Campaign Donations Sway Lawmakers' Vote


Pretty damning evidence. Of course, anyone with eyes already knew that. And the recipients of all of this largesse (Tom DeLay) keep saying that it doesn't affect them. This is just another piece of evidence of the corrosive effect of money on our political system. Publicly funded campaigns are the best hope for us. And the incumbents who have mastered the current bribery system will fight public funding tooth and nail.


WASHINGTON - You don't need a scorecard to figure out how lawmakers vote on major issues. You just need to tabulate their campaign donations.

The Associated Press looked at six measures in the House — medical malpractice, class action lawsuits, overhauling bankruptcy laws, the energy bill, gun manufacturer lawsuits and overtime pay — and compared lawmakers' votes with the financial backing they received from interest groups supporting or opposing the legislation. The House passed five of the six bills and defeated an amendment that would have stopped the Bush administration from rewriting the rules for overtime pay.

In the vast majority of cases, the biggest recipients of interest group money voted the way their donors wanted, according to the AP's computer-assisted analysis of campaign finance data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Groups that outspent opponents got the bills they wanted in five of the six cases examined by the AP.

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