The paper chase

This from the "Everybody knows ..." department: When it comes to courting lawmakers, corporations are more gold digger than lover, but at least with "the party of the people" back in power -- largely because the 12-year Republican-corporate fling was so unseemly, amoral and instructional -- those corporate come-hither looks will now be met with judicious leariness. Right?

Yeah. Tell us another bedtime story. For the gold-digging gun has sounded and this race looks mighty familiar.

"Campaign finance data reported this week show that this year's top-giving company PACs are shifting course," reports Politico.com. "That contribution shift is particularly pronounced among committee leaders, which offers some clues about how big companies may seek to navigate the new Congress."

Their navigation, however, doesn't go without considerable co-piloting. Freshly installed and hungry Democratic chairmen are more than willing to show the way and pocket the cash. Follow the money? Hell, you can't miss it for stumbling over it.

Here -- again, from Politico -- are just a few of the dispiriting facts to date.

The top Democrats on the 20 most business-related congressional committees hauled in nearly $240,000 from the 35 most active corporate political action committees in the first couple of months of the year. Their Republican counterparts -- the committees' ranking members -- received $182,200 from the same industry committees.

That's an early 32-percent advantage for "the people's party," and sure to grow. Any guess as to how important "the people" are in big business' calculations?

With Democrats looking to rein in defense spending, the three biggest-giving defense contractor PACs this year have given to Democratic chairmen of the committees with military spending oversight, but not to the committees' Republican ranking members.

I wasn't aware that Democrats were looking "to rein in defense spending"; if anything, they long ago joined the chorus of Pentagon boosters, generally out of fear of demagogic assaults and especially since the opposition party has gutted the Army, Marines Corps and National Guard. Democrats will heftily refinance the armed forces -- plus some -- so that in 10 years another Republican administration can gut it again. And so it goes, particularly when you're getting all the defense-contractor goodies.

Democrats are also reexamining corporate tax structures, which has business nervous. The chairmen of committees handling those issues -- House Ways and Means and Senate Finance -- have pulled in nearly $110,000 from the top corporate PACs, while the top Republicans have tallied $51,500.

I doubt they're really all that nervous. Not any longer.

Many Democrats pledged to refocus energy policy on alternative fuels, and the five most active energy company PACs ... have lavished contributions on one of the key Democratic leaders on the issue, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.). He raked in $12,500 from the PACs for Exelon, American Electric Power, Florida Power & Light and Duke Energy, while his ranking member, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), received nothing.

John Dingell has been in the House since 1955. He last won reelection with 87.91 percent of the vote. Is there some threat to his seat that only $12,500 from the likes of Florida Power and Light will forestall?

I have no problem with Aunt Bea throwing a few bucks her congressional candidate's way. But when multiple corporations of like self-interests can each toss $10,000 onto the table, then you have an electoral system of barely veiled wholesale graft that screams for mandatory public financing.

Rather than spending countless hours "hauling in," "pulling in" and being "lavished on," how about Congressional Democrats devoting some serious time to ending the cyclical madness?

Comments

[Poverty Outlaw]

How can we fight this? How do we shame or threaten our representatives to take the money and vote for change? Remember the old definition of a good politician..."One who stays bought".

What do we do?

[old dem]

Senators Durbin and Spector have introduced a piece of legislation called the Fair Elections Now Act. It "would create a voluntary system of public funding for congressional campaigns modeled on successful public financing systems used for the past three election cycles in Maine and Arizona."

http://www.commoncause.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=194883&ct=3687885

BTW, Dingell wasn't the only Democrat to be treated well by Exelon. "Exelon, a leading nuclear-plant operator based in Illinois, is a big donor to Obama, and its executive and employees have given him more than $70,000 since 2004."

http://www.harpers.org/sb-a-little-bit-more-on-obama-1161881683.htmlbills.

Obama supports S.280 (the McCain/Lieberman bill on cutting emissions) rather than S.309 (the Boxer/Sanders bill which was endorsed by Al Gore). S.280 calls for "more $3.7 billion in federal subsidies for new nuclear power plants."

http://a4nr.org/library/nuclearrenaissance/01.2007-publiccitizen/view

[VettaKing]

I believe the only way we are going to begin to take this country back from the corporations is to have a Democratic president who believes in the progress of the nation and public financing for campaigns. I don't see how congressional Dems could ever really do this without a strong progressive president because they would be slaughtered by the corporate fascist rethuglicans. It would be like bringing a knife to a gun fight.

[mike]

Our ONLY hope for the future of our Democracy is to publicly finance elections and take the corporate money out of politics forever. We also must pass laws like the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE that Reagan destroyed. Laws that hold our media accountable for their "facts" and their duty to share differing points of view with Americans. Kuccinich is the man with most of the right ideas, unfortunately his money situation and the media have made him unelectable. Read his ideas, IF Americans would let him lead, we could really change this country for the better. We all know that he would be assassinated though, either by our own government or Corporate "America."

[graycat]

Why would a man take a job that pays $180,000 but that requires he pay $600,000 in union dues? Your congressmen do. Party dues for your congressmen range between $100,000 to $600,000 per year depending on their seniority and committee positions. Yea, not like a club membership where everyone pays the same flat rate. More seniority, more power, more loot to collect each month to pay the Party cuz you have more to sell, of course.

See the article in NYT, 10/1/2006 and one in the Hill Newsletter last year. Treated by both as an collection effort, not as a causal effect on ethical behavior.

Put in your own terms. Want a promotion to Senior VP, you have to pay your union three times your salary to get it. Have to go out and sell something to raise the money. So if you are a SVP now, what do you have of value to sell? Obviously the company does not value you sufficiently to pay your dues, but maybe the competition will pay you to what? sell out the company, bankrupt the company, sabotage the company? "It was easy money the first time and know about it except my Party commissar, so I did it again, nudge, nudge, wink, wink"

Campaign finance isn't the problem, its a symptom of a system that is stacked against self policing, gamed by an outside Party. Its the Party's hold over its members, knowledge of the skeletons in their closets. And controlled by those who hold the Party's reins. Party to Congressman- "Get out there and shake your money maker, bitch, mo' money, mo' money, mo' money".

So now we have a new crop of cash-short wannabe "cumpknee sto' hofficals, standing on the Congressional corner, wiggling suggestively in front of the same corporate "uhh, baby, yo the biggest and best ever johns", needing to pay the Party pimp, needing to make two terms to get that lifetime pension and retire to that K Street callgirl crib and get off the "its just a means to an end, you didn't think I would do this the rest of my life, did you" street.

Apparently there isn't much risk of losing a job that make no economic sense. Just as obviously there appears to be sufficient numbers of corporate johns to pay 425 hofficials an average of say $200,000, or $87,000,000/year.

The solution is to raise the pay, say tenfold, to $1,800,000 per year and put the Congressmen at risk of losing something of value. Hey Congressman, how about $1,8 million/year but everything is out of your pocket (travel, security, food, etc.), Mr. Congressman. And don't take anything from anyone, and don't pay off anyone for your position, or lose your job and your pension, Mr. Congressman!

I'd say 435 members at $1,800,000 a year is cheaper than the the damage done by a bunch of street rate public hofficials snorting money thru rolled up pork laden bills on the floor of Congress . And if we, the American public, pay for the talent we might shake loose a qualified pool of qualified candidates from the private sector to run for public office, free of nepotism or personal wealth. We might even find a few public servants that value the position for its merits not what they get out of it.