FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
August 26, 2009
'MONEY NEAR VOTES' ZOOMS IN ON BANKING INDUSTRY CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS GIVEN WITHIN TWO WEEKS OF HOUSE VOTE ON CREDIT CARD BILL
MAPLight.org's Newest Government Transparency Tool Tracks Special Interest Funding to U.S. Congress Down to Day of Vote
http://maplight.org/pr_moneynearvotes_launch
BERKELEY, CA Aug. 26--MAPLight.org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization that shows the connection between money and politics, released ‘Money Near Votes,’ a new government transparency tool. This public, web-accessible data mashup combines information on campaign finance and congressional votes. Journalists, citizen activists and bloggers can easily track campaign contributions from special-interest groups given within a month, a week, or a day of each vote in Congress.
This new level of transparency hones in on the role special interests play in shaping public policy. “Never before have these ‘well-timed’ campaign donations been highlighted in such an exhaustive, easy-to-locate format,” said Daniel Newman, MAPLight.org’s executive director.
MAPLight.org’s Money Near Votes tool uses campaign contribution data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
For example, if you use the Money Near Votes tool to follow the money for the House vote on H.R. 627, the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009, you’ll see that the banking industry contributed $271,029 in campaign contributions to House legislators within two weeks of the House’s vote on this bill.
The Money Near Votes tool shows each legislator along with their campaign contributions and votes. For example, Rep. Addison Wilson (R-SC) voted ‘No’ on the Credit Card bill on April 30, 2009. He received $2,000 from the American Bankers Association on April 27, three days earlier, and $5,000 from the Credit Union National Association on April 29, the day before the vote. Both groups opposed the Credit Card bill.
Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act of 2009: Money Received Within Two Weeks Before or After the Vote
Contributions shown include contributions from companies, industry political action committees, and company employees.
“Companies would not invest in politicians’ election campaigns if it didn’t buy them influence or access,” said Newman.
Consumer-First Energy Act
In another example, last year the Senate failed to pass an energy bill that would have revoked $17 billion in tax breaks to oil producers and placed a 25 percent windfall profits tax on companies that did not invest in new energy sources. MAPLight.org’s Money Near Votes tool shows that Mary Landrieu (D-LA) voted ‘No’ on passage of the bill on June 10, 2008. She received $5,000 from Chesapeake Energy three days later, on June 13. Chesapeake Energy was among the firms potentially subject to the proposed windfall profits tax.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Senator Landrieu has received $711,644 from oil and gas interests since 1989.
“Never before has it been so easy to connect the dots between campaign contributions and legislators’ votes,” said Newman. What used to take days of manual research is now available at the click of a mouse.”
MAPLight.org's research department reveals how contributions correlate with legislation so that citizens have key information needed to draw their own conclusions about how campaign contributions affect policy. Campaign contributions are only one factor affecting legislator behavior. The correlations we highlight between industry and union giving and legislative outcomes do not show that one caused the other, and we do not make this claim. We do make the claim, however, that campaign contributions bias our legislative system. Simply put, candidates who take positions contrary to industry interests are unlikely to receive industry funds and thus have fewer resources for their election campaigns than those whose votes favor industry interests.
MAPLight.org invites you to connect with us on Twitter and Facebook to stay up-to-date on the money and politics issues that affect you. You can also bookmark or subscribe to our blog’s RSS feed here: http://maplight.org/rss.xml
About MAPLight.org:
MAPLight.org is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization based in Berkeley, California. Our mission is to illuminate the connection between Money and Politics (MAP) using our groundbreaking database of campaign contributions and legislative votes. MAPLight.org combines data from the Federal Election Commission, the Center for Responsive Politics, GovTrack.us, the National Institute on Money in State Politics (NIMSP), the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission and other sources to better inform Americans and local and national media about the role of special-interest money in our political system. Hundreds of newspapers, TV stations, radio shows and online news sites have cited MAPLight.org's research, including CNN, the public radio show Marketplace, Harper's magazine, The Washington Post, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal. MAPLight.org has received numerous awards including a Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism, a James Madison Freedom of Information Award from the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and a Webby nomination for best Politics website. To learn more, visit: MAPLight.org.
Government Spending
I think the government has to start helping its own people! I think kids should get free student health insurance while they are in school. I am tired of us giving everything to foreign countries. We need to do for ourselves then other countries.
We need to think
Our government needs to start saving money instead of spending it constantly. We need to help our people instead of other countries. I run cardiff letting agents and I know I cannot spend more than I can pay back! So why cant the government get this concept?? Thanks for the great post.
Irrefutable Proof ICTY Is Corrupt Court/Irrefutable Proof the Ha
Irrefutable Proof ICTY Is Corrupt Court/Irrefutable Proof the Hague Court Cannot
Legitimately Prosecute Karadzic Case
http://picasaweb.google.com/lpcyusa/ViewMyHagueInternationalCriminalCour…
toryDocumentsFromThe2001UnitedNations#
(The Documentary Secret United Nations ICC Meeting Papers Scanned Images)
This legal technicality indicates the Hague must dismiss charges against Dr Karadzic
and others awaiting trials in the Hague jail; like it or not.
Unfortunately for the Signatures Of the Rome Statute United Nations member states
instituting the ICC & ICTY housed at the Hague, insofar as the, Radovan Karadzic, as
with the other Hague cases awaiting trial there, I personally witnessed these United
Nations member states openly speaking about trading judicial appointments and
verdicts for financial funding when I attended the 2001 ICC Preparatory Meetings at
the UN in Manhattan making the iCTY and ICC morally incapable trying Radovan
Karazdic and others.
I witnessed with my own eyes and ears when attending the 2001 Preparatory Meetings
to establish an newly emergent International Criminal Court, the exact caliber of
criminal corruption running so very deeply at the Hague, that it was a perfectly viable
topic of legitimate conversation in those meetings I attended to debate trading verdicts
AND judicial appointments, for monetary funding.
Jilly wrote:*The rep from Spain became distraught and when her country’s proposal
was not taken to well by the chair of the meeting , then Spain argued in a particularly
loud and noticably strongly vocal manner, “Spain (my country) strongly believes if we
contribute most financial support to the Hague’s highest court, that ought to give us and
other countries feeding it financially MORE direct power over its
decisions.”
Some countries agreed with Spain’s propositions while others did not. The point here is,
bribery for judicial verdicts and judicial appointments was treated as a totally legitimate
topic instead of an illegitimate toic which it is in the meeting that I
attended in 2001 that day to establish the ground work for a newly emergent
international criminal court.))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
In particular., since “Spain” was so overtly unafraid in bringing up this topic of trading
financial funding the ICC for influence over its future judicial appointments and verdicts
in front of every other UN member state present that day at the UN, “Spain” must have
already known by previous experience the topic of bribery was “socially acceptable” for
conversation that day. They must have previously spoke about bribing the ICTY and
ICC before in meetings; this is my take an international sociological honor student.
SPAIN’s diplomatic gesture of international justice insofar as, Serbia, in all of this is,
disgusting morally!
SPAIN HAS TAUGHT THE WORLD THE TRUE DEFINITION OF AN
“INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT.”
I remind everyone, when I attended those ICC Preparatory Meetings in 2001,
witnessing first hand the country plenipotentiary representatives present with me
discussing so openly, trading judicial funding of a new international criminal court, for
its direct judicial appointments and judicial verdicts, those same state powers were
concurrently,
those same countries and people were already simultaneously, funding the already
established ICTY which was issuing at that time, arrest warrants for Bosnian Serbs
under false primary diplomatic pretenses.
The ICTY and ICC is just where it should be for once. Cornered and backed into and
an international wall, scared like a corned animal (and I bet it reacts in the same way a
rabid cornered animal does too in such circumstances). (ICTY associates)
http://picasaweb.google.com/lpcyusa/ViewMyHagueInternationalCriminalCour…
toryDocumentsFromThe2001UnitedNations#
(Evidence Agaisnt the ICTY)
http://picasaweb.google.com/lpcyusa/DuringTheTrialOfRamushHaradinajIn200…
gueWarCrimesTribunalForTheFormerYugoslavi#
(Documents: Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has
destroyed all material evidence about the monsterous KLA Albanian/KLA organ trade in
Kosovo) I believe strongly that ICYU assocaites murdered former Serb President,
Slobodan Milosevic, tried to murder me, as well and other Serbs prisoners and presently
places , Doctor Radovan Karadzic’s life in direct danger as well as Ratko Mladic’s life
in danger should he be brought there.
The ICTY has no other choice than to halt all further court proceedings against, Doctor
Radovan Karadzic, and others there both serving sentences and awaiting trials.
Miss JIll Louise Starr (The UN Security Council has no choice but to act on this now).
I accuse the Hague ICTY war crimes tribunal of attempted assassination on my life and
others, contempt of court and obstruction of international justice and “international
witness tampering” in complicity with Richard Holbrook and Bill Clinton (Former US
President of the USA) as well as political playersin Spain and the Netherlands .
I represented the state interests’ of the Former Yugoslavia, in Darko Trifunovic’s
absence in those meetings and I am proud to undertake this effort on Serbia’s behalf.
=============================================================
jilly(+)
What It’s Like to Chill Out WithRatko MLadic & Radovan Kradzic
What It’s Like to Chill Out With Whom the World Considers the Most Ruthless Men in the World Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic and Goran Hadzic (+) Confessions of a Female War Crimes Investigator
Retrospectively, it was all so simple, natural and matter of fact being on a boat restaurant in Belgrade, sitting with, laughing, drinking a two hundred bottle of wine and chatting about war and peace while Ratko Mladic held my hand. Mladic, a man considered the world’s most ruthless war criminal since Adolf Hitler, still at large and currently having a five million dollar bounty on his head for genocide by the international community. Yet there I was with my two best friends at the time, a former Serbian diplomat, his wife, and Ratko Mladic just chilling. There was no security, nothing you’d ordinarily expect in such circumstances. Referring to himself merely as, Sharko; this is the story of it all came about.
http://sites.google.com/site/jillstarrsite/what-it-s-like-to-chill-out-with-whom-the-rest-of-the-world-considers-as-the-most-ruthless-men-in-the-world-ratko-mladic-and-radovan-karadzic-confessions-of-a-female-war-crimes-investigator
(Read My Entire Book Here For Free Now).
jilly(+)