It's not just because of the name that I like the idea behind this new report (actually, the first installment of a new report) from Public Citizen's Congress Watch: it brings together several kinds of information on members of Congress in one place. It lets users look at contribution totals to incumbents from lobbyists, PACs, donors who don't live in the member's home state, small (under $200) donors, as well information on the junkets that members and their staff have taken. It also provides nice summary data by state (here's New York, for example).
Continue readingCitizen Journalists Investigated 435 House Members in less than two days!
Citizen Muckrakers have investigated 437 members of Congress, and tentatively found 19 spouses who were paid by a member's campaign committee-totaling some $641,200 since January 1, 2005. Incredible!--in less than two days, a virtual investigative team dug through campaign finance records for 435 current members of Congress, trying to find out of they paid their spouses from campaign funds. There were 24 of us (myself included--I looked up six members) who left our names, and 83 members investigated by anonymous researchers. I'm not sure whether that's actually 83 individual researchers, or one very industrious but bashful person, or some total in between, but our tech folks should be able to give us some idea of what the actual number of participants was.
Continue readingHouse Family Business: Past the Half Way Point!
Citizen journalists have now investigated 258 members of Congress, and tentatively identified a dozen spouses who've been cumulativel paid $455,539. Incredible. A huge thanks to all who've participated--whether you've done one, two or dozens. A special thanks to KCinDC, who's been an indefatigable machine, and to VaAntiRepublican, who's chipped in a couple of dozen. And remember, this is only phase one of a multipronged investigation into family members of members of Congress who work in the political system as fundraisers, for political action committtees, or as lobbyists,
Continue readingHoly Cow! 170 in 7 hours!
It's about seven hours since we launched the Congressional Spouse Project, and citizen journalists have investigated 170 members of Congress! Thanks to everyone who's made the effort, and remember--only 265 members to go! Also remember that this is just phase one--we've got plenty more areas to dig into. Stay tuned, and again, thanks to all of you who've gotten us off to such a great start! Update:10:45--about 15 minutes to go to the end of Battlestar Galactica--and we're up to 209 members checked. Incredible!
Continue readingRomney Promotes Himself on 527’s Tab
One of the many inequities in our current campaign finance system involves the rules on so-called "Section 527" organizations (named after the section of the Internal Revenue Code that establishes them). Current campaign finance law bars federally elected officials and candidates for federal office--Representatives, Senators, President and Vice President--from having such groups, which can raise funds in unlimited amounts from any source (including directly from labor unions and corporations). That law only applies to federal elections (that is, to those running for or holding federal office), but state officials--including governors--can use 527 funds to promote themselves right up to the moment that they officially declare themselves to be a federal candidate.
Continue readingFind out if Congress is a Family Business
Rep. Richard Pombo did it with his wife and his brother. In his 2004 presidential campaign, Sen. Joseph Lieberman did it with his children. Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay did it with his wife and daughter. All have hired relatives to work on their campaigns, paying them salaries out of special interest contributions. Our system of campaign finance is often called "legalized bribery," in which special interests donate tens of thousands of dollars to a member's campaign committee in the hopes of advancing their own issues. Some members of Congress, by hiring their spouses, in effect use their campaign treasury to supplement their own bank accounts. The practice is legal, disclosed in obscure corners of campaign finance reports, and rarely mentioned by those who cover campaigns. And now citizen journalists can investigate it!
Continue readingWhen Money Doesn’t Work
One of the safest assumptions you can make in the world of politics is that the more money you have, compared to your opponent, the better your chances of winning. But even the safest assumptions are sometimes wrong, and there’s one special case where an abundance of money can do more harm than good: when the voters already know who you are, don’t like you, and find each new commercial an unpleasant reminder of exactly how much they don’t like you.
After all, annoying ads, repeated endlessly, don’t suddenly start working after the 50th viewing. They only build resentment, and that’s true whether the advertiser is a pain reliever or a political candidate.
Continue readingSomething Missing From CNN’s Campaign Finance Report
Campaign finance stories are often difficult to tell in print, let alone on television. You often need charts and graphs to illustrate where the money is coming from, you need to explain the rules of the system and then the ways to get around those rules, and generally you end up with far more correlation than causation: special interests give money to politicians who favor their agendas, but absent quid pro quos, you end up with politicians avowing that contributions had nothing to do with their votes. That's one reason, I think, why election coverage often focuses more on the horse race and the superficial issues than on more substantial issues, like why are particular interests or industries donating thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars to a particular candidate? Who are the folks packing rooms with 30 or 50 or 100 people all writing $500, $1,000 or $2,000 checks to the candidate? And what will these people want come January?
Continue readingDo-it-yourself Data
Parke Wilde, writing at the U.S. Food Policy blog, has a pretty good idea: take data from different sources, line it up and organize it by congressional district, and then present it--either graphically (a map) or in a table, for easy analysis--to find out what individual members are up to. I'll return to this in a minute--and it's an intriguing notion that fits in with something I've been kicking around in my head for a while--but first let's look at what Wilde did: he looked at campaign contributions from C-Span, farm subsidy payments from the Environmental Working Group and earmarked pork projects from Citizens Against Government Waste all in a single disctrict -- that of Rep. Tom Latham, R-Iowa, a member of the House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee.
Continue readingBig Money Sticking with Incumbents
If you’ve been reading the latest New York Times/CBS poll numbers – Only 25% in Poll Approve of Congress – you might well wonder why despite all this, political insiders remain so confident that only a tiny percentage of members will be defeated at the polls in November.
The answer lies in the two big assets incumbents have going for them this election year: safely drawn congressional districts and cold, hard cash. In fact, if 2006 is supposed to be a tougher-than-normal year for incumbents, somebody forgot to tell the interest groups that fund congressional campaigns.
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