Senators overseeing health bill debate get dose of PAC money

[kpete]

Source: USA Today

Senators overseeing health bill debate get dose of PAC money


By Fredreka Schouten, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — As the health care bill moves toward a critical vote in the Senate, the five senators charged with overseeing the floor debate count health interests among their biggest campaign contributors, records show.

The political action committees and employees of drugmakers Schering-Plough and Amgen have been the top two contributors in the past five years to Montana Sen. Max Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and is one of three senators managing the bill for Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

In all, health care interests have donated more than $2.5 million to Baucus' fundraising committees since 2005, the center's data show. Those donations are second only to the finance, insurance and real-estate sectors.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-12-21-health-care-PAC-money-senators_N.htm

[mbperrin]

1. "Health interests" The article clearly lists drug companies.

Written with weasel words. I know the OP has to go with the headline as written, but a true headline would read,
"Senators overseeing health shakedown get performance bonus from drug companies."

I've never seen a more blatant display of simple power of money to buy legislation as I have in the last 18 months or so. And that says a lot.

[pleah]

2. K&R

[seafan]

3. Payoffs from Big Health in 2009; Payoffs from Telecoms in 2008; On and on it goes.

Senators overseeing health bill debate get dose of PAC money from drugmakers



Alex Wong, Getty Images
Baucus and Grassley


December 21, 2009

WASHINGTON — As the health care bill moves toward a critical vote in the Senate, the five senators charged with overseeing the floor debate count health interests among their biggest campaign contributors, records show.

The political action committees and employees of drugmakers Schering-Plough and Amgen have been the top two contributors in the past five years to Montana Sen. Max Baucus, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and is one of three senators managing the bill for Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

In all, health care interests have donated more than $2.5 million to Baucus' fundraising committees since 2005, the center's data show. Those donations are second only to the finance, insurance and real-estate sectors.

.....

Health care interests also dominate contributions to Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Finance Committee, giving more than $1.3 million to the five-term senator between 2005 and this year. The political action committee and employees of Amgen top his list of contributors during the same period.

Grassley spokeswoman Jill Kozeny said "there's no relationship" between contributions and legislation. Baucus spokesman Tyler Matsdorf said: "For anything that Sen. Baucus works on, he only has one criteria: Do what's right for Montana and for the nation."

.....

:rofl:








The same thing happened with the FISA vote.

JAY ROCKEFELLER (D-WV)
Top Contributors
2008 cycle

#3 Verizon Communications $34,000
#4 AT&T Inc $33,000

HOUSE DEMS WHO CHANGED THEIR VOTE TO SUPPORT FISA BILL, GIVING IMMUNITY TO TELCOS, RECEIVED, ON AVERAGE, $8,359 IN PAC CONTRIBUTIONS FROM VERIZON, AT&T, AND SPRINT


June 24, 2008

BERKELEY, CA—Last week, on June 20, the House of Representatives approved a compromise bill to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). The bill sets new electronic surveillance rules that effectively shield telecommunications companies from lawsuits resulting from the government’s warrantless eavesdropping on phone calls and viewing emails of private citizens in the U.S. Approximately 40 lawsuits have been filed with potential damages totaling in the billions of dollars.

On March 14 of this year the House passed an amendment that rejected retroactive immunity for phone carriers who helped the National Security Agency carry out the illegal wiretapping program without proper warrants. Ninety-four House Democrats voted in favor of this measure--rejecting immunity--on March 14, then ‘changed’ to vote in favor of the June 20 House bill--approving immunity.

“Why did these ninety-four House members have a change of heart?” asked Daniel Newman, executive director of MAPLight.org, “Their constituents deserve answers.”

MAPLight.org's research department compiled PAC campaign contributions from Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint and correlated them with the voting records of all House members who voted on last week’s FISA bill. (The analysis used data from CRP; contributions were from January 2005 through March 2008). Here are the findings:

Comparing Democrats' Votes (March 14th and June 20th votes):

Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint gave PAC contributions averaging:

$8,359 to each Democrat who changed their position to support immunity for Telcos (94 Dems)
$4,987 to each Democrat who remained opposed to immunity for Telcos (116 Dems)

88 percent of the Dems who changed to supporting immunity (83 Dems of the 94) received PAC contributions from Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint during the last three years (Jan. 2005-Mar. 2008). See below for list of these 94 Dems.

All House Members (June 20th vote)
Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint gave PAC contributions averaging:

$9,659 to each member of the House voting "YES" (105-Dem, 188-Rep)
$4,810 to each member of the House voting "NO" (128-Dem, 1-Rep)

.....

Until we excise the overwhelming influence of corporate money on our government and its elected officials, we no longer have a democracy that represents the people.

[bvar22]

4. The public display of pure corruption in The Senate...

...is beyond disgusting.
I wouldn't let any of these animals sit at my dinner table.

How do they sleep at night?

Very well.
Our system (Political and Economic) rewards the most cold blooded sociopaths.

[emilyg]

5. My daughter asked me

the same thing tonight - "How do they sleep at night?"