress and not directly to the International Trade Commission with their petitions,” said DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton.
But guess who’s pushing the tariff bill? Sixty freshman Republican lawmakers –who generally have been among the loudest voices against special dealing and for deficit reduction -- recently wrote to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., urging favorable treatment of the MTB. They argued that it’s a bill that will spur American jobs.
Lobbying
Congress considers tariff legislation almost every two years. And while heavy corporate lobbying on it is typical, it's hard to compare historic spending trends because lobbying records weren't digitized until 2008 and congressional lobbying records didn't begin tracking lobbying specifically on the miscellaneous tariff bill until the last few years.
Lobbying disclosure information reported to the Senate Office of Public Records.
But the number of tariff suspensions enacted by Congress appears to be on the upswing. In 2004, Congress passed an MTB with 433 tariff suspensions. Two years later, the MTB that passed two years later suspended duties on 280 products and generated a tariff savings of about $660 million for corporations according to a study conducted by Capital Trade, Incorporated, an economic consulting firm that focuses on international trade. But later that year, Congress approved a second bill suspending duties on another 580 products. During the 111th Congress, which ran from 2009 through 2010, lobbying records on file with the Senate show 192 companies with $385 million in lobbying expenses on tariff issues. Of that amount, $205 million was spent in the final six months before passage of H.R. 4380, the United States Manufacturing Enhancement Act of 2010. The bill included duty suspensions on 665 products, benefiting 113 corporations, according to data provided by the House Ways and Means committee.
An examination of the 2010 bill and lobbying records related to the MTB provides vivid examples of how members of Congress use the tariff legislation to do favors for home-state businesses.
Bayer
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., submitted 28 requests to suspend duties on products for Bayer. All but three made it into law. Overall, Bayer got a remarkable 62 duty suspensions from 15 members of Congress, making the German drug manufacturer the top beneficiary of the bill. Mary Petrovic, Rep. Cleaver's press secretary, defended the support, noting that Bayer employs a number of people in his home district in Missouri.
Bayer and its subsidiaries spent $8.3 million lobbying the bill and other issues in 2009 and 2010 according to records disclosed with the Senate. The corporation has reported spending $7.2 lobbying the issue and others this session so far.
Cleaver also received $5,500 in campaign contributions from employees of Bayer and their family members during the 2007-2008 and the 2009-2010 election cycles. So far this cycle he’s received $2,000 from people associated with Bayer, according to InfluenceExplorer.com.
Michelin
An examination of lobbying records disclosed in 2010 showed that the tire manufacturer Michelin lobbied on 21 bills introduced by Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to reimburse duties they paid on tire products. Michelin, which operates a number of plants in Graham’s state, reported spending at least $1.1 million on issues including tariffs and was the only company that reported lobbying on the 21 original bills dealing with tariff reimbursements that Graham introduced. The provisions Michelin wanted made it into the final bill.
Tracking which corporations benefit from provisions that originated on the Senate side is harder than the House side, because the Senate traditionally has not revealed which members requested each provision. It’s not clear whether the Senate will adopt the House transparency process this time around. That potentially could shed more light on relationships between senators and the corporations they help through this bill.
Dan Ikenson, an expert in trade issues at the Cato Institute, favors reducing all tariffs unilaterally. But he called the MTB a good thing even though it only temporarily suspends duties on a limited number of products. He described the measure as “gradual progress” towards creating more competition in the markets.
Ikenson, however, doesn’t agree with all of the rules that go into writing the MTB. Only allowing import products to be considered if they are not produced in the United States is bad for competition., he said. Magnesium, for instance, is only produced by one company in the United States and therefore has little incentive to make prices competitive, Ikenson said. He argued that lifting duties on imported magnesium would allow U.S. manufacturers to get better prices.
“We’re picking winners and losers in our markets by placing duties on certain items,” Ikenson said.
While masses of people are flocking to liquor stores to play today's record setting Mega Millions lottery, those behind the games benefit from much shorter odds in the political game, using influence to ensure big payoffs.
Take Gtech, a gaming technology giant based in Providence, R.I., that has contracts with 16 of the states that participate in Mega Millions to provide lottery terminals and other services. The company, its PAC, employees and their family members have given $4.1 million in campaign contributions to state and federal-level candidates and party committees dating back to 1991. It's spent $3.4 million lobbying the federal government since 1997, according to the Sunlight Foundation's Influence Explorer.
Gtech has also been a revolving door destination for state lottery officials. In 1999, in a lengthy profile of the company, the Washington Monthly reported,
Three directors of the New York state lottery have gone to work for the company as lobbyists or consultants, as have numerous directors from other states. After a conflict over Massachusetts' lottery, director James Hosker, a close friend of Gtech's, took the job managing Kentucky's lottery and secured a sweet deal for the company in that state. Where did Hosker move next? A lucrative job on the Gtech payroll.
In a 2007 article, the Journal News in Lower Hudson Valley, N.Y., detailed numerous other incidents in Gtech's past, including:
- Hiring the former patronage chief for then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo as a $20,000-a-month consultant. Tonio Burgos held the job for about three months until the deal leaked out. - Awarding a former gubernatorial aide in Missouri a 10-year, $80,000-a-year consulting contract after GTECH won that state's business. - Hiring lobbyists in Texas who included two former aides to then-Gov. George W. Bush, as well as former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes. In 1996, public pressure led to Barnes' contract being bought out for $23 million.
An Italian firm, Lottomatica S.p.A., acquired Gtech in August 2006. According to its most recent annual report, Gtech had $1.3 billion in revenues, was active in 51 countries, and provided its services to 26 of the 41 online lottery authorities in the United States.
Lottery suppliers like Gtech aren't the gambling interests making sure bets on politics: casinos and other gaming companies have contributed more than $557 million to federal and state candidates and political committees since 1989, according to data in Influence Explorer.
While journalistic skill and technique are essential for writing a good investigative article, we often take it for granted that journalists have access to the information they need to write complex news stories. Without publicly available data, much of our news would not be possible. We've been looking at investigative articles as part of an ongoing series called "Back to the Source" for the last several months. Now we've decided to amp it up a bit and make redacted visuals to explicitly demonstrate how little the public would know without laws and regulations that force the government to make the data it has publicly available.
In honor of Sunshine Week we decided to create "The News Without Transparency." We took original investigative articles and manually blacked out all the information that would not be known without existing transparency measures. It is worth taking a look at just how little we would know.
Some examples we found notable are below, and the ongoing series is available here.
Last month Politico reported that corporate contributions to a super PAC set
up to support Democratic U.S. Rep. Howard Berman were being used as a weapon against him during the contentious primary race that he and Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman, also from California, have found themselves in as a result of redistricting.
The Politico article is able to report facts regarding campaign finance data by accessing publicly available information. The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 initially established substantive disclosure requirements for federal candidates, political parties, and PACs. Subsequent amendments and legislation, including the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 and the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 have further strengthened these requirements.
As I have written about before, this information can be found on the Federal Election Commission’s website under Campaign Finance Reports and Data, but it’s not easy to use unless you know what you are looking for. However, because the information is made available to the public, organizations like the Sunlight Foundation, ProPublica and the New York Times have been able to take FEC data and put it in more user-friendly formats. The information is then presented so that the most relevant information is easily accessible to regular people.
"The News Without Transparency" shows you what the news would look like without public access to information. Laws and regulations that force the government to make the data it has publicly available are absolutely vital, along with services that take that raw data and make it easy for reporters to write sentences like the ones we've redacted in the piece above. If you have an article you'd like us to put through the redaction machine, please send us an email at mbuck@sunlightfoundation.com.
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