Money and Politics: Who are Some of the Big Special Interest Groups?

"Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage." - Ambrose Bierce (Journalist, Writer 1842 - 1913)

Since this blog will focus a great deal on money in politics, you have a right to know exactly whom I'm talking about when I refer to special interest groups.

Actually, it's not the special interests that are at the heart of our political problems. Ever since early civilizations began, people quite naturally have been looking out for their own hides. It's not hard to imagine the back-cave dealings between those who controlled access to the local water supply and tribal leaders who no doubt found a way to channel a little extra flow into their personal cisterns.

There have always been people or groups seeking to influence government for their personal gain. The problem today is soliciting campaign contributions and doing the bidding of special interests has become lawmakers’ main focus. Meanwhile the huge problems facing the country and most Americans are ignored.

So while acknowledging that the demand for campaign donations and other perks is largely driven by lawmakers, let's nonetheless pull back the curtain and see who some of the biggest contributors are.

Click [here] and you'll see a list of the interest groups that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics [opensecrets.org], donated the most money to those running for President and Congress in the 2011 - 2012 election cycle.

In just the first ten months of this period, the finance, insurance and real estate industries made over 120 million dollars in contributions to candidates for federal offices. And that is just from those industries, for only part of one non-election year.

So it is hardly surprising that we have laws that overwhelmingly favor large banks and others in this group, usually at consumers' expense.

But if we look around a little further on opensecrets.org, we'll see that big corporate interests are not the only ones investing a lot of money into our political system. Clicking [here] will bring up a list of individual groups or companies that as opensecrets.org calls them, have been the heavy hitters when it comes to making campaign contributions since 1989.

As you'll see, most, but not all of the top 15 in this group are unions or groups likely to be sympathetic to the concerns of labor. In that light, it is not surprising that many experts feel the pension obligations made to some public employees are unaffordable and are a ticking time bomb for many municipalities and states.

This is another example of how special interests with very diverse interests can receive favorable treatment from lawmakers dependent on them for large contributions and other forms of support.

Don't get me wrong. Everyone should have the right to petition or lobby their representatives and donate to whomever they like. The problem is lobbying government officials has become an entire industry, with a huge revolving door shuttling lobbyists into public office and public officials into lobbying jobs.

Can you believe there was actually talk a few years ago, about lobbying firms going public? What would their stock market ticker symbols have been, GFT, CRK, INF? Thank goodness, there's a three-character limit. Spelling out graft, crooks or influence would probably have been bad for business.

That's all for me right now. However, it's worth a few minutes of your time to become familiar with websites like opensecrets.org, followthemoney.org and legistorm.com. They tell the story well, if we're willing to listen, learn and act.

Fixing America's Political System — Where Do We Begin?

"I never vote for anybody, I always vote against." --- W.C. Fields

Where to begin in order to make America's political system function more like the founders had in mind? There are no easy answers but I'll take my swing at ringing the reform bell by identifying the three biggest challenges I think we need to address:

•    Reducing the influence of money in politics
•    Reducing the importance of political parties in decision-making
•    Reducing the level of apathy and anger many have towards politics and government

Notice I say reduce rather than eliminate, because realistically, a reduction is probably the best we can hope for. I also say we need to address because if we want meaningful political reform, then we, as voters, need to be better informed and reconsider our priorities for evaluating candidates.

Let's face it, special interest money will always find a way to ooze under capitol doors. Many will cling to political parties to avoid having to think for themselves, and there will never be a highly rated TV show based on Americans' love of politics and government.

But knowing voters are paying more attention would give elected officials a reason to pause before casting votes that could be seen as harmful to constituents. They might also become more fearful of the consequences of accepting large contributions and freebies from special interests.

On this blog, I'm going to conduct an ongoing Consumer Politics 101. We'll look at these and other problems with the goal of identifying specific steps individuals can take do something about them. I also want to show people how they can follow the political debate without taking up a lot of their time.

We'll do this through several means:

•    Posts that explain how critical parts of our political system work or are supposed to work
•    Links to informative news stories about special interests and the actions of lawmakers that benefit contributors or enrich themselves
•    Providing a road map to great websites (which many are unaware of) that connect the dots between money and politics
•    Online quizzes you can take to make sure you are not living in a current events blackout zone
•    Interviews with those in the political know to whom you will also be able to post questions
•    And written posts or short videos that take you behind the scenes to see how things really work in the political world

The focus of this blog will be different than that of most other political analysis or commentary. While I believe there are some significant differences between the two major parties, the bigger problem that makes government so dysfunctional is the institutional corruption that has become an entire industry.

Making the endless solicitation of campaign contributions from special interests politically unacceptable behavior, and shuttering the revolving door between elected officials and lobbyists, are both important prerequisites to achieving meaningful political change in the U.S.

I'm not undertaking this to convince anyone with deeply held views that they are right or wrong about any specific issue, candidate, political party, or ideology. Rather, it is intended for people with busy lives and open minds who would like to be better informed and come to their own conclusions.

This blog's for you! Thanks!