Lobbyists 'Honor' Politicians' Pet Causes As A Way Around Gift Ban
By Susie Madrak Monday Jun 08, 2009 6:00pmNever let it be said that lobbyists are too dumb to figure out a way around any rule we pass to keep them from paying off politicians:
WASHINGTON — On a mild evening last September, Citigroup lobbyists mingled with South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn at a rooftop reception — complete with miniature putting greens — as the company hosted a party to honor the third most powerful Democrat in the House and raise money for one of his favorite golf charities.
Health insurers and hospitals, meanwhile, are donating millions to help build an institute in Boston to celebrate the career of Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., who is attempting to overhaul the nation's health care system.
Despite a ban on gifts to lawmakers and limits on campaign contributions, lobbyists and groups that employ them can spend unlimited money to honor members of Congress or donate to non-profits connected to them or their relatives. The public — until now — had little insight into the scope of this largely hidden world of special-interest influence.
Under ethics rules passed in 2007, lobbyists for the first time last year had to report any payment made for an event or to a group connected to a lawmaker and other top federal officials.
USA TODAY undertook the first comprehensive analysis of the lobbying reports and found 2,759 payments, totaling $35.8 million, were made in 2008. The money went to honor 534 current and former lawmakers, almost 250 other federal officials and more than 100 groups, many of which count lawmakers among their members.
The total cost is roughly equivalent to what the U.S. government spends to operate Yellowstone National Park each year.
Most of the money — about $28 million — went to non-profit groups, some with direct ties to members of Congress. In two cases, USA TODAY found, the donations to non-profits associated with a member of Congress came in response to a personal appeal for funds from the lawmaker.
"It's another example of the many pockets of a politician's coat," says Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog group. The spending amounts to an "end-run" around campaign-finance laws "that are designed to limit the appearance of undue influence," she says.
The money came from companies, trade associations and labor groups that lobby Congress and the government on a range of issues, from seeking a share of last year's $700 billion financial bailout package to trying to shape the debate on climate change.
The donations cover various activities — from a golf tournament that raises money for a lawmaker's non-profit to gifts to the alma mater of a powerful House committee chairman.
"You can still have a gala or something or the other for a charity and earn some favor with members of Congress, which is what the gift ban was put in place to avoid," says Dan Danner, CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business and a veteran Washington lobbyist.
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Party Boss Limbaugh wonders "Would a white male judge have fractured his ankle in the same circumstances" as Sotomayor?" http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200906080026
I don't know. I've often wondered would a Latina Vice President shoot and old lawyer in the face?
Until we fund campaigns with equal, inflation-adjusted amounts of public money, our democracy will remain dead.
Passing real Campaign Finance Reform will involve years of persistent grassroots efforts to elect and track legislators of all parties committed to Campaign Finance Reform. When enough legislators are in place, we must promote and pass it. We can, and we must, or America is already dead.
Let's make bribing Congress illegal again.
And until then they will constantly find a new way around anything else that is thrown up to stop them. Keep calling them out on the rug.
Lobbying with $$$$ = BRIBERY!
Next topic?
What the hell is up with the sexist ad next to this posting. Come on. Girls and men. That about as stupid as man and wife. It's so republican.
Here is a list of elected people taking payoffs to cheat the American people and the amounts of bribes being taken. This is just from health care and insurance.
It is mind boggling to think how much these people are taking from others!
Arlen Specter (R-D- PA- $4,026,933)
Max Baucus (DLC- MT- $2,833,731)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY- $2,758,468)
And when you just go right to Big Insurance, the non-presidential candidates who got the biggest legalized bribes were the 7 senators who have been tasked with the job of killing single-payer:
Ben Nelson (DLC-NE- $1,196,799)
Max Baucus (DLC- MT- $1,184,113)
Joe Lieberman (DLC- CT- $1,036,302)
Arlen Specter (R-D- PA- $1,035,530)
Chuck Schumer (D-NY- $981,400)
Mitch McConnell (R-KY- $929,207)
Chuck Grassley (R-IA- $884,724)
We need to investigate and prosecute these criminals now. Severe jail terms are in order for these criminals!
In addition to punishing the lobbyists, we should have some other laws.
How about if the CEO/President of the corporation that hired the lobbyists serve an equal jail time?
How about punishments up to and including the death penalty for the corporation itself? If they've got many of the rights of a person, they should bloody well have the responsibilities, as well.
This is one of the things the Feds are still after DeLay and Doolittle about; Christine DeLay had a no-show job with a lobbying group supposedly researching the favorite charities of selected lawmakers.
If you think about it, charities are the perfect way to launder money. No one needs to explain why they give to a worthy cause. The charity has few restrictions on how it spends donations. This should have gotten far more attention since the Christine DeLay story and the Italia Federici "conservation" charity that paid for Abramoff's son's education and the Israeli sniper school.
And to add insult to injury, the higher your income (marginal tax rate), the more taxpayers subsidize your "gifts".
on the lawsuit between Massey Coal and a litigant is going to have interesting implications for lobbyists. They ruled that elected judges must recuse themselves from cases if they have taken contributions from those donated to their campaigns and who would be appearing before their courts. They found that failure to do so effectively denied those litigating against donors their rights to due process. In this case, clearly so.
What of lobbyists? For example, the insurance, HMO's and Big Pharma who have purchased through their donations all of the politicians who are in control of crafting pending healthcare legislation. The corrupt politicians have, in the aggregate, accepted millions and are aggresively acting against the desires of the overwhelming majority of the electorate, in order to do the bidding of the business entities that bought and paid for them. their behavior is so egregarious that it is possible for them to argue that they are doing the work of the People. Perhaps this ruling can be used to argue that elected members of Congress cannot sit on any committees or craft any legislation that effects the business ofentities that have donated moey to them by whatever mechanism was at hand.
This could be interesting.
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