Thanks to a comment by 2lucky on Daily Kos:
Bloomberg
is the only agency I've seen that placed the contributions in an appropriate context:
Between 2001 and 2004, Abramoff gave more than $127,000 to Republican candidates and committees and nothing to Democrats, federal records show.
At the same time, his Indian clients were the only ones among the top 10 tribal donors in the U.S. to donate more money to Republicans than Democrats.
Abramoff's tribal clients continued to give money to Democrats even after he began representing them, although in smaller percentages than in the past.
The Saginaw Chippewas gave $500,500 to Republicans between 2001 and 2004 and $277,210 to Democrats, according to a review of data compiled by Dwight L. Morris & Associates, a Bristow, Virginia-based company that tracks campaign-finance reports. Between 1997 and 2000, the tribe gave just $158,000 to Republicans and $279,000 to Democrats.
What Abramoff did was succeed in getting the tribes he represented to give more $ to Republicans than they previously had.
Who knew?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/4/202554/8537http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aBTFEkGJUbSI&refer=usWhy is it odd? Tribes have always contributed to Democrats - if they have anything to contribute.
They ARE Democrats.
In South Dakota, there has been an ongoing battle between the Republicans trying to suppress the Native American vote and Democrats trying to increase their turnout.
Of course Native Americans give to Democrats.
The New Poll Tax
Republican-sponsored ballot-security measures are being used to keep minorities from voting.
-snip-
Shortly before this November's balloting, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a "Voting Integrity Initiative" to deal with voter fraud. Civil-rights groups raised concerns that the new federal initiative -- like so many local anti-fraud programs -- would unfairly target minority voters. As if to confirm that fear, the new program opened with a joint federal and state investigation of alleged voter fraud in South Dakota counties with significant American-Indian populations.
The allegations and the probe, led by the state's Republican attorney general, Mark Barnett, came on the heels of a registration and get-out-the-vote campaign launched by the Democratic Party on South Dakota's reservations, where voters tend to be Democrats and registration has historically been depressed.
http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/23/mcdonald-l.htmlRep Kennedy explains this in his refusal to return tribal $$$.
Rep. Kennedy Defends Cash Tied to Abramoff
WASHINGTON - Rep. P, , ), citing his support for American Indian causes, says
he has no plans to return any of the $42,500 he took from tribes represented by GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Kennedy, D-R.I., was the top congressional Democratic recipient of Abramoff-linked funds, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign watchdog group that analyzed contributions from 1999 to 2005. He was eighth overall among members of Congress.
Kennedy was never lobbied by Abramoff or any of his associates and he did not receive any checks from Abramoff, Richardson said.
While President Bush and other top Republicans scrambled to give away contributions from tribes linked to Abramoff,
Kennedy aides said the congressman‘s family, beginning with his late uncle Robert F. Kennedy in the 1960s, has championed American Indian causes. http://www.leadingthecharge.com/stories/news-00120245.htmlhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2021071
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