This is a pretty amusing take on Washington's revolving door. But the truth is often stranger than fiction. If you want all the facts, check out the Center for Responsive Politics' Revolving Door database. In fact, you can start by looking up the names of some of the people mentioned in the cartoon.
Positive Feedback in the Political (Pierson’s Path Dependence)
(From the Open House Project blog.)
I'm reading Politics in Time by Paul Pierson (link), and am struck by how little academic political science seems to affect government policy and political discussion. I find political and social analysis incredibly stimulating, especially given how tiresome I find the current presidential punditizing.
I'm particularly interested in Pierson's purportedly novel conception of how political institutions develop over time, apparently filling the gaps that other models fail to address. (He sets his conceptions against "historical institutionalism" and "rational choice theory".) His analysis is abstract enough to be rigorous and challenging at first, but takes a broad enough view that he can abstract common elements out of disparate systems in a useful, applicable manner. He seeks to "explicate different ways in which things happen over time in social life, drawing attention to processes that are unlikely to be visible without specifically addressing questions of temporality" (p. 10). (more)
Planning for every contingency…
...is what can make crafting a distributed research project, like Teresa DeRoco used to work for Sen. George Allen. However, DeRoco no longer works for Tew Cardenas LLP. Page 13 of this lobbyist disclosure report filed in August 2007 by the National Association of Manufacturers lists a Teresa DeRoco Cupit; this wedding announcement seems to confirm it's the same Teresa DeRoco who worked in Sen. George Allen's office:
[DeRoco] served on the staff of Senator George Allen of Virginia and is currently employed by the National Association of Manufacturers in Washington, DC.Sadly, the boxes we allow one ...
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Where the Money Comes from Matters
The official voting of the 2008 presidential race begins tonight at the Iowa Caucuses. And next Tuesday, New Hampshire voters will cast votes in the first primary of the election. Before casting a ballot I want to encourage everyone in all states to visit OpenSecrets.org, the website of our colleagues at the Center for Responsive Politics, the "follow the money" folks. CRP's easily accessed Race for the White House database profiles the fund raising and spending of each candidate's campaign. Unfortunately, because of filing rules, CRP only has data through September 30. Fund raising and spending reports for October through December are not due to the Federal Election Commission until the end of this month. Nevertheless, the data CRP has shows the important early period where the various candidates' strengths and weaknesses is gauged largely by the amount of money raised.
CRP breaks down the data to reveal each candidate's contributors by state, metropolitan area and zip code; contribution size; gender and industry the donor is associated with. You can even look up individual donors by candidate, industry or ZIP code. "Before you vote, count the candidates' cash," CRP Executive Director Sheila Krumholz advises Iowa and New Hampshire residents, as well as those in later-voting states. "Just as it's important to know the candidates, it's important to know who got them this far and might hold sway with them in the White House," Sheila adds.
Continue readingNew, improved Senate lobbying disclosure site is up and running
As I noted here, the Senate Office of Public Records lobbying disclosure site is officially up and running (and had been since New Year's Eve--apparently my browsers kept showing the cached version of the old site--which, for diehard fans of it, is still available here). Pam Gavin, the superintendent of public records, told me that about 90 percent of the 2007 midyear reports in the lobbying database were filed electronically, so much of the year's records will be searchable. And, going forward in 2008, all forms will have to be filed that way, greatly enhancing the value of ...
Continue readingSenate Provides Better Tool for Tracking Lobbyists
The Senate Office of Public Records launched an enhanced database for lobbying disclosure on New Year's Eve, one that allows users for the first time to search previously unsearchable fields like "specific lobbying issue." What this means is that you can plug in a bill number -- say S. 681, the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act -- and find out that 19 organizations disclosed lobbying on the bill, including top political donors Citigroup, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, Exxon Mobil and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Perhaps it should be expected that the Swiss Bankers Association also has an interest in the legislation... Pam Gavin, SOPR's Superintendent of Public Records, says that about 90 percent of the 2007 mid-year lobbying reports are fully searchable, and going forward in 2008, 100 percent of them will be. She also helpfully pointed out that the whole database is now downloadable, year by year--the data is available here. Note: If you're having trouble seeing the new site, you might want to empty your cache.
Continue readingNew FOIA Law Signed
In all the festivities surrounding the New Year's holiday, you might have missed President Bush signing the Open Government Act of 2007 on Monday without comment, the first reform of the Freedom of Information Act in a decade. David Ardia, director of the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the Center for Citizen Media, hails the act for expanding the definition of who is representative of the news media. "This change would significantly benefit bloggers and non-traditional journalists by making them eligible for reduced processing and duplication fees that are available (to members of the media)."
The Associated Press reports that the new law "is aimed at reversing an order by former Attorney General John Ashcroft in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, in which he instructed agencies to lean against releasing information when there was uncertainty about how doing so would affect national security."
(Updated: The Associated Press reported on the new law; the First Amendment Center did not issue a statement as previously reported.)
Continue readingBetter Online Lobbyist Disclosure — update
Last night, I came across an enhanced site for looking up lobbying records posted online by the Senate Office of Public Records. To give an idea of how much better it is, I can tell you that with one search that 22 organizations--including top political donors Citigroup, Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, Exxon Mobil and PricewaterhouseCoopers, explicitly mention S. 681, the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. (Perhaps it should be expected that the Swiss Bankers Association also has an interest in the legislation, although one thing I learned some years back when I was researching taxes is that Switzerland is no ...
Continue readingSenate Lobbyist Disclosure Enhanced
Okay, I'm a total geek -- looking up lobbying records at 15 minutes to midnight on New Year's Eve. (The nine-year-old made it to about 11:15 this year, then conked out...) But I hope I'm the first to report that the Senate Office of Public Records has introduced a greatly enhanced search interface for lobbying records -- one that allows users to search specific lobbying issues.
Now you can see who's lobbying on tobacco, a specific bill, Iran, or whatever else you might want to check out.
It will be a very happy new year for us ...
Continue readingMcCain & Lobbyists
The Washington Post's Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and John Solomon report on Sen. John McCain's ties to lobbyists--especially the 32 lobbyists who are designated fundraisers (the preferred term is bundlers, but there are more colorful terms available to us) for his campaign.
The story does a good job of identifying who these lobbyists are and what interests their firms represent. The Post references this joint study by Public Citizen and the Campaign Finance Institute, but it looks to me like their numbers are different than the Post's. The study says that McCain has 20 lobbyists among his bundlers ...
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