-
Fighting net neutrality, telecom companies, outside lobbyists, cluster contributions to members of Congress
By Bill Allison Oct 22, 2009 10:45 p.m.While the Federal Communications Commission considers the first steps toward ensuring net neutrality--making certain that broadband providers do not discriminate against high traffic sites--the telecom firms that would be affected by the rules and their trade groups have been swamping Congress with a one-two punch of campaign contributions from the companies and their registered lobbyists. Some 244 members of Congress were the beneficiaries of these contribution clusters--totaling more than $9.4 million--from January 2007 to June 2009, an investigative collaboration of the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics has found. Telecom interests and their lobbyists engaged in more clustered giving than any industry save pharmaceuticals.
Read all about it -
Shining a Bright New Light on an Old Game
By Larry Makinson Oct 1, 2009 9:33 p.m.Jaws dropped around the Sunlight offices a couple of weeks ago, when we discovered after a month's worth of painstaking research the extent to which lobbyist donations were echoing, and in some cases greatly supplementing, the campaign contributions of their clients.
Read all about it -
Less than three percent Palin's itemized PAC contributions from Alaskans
By Luke Rosiak Jul 22, 2009 5:19 p.m.Less than three percent of the itemized money raised by resigning Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's leadership PAC came from Alaskans, newly filed campaign finance reports show. SarahPAC reported raising more than $730,000 in the last six months--less than half of the $1.6 million raised by Mitt Romney's PAC.
Read all about it -
House Ethics Committee: Investigating PMA Group or not?
By Bill Allison Jun 3, 2009 6:06 p.m.Tory Newmyer reports in Roll Call:
Read all about it -
Murtha's earmark recipients: How hands off (or on) is he?
By Bill Allison Jun 3, 2009 4:17 p.m.Paul Singer reports in Roll Call on a tangled story that apparently involves the undisclosed hand of Rep. John Murtha but certainly involves his brother Kit (a retired lobbyist) and his former lobbying firm, five different companies doing business, directly or indirectly, with Defense (including one under federal indictment and one that allegedly wanted to outsource earmarked defense work to "China or someplace"), an earmark from the pre-disclosure era, some technical corrections added to the Tsunami relief bill that moved the funds for that earmark from one recipient to another (because the original recipient allegedly wanted to do the work in "China or someplace" rather than in Murtha's district), about $8.2 million of taxpayer money, and a whole lot of digging. Oh, and PMA Group makes a cameo appearance. Read the whole thing, but also consider this:
Read all about it -
Visclosky temporarily relinquishes reins of subcommittee
By Bill Allison Jun 2, 2009 9:27 p.m.Rep. Peter Visclosky, whose office has been subpoenaed for documents related to clients of the defunct lobbying firm PMA Group, has temporarily stepped down as chair of the House Energy & Water Appropriations Subcommittee. Lindsay Renick Mayer reports on Visclosky's woes, his top donors, and those of his replacement, Ed Pastor, who has taken less than a tenth as much in contributions from PMA Group and its clients (of course, I'm referring to contributions from their employees, family members and political action committees).
-
CREW visualizes Murtha web
By Bill Allison May 29, 2009 5:49 p.m.Here's a picture worth well over a thousand words: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has assembled an interactive, "You Don't Know Jack" graphic showing the connections between Murtha, a trio of lobbying firms, relatives, staffers and the companies for whom he's gotten earmarks.
Read all about it -
Delving into Rep. Lewis' earmark requests
By Bill Allison May 26, 2009 9:27 p.m.Ben Goad reports for the Press Enterprise that Rep. Jerry Lewis, former chair and now ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, earmarked $96 million for firms represented by Innovative Federal Strategies, which was once under federal investigation:
Read all about it -
New Mexico Independent asks for help hunting earmarks
By Bill Allison May 19, 2009 10:09 p.m.The New Mexico Independent is asking readers to delve into the earmark requests of Sens. Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall, and comment on anything interesting they find. This is what's really important -- while the hide-and-go-seek disclosure methods of Congress make for an amusing diversion, it's the substance of the disclosures should command our attention.
Read all about it -
Cram down look ups, cont. cont....
By Bill Allison May 13, 2009 3:32 p.m.For more detail on what this is, see here. While this is still partially that, it's also turning into something else. As I noted, this is raw research, not a finished product--results to come. One thing I'm finding is that looking closely at slices of data from Party Time leads in all kinds of directions...
Read all about it -
Cram down look ups, cont.
By Bill Allison May 7, 2009 8:07 p.m.More research (see here for details on what this research is. I'm trying to see if there was a flurry of fundraising around the vote on the Durbin amendment to the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009.
Read all about it -
Quarters doubled in odd years, halved again in evens
By Bill Allison May 7, 2009 4:11 p.m.This always makes me thing of Lewis Carroll every time I see it. A PAC tells the FEC it's going to file quarterly reports rather than monthly reports. The FEC approves the request, and writes back:
Read all about it -
Looking up cram down opponents in Party Time
By Bill Allison May 6, 2009 10:05 p.m.This post is all research and no results -- that'll come later. I wanted to take a look at a vote my colleague Paul Blumenthal referred to with the title (quoting Sen. Richard Durbin) "They own the place." The "they" in question are financial sector firms, the place is Congress; at issue is a bill, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 -- or rather, an amendment to that bill -- that was voted down by a 51-45 margin.
Read all about it -
Roll Call makes PMA Group articles available online
By Bill Allison May 4, 2009 4:31 p.m.In conjunction with the appearance of Paul Singer on C-Span's Washington Journal this morning (his bit starts about 1:03:30 in on the video), Roll Call has put online its amazing body of work tracking the PMA Group, the defunct lobbying firm under federal investigation that, along with its clients, provided oodles of campaign cash to more than 100 members of the House while securing hundreds of millions in earmarks for its clients.
Read all about it
Search the Blog
Real Time Ticker
Recent Posts
- Thanks to lobbying, farm bill yields crop insurance funds
- Surge of immigration lobbyists fueled by push for high-skilled foreign workers
- Health group airs ad backing Obama EPA nominee
- Apple lobbies on taxes more than any other subject
- Reporter's notebook: How we came up with that campaign finance maze
Reporting we're watching
- OpenSecrets: Millionaire Freshmen Make Congress Even Wealthier
- OpenSecrets: Shape-Shifting by Liberal Dark Money Groups Seems Meant to Confuse
- Sunlight Foundation: The Political Spending of 501(c)(4) Nonprofits in the 2012 Election
- Sunlight Foundation: Watch TransparencyCamp ideas grow!
- Sunlight Foundation: Integrating the US' Documents
