NEWS: Kerry among top congressional recipients of special-interest contributions
signonsandiego.com
By Dana Wilkie and Joe Cantlupe
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
2:26 p.m. January 29, 2004
WASHINGTON – In his quest for the White House, Sen. John Kerry is casting himself as a Washington outsider, one committed to sweeping out the "special interests" he claims are trying to manipulate federal laws and policies.
But the Massachusetts lawmaker and Democratic presidential front-runner is among Congress' top recipients of money that many would say comes from special interests – lawyers, investment firms, real estate interests and contractors, to name a few.
Moreover, he has been criticized for intervening in a Coast Guard rulemaking process that affected a foreign cable manufacturer – then taking campaign money from the lobbying firm that represented the cable company.
Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan said the senator is only running against "the big companies that the Republicans have brought inside the White House to write legislation that directly benefits their companies."
On Wednesday, Kerry gave a speech in St. Louis, Mo., in which he accused the Bush administration of perpetuating a "creed of greed" that undermines the interests of average Americans.
"I've got news for the HMOs and the big drug companies and the big oil companies and influence peddlers," Kerry said. "We're coming, you're going and don't let the door hit you on the way out!"
But Kerry has taken plenty of money from large, wealthy and influential groups himself.
This election cycle, Kerry took $531,251 from the health-care industry, making him the among the top four recipients of such money – just behind President Bush and Democratic presidential contenders Howard Dean of Vermont and Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
Contributors to this category include doctors and other health professionals, but also pharmaceutical companies and HMOs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent group that tracks how campaign money affects elections and public policy.
Even some campaign-finance reform advocates applaud Kerry, who has been in Congress 18 years, for refusing to accept contributions from political action committees, which can pool the resources of its members to give large campaign gifts. And they note that because lobbying typically is done far from the public eye, it can be difficult to tell if lawmakers' votes are influenced by the money they take from special-interest groups.
Still, they say, rare is the member of Congress who does not feel beholden to the groups that give them large campaign gifts.
"I don't think anyone who has been in the Senate as long as Kerry has can really consider himself a maverick, or someone who is above the fray," said Keith Ashdown, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan group that examines political relationships with lobbyists.
Theoretically, a "special interest" can be anything from a big Wall Street firm to an animal-rights group that wants anything from Congress, campaign-finance experts said.
"I think most people understand that special interests are the organizations and the corporations – the wealthy individuals – who have the money to really bankroll political campaigns, and then get access and influence in Washington," said Celia Wexler, research director for Common Cause, a government watchdog group. "We're not all treated to that special access."
"Part of what Kerry and other Democrats are saying is that they would represent other interests, presumably broader interests like working men and women, and environmentalists," said Thomas Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a liberal-leaning think tank in Washington.
Kerry is among Congress' top three recipients of campaign donations from lawyers and lobbyists – having taken $3.3 million this election cycle. The only two people taking more money from this group were Bush and Democratic presidential contender John Edwards, the North Carolina senator. More than half of this industry's top 20 contributors are law, lobbying and consulting firms that represent corporate interests, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
As a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Kerry is in a key position to influence laws that affect the airline and automotive industries.
This election cycle, the senator was among the top 10 recipients of money from such transportation interests – $87,925.
The construction industry, whose contractors and engineers make billions of dollars from federally funded transportation projects, gave the senator more than $306,000 this cycle, making Kerry among the top-three recipients of this sort of money.
He took $160,220 from general contractors, the companies that typically work in public transportation projects. Only Bush took more – $1.4 million.
Kerry also was second only to Bush in the amount he took – $1.3 million this election cycle – from "miscellaneous business" groups, which CRP defines as a "catch-all category" that "includes everything from liquor distributors to steel makers, restaurants to casinos, chemical companies to advertising agencies."
He was second only to the president in the amount – $2.6 million – he took from the finance, insurance and real estate industries, which the center said is primarily financed by insurance companies, securities and investment firms, real estate interests and commercial banks.
He was among the top-three recipients – behind Bush and Dean – in the $883,950 he took from the communications and electronics industry, whose top-two sources of money come from phone companies and the television, movie and music industries.
In 1999, Kerry tried to influence a Coast Guard rulemaking process that would have affected a foreign cable manufacturer whose D.C.-based lobbyist gave the senator's campaign 14 checks totaling $7,250, according to The Hill newspaper. |
