As the labor battle in Wisconsin and several other mid-western states heated up in January, there was an increase in lobbying registrations related to labor issues at the federal level. Twenty-three new lobbying contracts sprang up during the month to address labor, antitrust and workplace issues and another eleven more registrations occurred in February with a few others coming in March, according to data aggregated by the lobbying tracker. 

Thus far, Ameriprise Financial and eight other organizations have created new contracts in March. American Continental Group signed three new lobbying contracts in February with agricultural giant Monsanto Co, Advanced Micro ...

Last week came news that GE has avoided having to pay any -- ANY -- corporate income tax in the United States. As reported in the New York Times, that feat, despite earning $14.2 billion in worldwide profits ($5.1 billion in the U.S.), is due to "innovative accounting" and "fierce lobbying," as well as a large stable of former government officials from the IRS and tax-writing Congressional committees. The article goes on to state that the U.S. has one of the highest corporate income tax rates in the world. But that statement is somewhat misleading, as you'll ...

We've received a few calls about the House disbursements data we published, questioning the total amount spent by various offices. The House Committee on Administration provides two sets of numbers: summary numbers for each office's spending by quarter, including a grand total and a breakdown by category, and detailed files listing every disbursement reported for that quarter. There is a discrepancy between the totals reported in the summary section and the totals arrived at by adding all of the individual disbursements reported in the detail view of our downloadable data. Despite the discrepancy, a review of the data ...

One year ago today, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. The legislative process that led to the bill's enactment proved to be a boon to lobbyists, including former aides to key members. Industry exerted influence on the administration and members of Congress from early on in the process, and continued lobbying after the bill was passed.

In 2009 and 2010, lobbyists for some 1,251 organizations disclosed lobbying on the bill, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Those interests included pharmaceutical firms and their trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of ...