|
||||
Breaking News from America's Progressive Community... Latest Releases
Making news?
|
||||
| SEPTEMBER
10, 1998 10:00 AM FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Center for Responsive Politics Jennifer Shecter or Paul Hendrie at 202/857-0044 |
||||
| 'Do-It-Yourself Congressional Investigation Kit' Shows Campaign Dollars Mirrors Flow Of Legislation | ||||
| WASHINGTON
- September 10 - The flow of campaign dollars has closely mirrored the flow of legislation
in the 105th Congress, with special interests stepping up their giving at crucial phases
in the progress of bills that affect them, a new analysis by the non-partisan Center for
Responsive Politics finds. The study also demonstrates that the moremoney lawmakers took from a special interest,the more likely they were to cast votes benefitingthat interest. These findings are contained in the Center's new interactive "Do-It-Yourself Congressional Investigative Kit," which will be launched on Thursday, Sept. 10, 1998, on the Internet at www.crp.org. The resource allows voters to track the relationship between their lawmakers' votes on key issues and the campaign funds contributed by special interests with stakes in those votes. "What we're doing with the Do-It-Yourself Kit is giving regular citizens a chance to investigate Congress firsthand," said Larry Makinson, the Center's executive director. "They can see the key votes, compare them with the contributions, and draw their own conclusions. The interactivity of the Web makes this kind of research not only possible, but interesting and fun." Among the trends identified in the analysis was the tendency of special interests to pour money into congressional campaigns at precisely the moments when the fate of important legislation hung in the balance. Giving tended to spike when legislation was introduced and just before committee and floor votes. Interest groups tended to even out their giving to Republicans and Democrats at the time bills went to conference committee. The months that saw the biggest jumps in giving by interest groups concerned with the 16 issue areas the Center analyzed were: * June 1997: The height of the budget bill and appropriations debates. Issues that came up included airline ticket taxes, Medicare legislation, the proposed tobacco settlement, the B-2 bomber, and federal funding for logging roads. * October 1997: With Congress hurrying to adjourn by November, special interests rushed to get their legislative agendas through. Major legislation addressed in October 1997 included an overhaul of the Food and Drug Administration (which concerned the pharmaceutical industry), conference committees on appropriations bills, and the introduction of proposed airline competition legislation and other major bills. * March 1998: Democrats unveiled their proposed managed health care bill, the House Rules Committee blocked a House vote on reducing the legal standard for drunk driving to a 0.08 blood alcohol level (a measure opposed by brewers and distillers), the House voted on expanding timber companies' access to national forests, and the House and Senate voted on bills to spur more cable television competition. Contributions tended to lag in January, when Congress was out of session. The ties between money and policy also are illustrated by looking at who gets the cash. For example, all 52 senators who took money from gun-rights interests voted against funding computerized background checks on gun buyers with a user fee on firearms dealers. And just four of the 186 House members who took money from the gun-rights lobby voted against a measure the interest group favored. The "Do-It-Yourself Congressional Investigation Kit" is an interactive tool that lets users see how their individual representatives and senators voted on such pocketbook issues as cable television rates, food safety, sugar and peanut prices, and airline ticket taxes. Also covered are major votes on environmental, defense, and health-care issues. Issues are described, a time line tracking the correlation between contributions and the stages of a bill's progress is provided, and the relationship between how members voted and how much they received from relevant interests is charted. The kit is fully searchable and is presented in easy-to-follow charts and graphs. Also available to voters at www.crp.org are detailed, interactive money-in-politics profiles for every congressional candidate in the nation and fully searchable databases of federal campaign contributions, privately financed congressional travel, federal lobbying expenditures, and congressional personal financial disclosures - as well as reports, analyses, weekly Money in Politics Alerts, and the bimonthly investigative newsletter Capital Eye. -30- |
||||
