Reply #18: More from the article: [View All]

[Tennessee Gal]

The Center for Responsive Politics’ website allows one to pull up the filings made by lobbyists registering under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 with the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives and secretary of the U.S. Senate. These top five contributors to the Obama campaign have filed as registered lobbyists: Sidley Austin LLP; Skadden, Arps, et al; Jenner & Block; Kirkland & Ellis; Wilmerhale, aka Wilmer Cutler Pickering.

Is it possible that Senator Obama does not know that corporate law firms are also frequently registered lobbyists? Or is he making a distinction that because these funds are coming from the employ­ees of these firms, he’s not really taking money directly from registered lobby­ists? That thesis seems disingenuous when many of these individual donors own these law firms as equity partners or shareholders and share in the profits gen­erated from lobbying.

~snip~

On February 10, 2005, Senator Obama voted in favor of the passage of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. Senators Biden, Boxer, Byrd, Clinton, Corzine, Durbin, Feingold, Kerry, Leahy, Reid and 16 other Democrats voted against it. It passed the Senate 72-26 and was signed into law on February 18, 2005.

~snip~

This legislation, which dramatically im­paired labor rights, consumer rights and civil rights, involved five years of pres­sure from 100 corporations, 475 lobby­ists, tens of millions of corporate dollars buying influence in our government, and the active participation of the Wall Street firms now funding the Obama campaign. “The Civil Justice Reform Group, a busi­ness alliance comprising general counsels from Fortune 100 firms, was instrumen­tal in drafting the class-action bill”, says Public Citizen.