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Tag Archive: Campaign Finance

Fannie Mae Didn’t Just Pay Its Execs

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There’s another side to the stories today about accounting fraud at Fannie Mae, the quasi-government corporation that insures mortgages – and that is that during the period when the fraud was alleged to take place, the company was one of the biggest soft money donors in the nation.

Beginning in 1997, and continuing through late 2002, Fannie Mae contributed some $3.5 million to national political party committees, according to records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. The money was split almost equally between the Democratic (47%) and Republican (53%) parties.

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Meet the Cash Constituents

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Campaigns for Congress aren't cheap, but incumbent members find plenty of financial supporters so they don't have to pay the bills themselves. Here's how to find out who your own congressman's cash constituents are, and how to interpret what you see.

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Another Quote of the Day:

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Yet again from Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:

No one has mastered the art of fundraising like Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (D), "whose campaign fund has amassed more than $45 million in his two bids for governor," reports the Chicago Tribune. "Blagojevich has said fundraising helps keep him independent. By raising money, he contends he is able to avoid pressure from special interests."

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The End of Legal Bribery?:

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Jeff Birnbaum, the Washington Post's K Street correspondent, pens an important article in The Washington Monthly about potential shifts in Washington's political culture in the wake of the Jack Abramoff and Duke Cunningham scandals:

So far, the scandal surrounding disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff has produced some vivid and memorable examples of modern Washington graft--skybox tickets, pricey restaurant meals, golf junkets to Scotland. Yet at the center of the scandal is something more prosaic, and potentially far more explosive: good old-fashioned campaign donations. Deep in the plea agreements won by Justice Department lawyers are admissions by the defendants--Abramoff and his cronies, ex-DeLay aides Tony C. Rudy and Michael Scanlon--that they conspired to use campaign contributions to bribe lawmakers. Even though these gifts were fully disclosed and within prescribed limits, the government said they were criminal, and the defendants agreed. This aspect of the case has received little attention. But it is sending shudders down K Street. If such prosecutions were to become commonplace, the paid persuaders of Washington and their big-money clients would be dealt a body blow. If prosecutors begin to assert as a matter of routine that lobbyist gifts and campaign contributions are a form of bribery, it could open up a whole new front on the decades-old (and largely ineffective) effort to break the nexus of money and politics in the capital.

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Worry Warts:

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Roll Call is reporting that House Republicans are "growing uneasy with the increasingly aggressive tactics being employed by the Justice Department in its burgeoning corruption probe of Congress". Some believe that the Justice Department has "gone too far in their techniques" and that prosecutors are trying to "get" a Congressman. Rep. Bob Ney's (R-OH) replacement as House Administration Chairman Vern Ehlers (R-MI) voiced these concerns, "A number of Members are very concerned about the way the Justice Department is investigating." Noel Hillman, the former lead prosecutor at Justice's Public Integrity Unit, stated that he did pursue more aggressive means than previous prosecutors stating that he led a "more aggressive [approach] in the ways we investigate the cases: the more effective use of cooperators, the more effective use of undercover techniques, the consensual recordings." One example cited by Congressmen upset over the aggressive techniques is the searching of Rep. William Jefferson's (D-LA) car while it was on Congressional grounds. Buried within the article is a simple statement by Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) that explains the problems that many Americans have with Congress nowadays.

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), a member of the Judiciary Committee and former California attorney general, said he was growing concerned that some prosecutors and the media were viewing the simple act of accepting campaign contributions from donors with similar legislative agendas as a criminal act. With Members “put into a situation” in which they need to constantly raise money, Lungren noted that each party has found natural bases of donors who support each other’s agendas. But that, he said, doesn’t add up to the criminal level of a “fairly delineated quid pro quo.”
The need to constantly raise money puts Congressmen in situations where it oftens seems that they are being bribed, whether they are or not. What Lungren implies, although he would certainly disagree with the way that I read the implications, is that the problem lies in what is actually legal - the honest graft.

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Buddy, Can You Spare a Tax Break?

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Whenever I hear stories like the ones today about the deal reached to preserve a tax break for investors, I think back to a statistic that I once compiled at the Center for Responsive Politics, when it was my full-time job to track money in American politics.

When you stare, day in and day out, at databases that document the names and occupations of Americans who’ve given $1,000 or more to political candidates, PACs and parties, you tend to slip into the mindset that everybody gives, that you’re looking at a cross-section of the general population.

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The Untouchables

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The hottest talk around Washington these days is all about the Democrats’ chances of taking back control of Congress in the 2006 elections. Republicans are understandably nervous at the prospect, especially as the President’s approval ratings continue their long, slow slide. Some Democrats are downright giddy.

Both sides seem to have locked on the image of post-election Washington that would emerge if the Democrats won control: a non-stop cavalcade of congressional investigations into Iraq, oil prices, pharmaceutical costs – you name it. All of this, of course, is seen as prologue to the 2008 presidential contest.

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How Competitive?

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If you follow the never-ceasing ups and downs of political pollsters, you’re no doubt aware of all the unhappiness voters have been expressing this year with the incumbents in Congress. You might think from this that most members are in peril of having to start a new career after November 7th, since the voters seem so restive.

Don’t bet on it. Absent an indictment, most incumbents – at least in the House of Representatives – will almost certainly glide to another term in office without much of a speed bump. The reelection rates for House incumbents in the last five elections have been 94%, 98%, 98%, 96% and 98%. The last time they dipped below 90% was in 1992 (when only 88% were reelected). The last time before that was in 1974.

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Information Mashing

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Information Mashing. Don't you just love that term? It's one of the major goals of Sunlight and while we've been working on it for the past couple of months we have a ways to go before it happens in any substantial way. Our goal is simple: integrate in a user-friendly way individual data sets (like campaign contributions, lobbyists and government contracts) that makes the whole larger than the sum of its parts.

We'd like to create something we've dubbed an "Accountability Matrix."  A website where, with one click you can look up a major donor and see not just their campaign contributions, but also their lobbying expenditures, the names of members who've flown on their private jet, the names of former congressional staffers they've hired, and so on.

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CFC (Combined Federal Campaign) Today 59063

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