Congress and the Corporate Teat
April 5th 2008 08:29 am
Here’s an eye-opening web address: http://change-congress.org:80/
Go there, click on your Congressional district on the map and see how much bundled money your representative is getting. What is bundled money? It’s money collected from different corporations and lobbyists by a political action committee, or PAC, that hides who the true giver is.
For example, large coal and methane producers might form a PAC, give it a name like “Energy PAC, ” throw in a half million each and VOILA! That’s a nice gift to a candidate at election time.
Why should we care? Because it is a way that special interest groups and powerful companies can get to your elected Reps and hold influence over them. For instance, the next time a clean-air bill comes up for a vote, Energy PAC might send a friendly reminder to the lawmaker about that campaign gift.
Could you or I compete? Do people who live near smokestacks get to play golf with Dennis Hastert and Mitt Romney? That’s a negative.
In Alabama, Artur Davis, a Democrat representing Birmingham, got 57 percent of his campaign moola from PACs. That kinda surprised me because Artur is so progressive — at least he talks the talk. None of ’Bama’s Congressmen took zero PAC money. A few, like the GOP’s Mike Rogers took less than a third of their campaign dollars from PACs. So, obviously, we in Dixie have a long way to go before we wean our politicians from the Big Corporation teat.
There is a movement to change Congress and to take the zero-PAC-money pledge. Good luck, right? Some of the good guys include: Clyde Malloy of Florida’s 7th; John Driscoll out of Montana’s 1st; Josh Lanier from Georgia’s 1st. Current Virginia candidate Sam Rasoul had this to say in his video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HFhGJnVLnE
