In e-mails, lobbyists perceive ties between campaign cash, earmarks

[alp227]

Source: Carol D. Leonnig, The Washington Post

Lobbyists and corporate officials talked bluntly in e-mail exchanges about connections between making generous campaign donations and securing federal funds through members of an important House Appropriations subcommittee, according to not-yet-public documents reviewed by ethics investigators.

In summer 2007, for example, senior executives at a small McLean defense firm tried to figure out which of them would buy a ticket to a wine-tasting fundraiser for Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of the Appropriations subcommittee on defense. At the time, the company sought help from Moran's office in securing contracts through special earmarks added to the defense bill.

In an e-mail exchange, one senior officer said he didn't understand why he had to attend the fundraiser when he didn't even drink wine.

"You don't have to drink," Innovative Concepts chief technology officer Andrew Feldstein shot back in an e-mail. "You just have to pay."

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/05/AR2010030504304_pf.html

[zeemike]

1. So it is business as usual.

This is how it works.

[ShockediSay]

2. So what is wrong w/ our so-called democracy these days? It's

the lobbyists, stupid.

[WhiteTara]

3. and Moran was one of the sort of

good guys. oh sigh.

[panzerfaust]

4. Things have not changed much since March 1875

As reported by Harper's Weekly March 6, 1875:

"In December 1874, the House Ways and Means Committee initiated an investigation of the possible bribery of government officials by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company during the firm’s quest to secure a federal subsidy. The House bookkeeper testified that 60 congressmen had each deposited a thousand-dollar bill in their accounts concurrent with the passage of the Pacific Mail subsidy...

The hearings, in fact, produced a pattern of witnesses admitting that large amounts of money had changed hands, while disavowing that such acts constituted bribery, and the committee continuing its disinterest in identifying the congressional beneficiaries of the payoffs. One witness, for example, confessed to accepting $56,000 (more than the president’s salary) from Pacific Mail to persuade a senatorial friend to vote for the subsidy, but the witness denied that the payment was a bride{sic}. The investigation also revealed that Pacific Mail had paid a reporter and an editor of the Washington Chronicle to print favorable news stories and editorials about the company. With overwhelming evidence against Pacific Mail, the House voted on January 25, 1875, to repeal the company’s subsidy, and the Senate followed suit on February 23. No congressmen were indicted..."

[No Elephants]

5. No change since 1875? LOL, it's changed massively since 1975.

Lobbying/"contributing" was never done anywhere near the magnitude it is today. The increase between 1980 and 2010 alone is mind boggling. Also increased exponentially since then--things like partisanship, filibusters, etc. Which means, the Republicans always win, since their credo is the less the federal government does the better.

For another thing, these days, campaign contributions followed by allocation of an earmark to the contributor are not even considered bribery. "No evidence of a direct correlation between the contributon and the allocation." Or words to that efffect. Pelosi recently said so herself--and she clearly intended that we not snicker when we heard it.

And, I'm thinking campaign contributors did not get to write legislation in 1875, nor was lobbyist money seen as THE way to election and re-election. In the good old days of 1975, before broadcsting, people actually read, thought and voted on ideas, rather than spin. Sure, they were lied to then, too, but votes still meant more than campaign contributions. Now, s/he who buys he mostest and bestest ads often wins.

[No Elephants]

6. How did anyone too dumb to know his role at a political fundraiser ever make it to "senior officer?"