| said by stevejc:
An easy to read explanation of the McCain Broadband bill in plain easy to understand English can be found at »www.opensecrets.org/politicians/···cle=2002
Once you understand the reasoning behind this piece of legislation, perhaps you won't be so hard on the guy (or maybe you will!
So with Viacom at #5, AT&T at #6 and AOL Time Warner at #8, I suppose that SBC at #17 REALLY holds more weight on this bill than the former three.
I also suppose that Merrill Lynch at #3 and Goldman Sachs at #2 have REALLY big interests in this bill... I know that the local Sachs Fifth Av store nearest me is interested in deregulation of broadband!
What most don't read on this website is the disclaimer, quote:
Top Contributors
1 Qwest Communications $108,450
2 Goldman Sachs $73,720
3 Merrill Lynch $69,150
4 Verizon Communications $68,300
5 Viacom Inc $64,604
6 AT&T $63,500
7 BellSouth Corp $58,300
8 AOL Time Warner $58,025
9 Citigroup Inc $51,950
10 Microsoft Corp $49,349
11 CSX Corp $42,075
12 UBS Warburg $41,100
13 Del Webb Corp $40,450
14 Morgan Stanley $40,100
15 Nomura Securities International $39,748
16 Mashantucket Pequot Tribe $38,850
17 SBC Communications $37,250
18 Pinnacle West Capital $36,550
19 Credit Suisse First Boston $35,050
20 Union Pacific Corp $34,500
Percent of Contributions Coded:
(How to read this chart / methodology)
Coded $17,404,629 (78.7%)
Uncoded $4,703,017 (21.3%)
Total $22,107,646
HOW TO READ THIS CHART: This chart lists the top donors to each this member of Congress during the current election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.
Typically, members of Congress draw their contributions from two main sources: PACs and lobbyists who give because of the member's position on key congressional committees, and local companies, unions and other organizations from their home district. Challengers tend to rely more heavily on home-state donors, since most PACs put most of their dollars behind incumbents.
The important clause to read is, "The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC its individual members, employees or owners and those individual's immediate families" What this means is that the Senator is not on the payrolls of the companies listed, rather ALL of the funds are totalled based on what individuals and groups within each organization have donated.
The other important clause to realize is "Typically, members of Congress draw their contributions from two main sources: PACs and lobbyists who give because of the member's position on key congressional committees, and local companies, unions and other organizations from their home district." This means that the funds typically don't come from companies that don't have a LOCAL interest to the politician running for office.
That being said, this website means nothing other than a list of who donated what... their positions on the list mean nothing- nor does their existence, as what most don't realize is that these companies appear to donate to EVERY candidate- regardless of which bills they sponsor.
Boogie |
