http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/FYI-Following-the-Money-Trail-Online-tp1063.html
>Circuits From NYTimes.com
>Thursday, May 24, 2007
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>
>[snip]
>To view this e-mail with images, go to:
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http://www.nytimes.com/circuitsemail?8cir&emc=cir>[snip]
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>1. From the Desk of David Pogue: Following the Money Trail
>Online
>==========================================================
>
>The first step to solving a problem is recognizing that you
>have one.
>
>That's what I keep telling myself, anyway, to avoid becoming
>depressed by Maplight.org.
>
>It's a new Web site with a very simple mission: to correlate
>lawmakers' voting records with the money they've accepted
>from special-interest groups.
>
>All of this is public information. All of it has been
>available for decades. Other sites, including OpenSecrets.org,
>expose who's giving how much to whom. But nobody has ever
>revealed the relationship between money given and votes cast
>to quite such a startling effect.
>
>If you click the "Video Tour" button on the home page, you'll
>see a six-minute video that illustrates the point. You find
>out that on H.R.5684, the U. S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement,
>special interests in favor of this bill (including
>pharmaceutical companies and aircraft makers) gave each
>senator an average of $244,000. Lobbyists opposed to the bill
>(such as anti-poverty groups and consumer groups) coughed up
>only $38,000 per senator.
>
>Surprise! The bill passed.
>
>If you click "Timeline of Contributions," you find out that -
>- surprise again! -- contributions to the lawmakers surged
>during the six weeks leading up to the vote. On this same
>page, you can click the name of a particular member of
>Congress to see how much money that person collected.
>
>Another mind-blowing example: from the home page, click
>"California." Click "Legislators," then click "Fabian Nunez."
>The resulting page shows you how much this guy has collected
>from each special-interest group -- $2.2 million so far --
>and there, in black-and-white type, how often he voted their
>way.
>
>Construction unions: 94 percent of the time. Casinos: 95
>percent of the time. Law firms: 78 percent of the time. Seems
>as though if you're an industry lobbyist, giving this fellow
>money is a pretty good investment.
>
>A little time spent clicking through to these California
>lawmakers' pages reveals a similar pattern in most of them.
>
>(A few, on the other hand, appear to be deliciously contrary.
>Jim Brulte has accepted over $67,000 from the tobacco
>industry, but hasn't voted in their favor a single time. Is
>that even ethical -- I mean, by the standards of this whole
>sleazy business?)
>
>For some reason, Maplight.org doesn't reveal these "percent
>of the time" figures for United States Congress, only for
>California. You can easily see how much money each member has
>taken, but the column that correlates those figures with
>their voting record is missing.
>
>Now, not all bills exhibit the same money-to-outcome
>relationships. And it's not news that our lawmakers'
>campaigns accept money from special interests. What this site
>does, however, is to expose, often embarrassingly, how that
>money buys votes.
>
>I probably sound absurdly naive here. But truth is, I can't
>quite figure out why these contributions are even legal. Let
>the various factions explain their points till they're blue
>in the face, sure -- but to cut checks for millions of
>dollars?
>
>Maplight.org isn't always easy to figure out, and not all of
>its data is complete. In fact, it's not even evident from the
>list of bills which ones have already been voted on -- a
>distinct disappointment, since the juicy patterns don't
>emerge until the vote is complete.
>
>On the other hand, it's painstakingly non-partisan. And it
>uses very good data; for example, the information on
>contributions comes from the Center for Responsive Politics
>(the nonprofit, nonpartisan research group behind
>OpenSecrets.org), and each special industry's interests (for
>or against each bill) are taken exclusively from public
>declarations of support or opposition (Web sites, news
>articles, Congressional hearings and so on).
>
>Spend a few minutes poking around. Check out a couple of the
>people you voted for. Have a look at how often their votes
>align with the interests of the lobbyists who helped to get
>them elected.
>
>And be glad Maplight.org makes it so easy to spot those
>correlations.
>
>-----
>
>This week's Pogue's Posts blog:
>
http://www.nytimes.com/technology/poguesposts/index.html?8cir&emc=cir>
>-----
>
>Visit David Pogue on the Web at:
>
http://www.davidpogue.com>
>
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>Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
"A word to the wise is sufficient. For others, use more."