Author: Michael Beckel

Today is far from a slow news days for money-in-politics observers.

Two campaign finance rulings have been issued on high-profile subjects — each of which could ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission, a nine-judge federal appeals court unanimously ruled that campaign contributions limits to independent organizations that use funds only for independent expenditures are unconstitutional. That ruling also affirmed disclosure requirements for such groups. SpeechNow.org is a registered 527 group that can be found in OpenSecrets.org’s database here.

Additionally, a three-judge panel reviewing Republican National Committee v. Federal Election Commission upheld the current ban on so-called “soft money” campaign contributions to national party organizations. The RNC is arguing it should be able to raise unlimited sums for state elections, congressional redistricting, legal costs and other activities that it said had nothing to do with federal elections, reports the Houston Chronicle.

Stay tuned as the Center for Responsive Politics weighs in with more reporting, commentary and analysis on our Capital Eye blog.

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

CORPORATION ON THE ATTACK IN TEXAS: Deep in the heart of Texas, election observers have spotted what may be the first corporate-funded independent advertisement against a politician post-Citizens United. The Supreme Court’s January ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the door for corporations to spend unlimited sums on independent expenditures in elections. Texas was among states that had banned such spending. The Texas Tribune reports that new print ads challenge state representative Chuck Hopson, a former Democrat who became a Republican ahead of the 2008 election. The ads were paid for by KDR Development Inc., a real estate company whose president, Republican Larry Durrett, lost a 2006 bid against Hopson.

REV DOOR SPINS FOR CHAMBER COUNSEL & GOP MONEY MAN: A fledging 527 group that seeks to aid congressional Republicans in the 2010 midterm elections has landed a top tier fund raiser. The National Journal reports Steven Law — the general counsel of the lobbying powerhouse U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a former chief of staff to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and a former deputy secretary in President George W. Bush’s Department of Labor — is joining a group called American Crossroads. Law also served as the executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. You can see his profile here in OpenSecrets.org’s Revolving Door database.

PUBLISHERS TAKE ON KARL ROVE: Senior Bush political advisor Karl Rove recently came out with a new non-fiction book entitled Courage and Consequence. When it moved to No. 1 on Amazon.com’s bestseller list, the authors of the bumped book launched a Rovian attack ad on YouTube in an attempt to reclaim their standing. The parody ad lauds Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, which currently ranks higher than Rove’s book again.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at [email protected].

Abortion rights have repeatedly been a sticking point for lawmakers in the yearlong health care reform debate, and Sunday was no exception.

To get enough Democrats who oppose abortion onboard with the Senate’s health care reform bill, President Barack Obama over the weekend agreed to sign an executive order affirming that no federal money would be used for abortion services

One of the lawmakers Obama’s order won over was Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), pictured right, who led a bipartisan fight in November to include stricter anti-abortion language in the House’s version of the health reform legislation.

By the Center for Responsive Politics’ tally, Stupak is the only Democratic incumbent in the House to receive any money from special interest groups that oppose abortion so far this election cycle — with a $500 contribution coming from the Right to Life of Michigan PAC.

Democrats deployed Stupak on Sunday night to counter a GOP-led procedural motion to kill the health care bill by recommitting it committee with instructions to add additional anti-abortion language.

“The motion to recommit does not promote life,” Stupak said on the floor. “It is the Democrats who have stood up for the principle of no public funding for abortion.”

As he was speaking, there was commotion inside the chamber, and a member was heard shouting “baby killer.” (On Monday, Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas) acknowledged shouting the phrase, but argued his criticism was directed at the Democrats’ health care proposal not Stupak himself, as it sounded.)

Others had issued similar, heated condemnation. Earlier in the day, Phyllis Schafly, the head of the conservative Eagle Forum, issued a press release saying the health care vote would “expose the myth of the ‘pro-life Democrat.’” And she admonished that this vote would “divide our nation into the Party of Death and the Party of Life.”

The Senate’s bill, however, was designed to uphold the Hyde amendment’s restrictions on federal money going toward abortion services. It explicitly prohibits federal dollars from funding abortion services except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is endangered. It further states that subsidies must be kept segregated from any private monies that individuals in the exchanges use to pay for abortion services.

Obama’s executive order reiterates that federal funds will not cover abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is threatened in the newly created insurance exchanges or in community health centers.

The order also directs the secretary of Health and Human Services and head of the Office of Management and Budget to create model guidelines for state health insurance commissions to ensure that plan funds are segregated.

This move, in turn, earned ire from lawmakers and interest groups — those who support of abortion rights.

Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and the National Organization for Women all issued critical statements.

“President Obama campaigned as a pro-choice president, but his actions today suggest that his commitment to reproductive health care is shaky at best,” said Terry O’Neill, the president of NOW.

NARAL Pro-Choice America, for instance, has contributed to eight House Democrats who voted to oppose the GOP motion to recommit. Among them? Blue Dog Rep. John Adler (D-N.J.), who opposed the health reform proposals in general, and Blue Dogs Reps. Scott Murphy (D-N.Y.) and Betsy Markey (D-Colo.), both of whom voted for the health reform proposals Sunday after initially voting against the House bill in November.

Ultimately 21 House Democrats joined the entire 178-member Republican caucus in supporting the motion to recommit, leaving it 17 votes shy.

As a whole, special interests supportive of abortion rights have donated $134,000 to more than two-dozen incumbent members of the House so far this cycle, including six Republicans who backed the motion to commit with instructions to add further restrictions regarding federal funding of abortion services.

These Republicans who have taken money from interests supportive of abortion rights include Reps. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), Michael Castle (R-Del.), Charlie Dent (R-Penn.), Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.) and Judy Biggert (R-Ill.). Kirk and Castle are each running for U.S. Senate seats as well.

Special interests opposing abortion rights have donated just $21,000 to six incumbent members of the House so far this cycle. The contribution to Stupak represents the only donation to a lawmaker who voted against the GOP motion to recommit (as well as the only donation to someon who voted for the health reform legislation) from these opponents of abortion.

Note: The Center for Responsive Politics’ ideological contribution data are conservative estimates. Our standard methodology for determining industry and ideological giving includes contributions from individuals and political action committees based on the employer and occupation information provided to the Federal Election Commission by candidates and committees. When individuals contribute to an ideological PAC, such as a pro-life PAC or a pro-choice PAC — and also to a politician who receives money from a PAC of the same ideological persuasion — these contributions are also tallied with the ideological donations, regardless of their employer.

President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats achieved a major legislative victory last night as members of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to adopt the version of health care reform legislation passed in December by the U.S. Senate.

After more than a year of often-contentious debate, the House voted 219-212 to adopt the Senate’s health care reform bill. It also voted 220-211 to pass a second measure containing several changes to the first bill’s provisions. This measure also must now go to the Senate for approval. The House also rejected a Republican-led procedural motion to kill the bill on a 199-232 vote.

The reform legislation was endorsed by a wide range of special interest groups including AARP, the American Medical Association, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association of America (PhRMA), the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, the Catholic Health Association and the National Council of La Raza.

These and other interests fought to modify reform proposals during the last year, with some — including the high-spending U.S. Chamber of Commerce — openly calling to scrap the bill entirely.

Republicans voted as a united bloc against each health reform measure Sunday night. The House Democratic caucus had 34 defectors as it passed the Senate’s comprehensive health care reform bill and just 33 defectors in the vote on the package of changes to the main bill’s provisions (the so-called “reconciliation fix”).

Supporters of both measures received out-sized support from labor unions, the Center for
Responsive Politics found, based on an examination of contributions to lawmakers’ campaign committees and leadership PACs going back to 1989.

Political action committees and employees of unions contributed an average of about 360 percent more to supporters of the both Senate bill and the reconciliation fix, the Center found.

Members who voted for both bills received an average of about $917,500 from unions since 1989. Those who voted against the bills received an average of about $200,000, the Center found.

In the final push for a vote, many unions also displayed their clout through threats to withhold endorsements from lawmakers who failed to back the bill. They also vowed to support primary challengers or third-party bids against incumbents who opposed the bill.

Many powerful health-focused industries, on the other hand, tended to favor lawmakers who opposed the bills.

Opponents of the main legislation received an average of 13 percent more money from all health sector and health insurance interests since 1989, the Center for Responsive Politics found.

Lawmakers who voted against the Senate bill received an average of about $517,000 from health interests since 1989, the Center found. This compared to an average of $457,000 from health interests to supporters.

These lawmakers also received an average of 25 percent more from health insurers, including their political action committees and individual employees. Similarly, they received an average of 35 percent people and PACs associated with pharmaceutical interests, the Center found.

Opponents of the reconciliation fix package likewise received elevated sums from health sector and health insurance interests, on average.

The Center for Responsive Politics calculated that opponents of this bill received an average of 16 percent more in such donations since 1989: $523,000 versus about $451,300.

Opponents of the reconciliation bill received an average of 29 percent more from health insurance interests and an average of 37 percent more from pharmaceutical interests since 1989, the Center found.

Below is a table showing the total and average contributions received by members of the House since 1989 from the labor sector and all health interests — including a specific breakdown for just health insurers and just pharmaceutical interests — as well as the ratio between the two. This table is for H.R. 3590, the main health reform bill passed by the Senate in December.

Here is an additional table that summarizes the percentage differences in contributions received by lawmakers who voted “yes” and those who voted “no” on the Senate’s health reform bill.

Below is a table showing the total and average contributions received by members of the House since 1989 from the labor sector and all health interests — including a specific breakdown for just health insurers and just pharmaceutical interests — as well as the ratio between the two. This table is for H.R. 4872, the package of changes to the main bill’s provisions that still needs Senate approval.

Here is an additional table that summarizes the percentage differences in contributions received by lawmakers who voted “yes” and those who voted “no” on the reconciliation fix bill.

Download these tables for yourself here, along with a complete itemized breakdown of the contributions to each member of the House: *House HCR Vote Money.xls (Remember, if you use our data, please be sure to credit the Center for Responsive Politics.)

The health reform legislation sets minimum standards for private health insurance plans, requires all Americans to carry health insurance and provides federal subsidies for low-income individuals and small businesses to purchase coverage.

The legislation also prohibits insurance companies from denying people coverage based on pre-existing conditions, health status or gender, caps out-of-pocket expenses for individuals and bars insurers from imposing lifetime and annual benefit limits.

It eliminates co-pays and deductibles for preventive care, closes the so-called “donut hole” on Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage and allows children to stay on their parents’ health insurance plans until they turn 26 years old.

The legislation will also create a new insurance exchange for individuals that are uninsured, are self-employed or work for certain small businesses to purchase private insurance. (Unlike the version of the health reform bill passed by the House in November, the exchange will not include a federally administered public insurance option.)

The reconciliation package specifically strikes certain provisions of the legislation that have been critiqued by some politicians, members of the public and members of the media, including the so-called “Louisiana Purchase” (additional Medicaid assistance for Louisiana) and “Cornhusker kickback” (a permanent 100 percent federal matching rate for Nebraska for the Medicaid costs of expansion populations). It also delays the implementation of the excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans (so called “Cadillac health insurance plans”), a priority for unions that had seen members negotiate for better health benefits over the years instead of salary increases.

The reconciliation package also includes major student loan reform provisions previously
passed by the House. These measures would eliminate federally insured private loans given through the Federal Family Education Loan Program. Instead direct student assistance from the government — such as Pell grants — would be expanded.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill will cost $940 billion and reduce the deficit by $143 billion over the first decade. The CBO further estimated that over the second decade the bill would save cut the deficit by $1.3 trillion.

Eight Democratic representatives who opposed the bill initially in November backed the
Senate bill and the reconciliation fix Sunday night, including liberal Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Blue Dogs like Betsy Markey (D-Colo.), Scott Murphy (D-N.Y.), Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) and Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.). The others were Reps. Brian Baird (D-Wash.), John Boccieri (D-Ohio) and Suzanne Kosmas (D-Fla.).

Markey called the legislation the “largest deficit reduction bill that I will ever vote for.”

After supporting the House’s bill in November, Reps. Daniel Lipinski (D-Ill.) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) voted against the Senate-approved health insurance reform bill Sunday night but cast votes in support of the reconciliation fix package. Blue Dog Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.) voted for the health reform bill in November and for the Senate’s bill last night but cast a vote against the reconciliation fix.

Additionally, Blue Dog Reps. Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.), Marion Berry (D-Ark.) and Zack Space (D-Ohio) opposed both the Senate’s health bill and the reconciliation fix Sunday night after supporting the House’s proposal in November.

CRP Senior Researcher Douglas Weber contributed to this report.

Time has rarely been an ally of President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats seeking to enact comprehensive health care reform. And the longer they took, the larger the army of special interest lobbyists grew.

During the course of 2009, the number of corporations, trade associations and other organizations that disclosed lobbying on the health care reform bills grew at an astounding rate, according to a new Center for Responsive Politics analysis of lobbying reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records.

By the end of the fourth quarter when both the House and the Senate adopted versions of the bill, the number of clients had increased by nearly 300 percent, the Center for Responsive Politics found — up to 1,541 clients.
 
In contrast, just 398 lobbying clients during the first quarter of 2009 had filed reports that mentioned the Democrats’ health care reform proposals.

These figures are based on an analysis of LD-2 lobbying reports that mention the official bill numbers of the Democrats’ plans or phrases that described the legislation or the bills’ official titles — such as “health care reform,” “affordable health” or “healthy future” — in the specific issue field.

The exact number of organizations lobbying on health care reform as Democrats make what they hope will be their final push will not be known until the next batch of reports are filed in late April, but there is little reason to think that the level of lobbying activity will have abated.

Fully 17 percent of the clients that disclosed lobbying on health care reform during the fourth quarter of 2009 represented new clients who had not previously reported lobbying on this legislation, the Center for Responsive Politics found.

These groups include: the American Wind Energy Association, Comcast, Qwest Communications, Yahoo!, the Gap, the National Rifle Association, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, the Knights of Columbus, the Professional Golfers Association of America, the office of the governor of Indiana, 1-800 Contacts and Hormel Foods, the makers of SPAM.

In all, 1,750 corporations or other groups reported lobbying on health care reform legislation at some point during 2009. That is, 11 percent of all groups that lobbied the federal government last year lobbied on health care reform.

These clients span special interest groups and economic sectors, ranging from more traditional health players such as hospitals, medical professionals, health insurers and drug companies to more diverse interests including organized labor, business groups, energy companies, food and beverage companies, defense contractors, retailers, municipalities, universities and religious-affiliated groups.

In all, 326 clients reported lobbying on the Democrats’ health reform legislation during all four quarters.

Among them?

Drug industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), insurance industry trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Pfizer, Planned Parenthood, the National Right to Life Committee, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Realtors, AARP, the Service Employees International Union, the National Council of La Raza, United Parcel Service, Target, Safeway, Eastman Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands and McDonald’s.

Interested in checking up on other companies to see if they lobbied on the health care reform bills? Download the spreadsheet that lists these 1,750 organizations, along with information about which quarters they disclosed lobbying on the health reform legislation. And if you use our data, please make sure to credit the Center for Responsive Politics: HCR Clients.xls

As the health care reform debate has evolved over the past year, multiple legislative proposals were debated and lobbied on, as each chamber and each committee with jurisdiction over health care reform weighed in.

These were: H.R. 3200, entitled America’s Affordable Health Choices Act; S. 1796, America’s Healthy Future Act; H.R. 3962, Affordable Health Care for America Act; H.R. 3590, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; and the unnumbered bill from the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the Affordable Health Choices Act.

The Center for Responsive Politics searched the lobbying data maintained by the Senate Office of Public Records for records that mentioned these bills in the specific issue field of the LD-2 form.

This “specific issue field” is designed as a place for lobbyists to identify the bill number, bill title and other additional information about their activities. The amount of additional information detailed in this field, however, can vary and is subject to human error on the part of filers. Lobbyists are not required to provide such details in a standardized format, so any search of this information may not perfectly capture all lobbying activity.

All in all, the 1,750 clients identified by the Center spent more than $1.1 billion on all federal lobbying and hired more than 5,300 lobbyists for their work. Lobbying disclosure rules do not require an itemization of how much money was spent per issue, so it is impossible to discern how much of this sum was spent strictly on health care reform lobbying.

Similarly, the overall figure of lobbyists represents all individuals hired by companies to carry out all priorities; the database maintained by the Senate Office of Public Records does not allow one to tie together a client’s lobbyists and the specific issues fields of the lobbying forms.

These numbers include all federal lobbying, including other high-profile legislative battles, such as the stimulus, cap-and-trade climate legislation, financial regulatory reform and the Employee Free Choice Act regarding unionization in the workplace.

The next batch of lobbying reports is due to the Senate Office of Public Records and Clerk of the House on April 20.

CRP Research Director Jihan Andoni and Researcher Matthias Jaime contributed to this report. Graphic design by Webmaster Hector Rivera.

Democratic congressional leaders, President Barack Obama and their reform-supporting allies are this week aggressively wrangling the necessary votes to pass health insurance reform legislation.

Organizing for America — the president’s campaign operation formerly known as Obama for America and now under the auspices of the Democratic National Committee — has focused new energy on getting supporter’s of the president’s plan to call their representatives in Congress and call into swing districts.

Liberal groups such as the Service Employees International Union, AFL-CIO and MoveOn.org have aired ads to push for a final vote on the legislation. Drug industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) will also spend at least $6 million on pro-reform ads in 38 congressional districts, Politico reports.

And the White House has indicated that re-election assistance such as presidential visits and fund-raisers will be prioritized for lawmakers who support the bill, according to reports in the New York Times and Washington Post.

Furthermore, the SEIU and other groups have threatened to support primary challengers or third-party bids against Democrats who opt to vote against health care reform. Politico reports that New York’s labor-backed Working Families Party has also threatened to not endorse any candidate who does not support the legislation. This group is a major player in New York as state law allows for fusion voting — i.e., candidates’ names to appear under multiple party lines on the ballot — and the party has in the past aided in several Democrats’ narrow victories.

Former senior Obama campaign adviser Steve Hildebrand is even reportedly mulling a primary challenge against Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.) if she again votes against this high-stakes measure.

On Monday, Vice President Joe Biden appeared at a fund-raiser in Ohio for Rep. Steve Driehaus (D-Ohio), who voted yes in November after supporting the anti-abortion amendment offered by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.). While the Senate bill does not allow federal funds to be used for abortion, the restrictions are not as far-reaching as the original Stupak language; nevertheless, Democratic leadership hopes to keep Driehaus on board.

The same day in another part of the state, Obama rallied health care supporters. Democratic Reps. Marcia Fudge, who supports the bill, and Dennis Kucinich, an advocate for single-payer insurance who in November opposed the Democrats’ plan because he didn’t think it was liberal enough, accompanied Obama on Air Force One. As Obama introduced Kucinich at the event, someone in the crowd yelled at Kucinich to “vote yes,” and Obama made sure to publicly ask Kucinich if he had heard the request. At a press conference earlier today, Kucinich (pictured right) announced that he will in fact support the bill.

As Capital Eye previously reported, 216 House Democrats voted for the health insurance reform bill in November, while 39 House Democrats opposed it. In December, the 60 senators who are Democrats or caucus with Democrats passed their version of the legislation. Now House Democrats are working to pass that bill, along with a budgetary measure that would make certain amendments to the Senate’s bill — which would again need the Senate’s approval before being signed into law.

The Democrats’ health insurance reform bill seeks to require insurance plans to meet minimum standards and require individuals to have insurance. The legislation would also extend federal subsidies for low-income Americans to buy health insurance and expand the roles of Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — insuring millions of previously uninsured Americans.

Their plan also aims to prohibit health insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions, cap citizens’ out-of-pocket expenses, require insurance companies to pay for benefits with no annual or lifetime benefit limits, provide incentives for preventive care, close the Medicare Part D “donut hole” for prescription drug coverage and allow children to remain on their parents’ health care plans longer into their 20s.

Opponents of the plan also continue to spend big money as they attempts to convince lawmakers to kill the bill. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, may spend tens of millions of dollars on ads targeting wavering lawmakers. And Republican-affiliated committees, including the National Republican Committee, National Republican Campaign Committee and National Republican Trust PAC, are also airing ads aimed at persuading lawmakers to oppose the bill.

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

TUESDAY SUNSHINE: More than a score of senators like the freedom of communicating instantaneously with their constituents via Twitter but have been reticent about giving constituents the freedom to quickly learn about their campaign donors and fund-raising sources. Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) introduced a bill more than a year ago that would require Senate candidates to join the Internet revolution and file their campaign finance reports electronically — like their counterparts in seeking a seat in the U.S. House or the U.S. presidency do. Currently, a bipartisan mix of senators has co-sponsored Feingold’s bill, but the legislation has yet to see any momentum. More than 20 senators who regularly use the internet to Tweet to constituents — from Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) to Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) to Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) to David Vitter (R-La.) — have yet to sign on. Without a change to this rule, constituents must continue to wait for weeks as the Federal Election Commission manually enters the data off of the paper forms. Please encourage your senators to support Feingold’s bill, S. 482!

I’M ON A BOAT: The Stamford Advocate reports that voters in the Republican primary in Connecticut have an additional measure by which to assess their candidates: What kind of boat would I like my senator to have? The paper notes that former World Wrestling Entertainment chief executive Linda McMahon’s husband Vince keeps a 47-foot yacht at port in Boca Raton, Fla. The ship’s name: Sexy Bitch. Former Rep. Rob Simmons, meanwhile, has a J-22 sailboat. Former U.S. ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley, who dropped out of the Senate race last year to pursue a gubernatorial bid, furthermore, owns a 100-foot yacht that flies the flag of the Republic of Marshall Islands in the south Pacific, and is named Odalisque, which comes from the Turkish word for a slave in a harem. Read their full dispatch here, titled “Is wealth changing Connecticut politics?”

NEW ENSIGN E-MAILS: The New York Times recently reported on a slew of previously undisclosed e-mail messages turned over to the FBI and Senate ethics investigators regarding efforts by Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) to allegedly steer lobbying work toward the husband of the ex-staffer with whom Ensign had an affair. “The messages are the first written records from Mr. Ensign documenting his efforts to find clients for Mr. [Douglas] Hampton, a top aide and close friend, after the senator had an affair with his wife, Cynthia Hampton,” the Times reports. “They appear to undercut the senator’s assertion that he did not know the work might involve Congressional lobbying, which could violate a federal ban on such activities by staff members for a year after leaving government,” the paper continues. The Times also reports that an additional company — alternative energy firm P2SA — may have hoped campaign contributions would lead to assistance from the senator. Ensign has denied any wrongdoing. Read the Times’ full story here, and read Capital Eye’s earlier coverage of Ensign’s ethics scandal here.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at [email protected].

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

HCR SUMMIT: At 10 a.m., President Barack Obama is convening a bipartisan summit at Blair House, across the street from the White House, to discuss health insurance reform. The televised, six-hour meeting will include Democratic and Republican leaders from Congress, as well as officials like Vice President Joe Biden and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

Ahead of the meeting, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) used our data to detail how much money Congressional attendees — many of whom oversee the committees that govern health care policy — have raised from health interests since 2005. (Answer, at least $28 million.) You can use our health care tools to see for yourself here how much money these lawmakers have raised from various health interests since 1989, and don’t forget to check out our 30-part “Diagnosis: Reform” series on health care reform. On the eve of the summit, the House also voted to strip health insurers of antitrust exemptions. The final role call was 406-19, with all dissenting votes coming from Republicans.

MONEY-IN-POLITICS LAWSUIT ADVANCES: Election law observers at Loyola Prof. Rick Hasen’s blog note that a lawsuit filed by freshman Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.) and other Republicans is advancing through the legal system. The Associated Press reports that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to hear Cao’s suit in May. Cao is challenging the federal limits regarding the coordination that candidates can have with the national party committees. Cao is also one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents, having won office in a heavily Democratic district only after corruption-tainted Democratic incumbent William Jefferson was found to have $90,000 in his freezer.

TRAFICANT RETURNS: In other corruption-related news, former eight-term Ohio Rep. James Traficant, who served seven years in federal prison on a bribery and racketeering conviction, is hoping to reenter the political arena as a free man. Traficant was released from prison in September. While behind bars in 2002, he garnered 15 percent of the vote as an independent. The long-time Democrat will again be running as an independent this year, CNN reports. He is considering running in either Ohio’s 6th Congressional District, which is currently represented by Blue Dog Democratic Rep. Charlie Wilson, or Ohio’s 17th Congressional District, which is currently represented by Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan. It’s still a good question, as Capital Eye asked in September upon his release, from whom might Traficant get the necessary campaign cash?

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at [email protected].

What do AT&T, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, the Teamsters Union, U.S. Steel, Lowe’s, the NAACP, the Colorado Farm Bureau and the City of St. Louis all have in common?

Give up? They’re part of the motley crew of fewer than three-dozen entities that reported lobbying specifically on the “public option” last year.

Despite the energy and resources that have poured into the public option debate, few players actually detailed their lobbying on this high-stakes proposal, the Center for Responsive Politics has found.

Reporting requirements for lobbying activity allow for broad and ambiguous descriptions of actual lobbying activity. Organizations are required to disclose lobbying on broad, general issues (such as “health issues“), as part of the filing procedures associated with the LD-2 lobbying reports.

A secondary, “specific issue” field is designed as a place for lobbyists to identify the bill number, bill title and other additional information about their specific causes. However, the amount of additional information detailed in this field can vary.

A Center for Responsive Politics review of 2009 lobbying reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records shows just 30 clients reference the phrase “public option” in the specific issue field. Anecdotally, many other corporations and organizations lobbied on the public option issue, but without specifically state that they did in these filings. They may also have used words or phrases other than “public option” to describe this advocacy for or against the controversial proposal.

In this snapshot that examined only records that explicitly used the phrase “public option,” the Center for Responsive Politics found a broad range of disclosure levels.

Records for the League of Women Voters, for instance, clearly identify the group as favoring the plan. The same is true for the NAACP — for whom records detail support of a “choice of a private (allowing recipients to stay with their existing health care coverage if they choose) or public health care plan, which includes a new public health care plan (the public option) that will provide a guaranteed backup which will always be there to ensure quality, affordable health care coverage no matter what.”

On the other end of the spectrum, some clients were not shy about specifying their opposition.

“Advocated in favor of non-profit, non-governmental co-op and oppose other public options proposals including the opt-out proposals,” states one report from the American Hospital Association.

And reports for the Center for Individual Freedom detail “Research/preparation for meetings and correspondence with House and Senate staff in opposition to [comprehensive] health care “reform,” to any government-run public option, tax increases and various other proposals under consideration.”

Yet a large proportion of records yield few clues about the clients’ positions on the proposal.

The “public option” rose to center stage in last year’s health care reform debates. It was envisioned to serve as a government-backed insurance option to give private insurers further competition and keep costs down.

President Barack Obama had campaigned on a public insurance option in his 2008 presidential bid. Most Democrats also supported the idea, and most Republicans, meanwhile, railed against it. Major drug companies, insurers and their trade associations also vocally opposed its creation, while major unions embraced it and lobbied for it.

House Democrats included the proposal in the comprehensive health insurance reform bill that they passed in November. Several moderate and conservative members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate, however, objected to its inclusion in that chamber’s version of health care reform legislation, and no such measure was part of the bill Senate Democrats passed in December. (In September, the Senate Finance Committee rejected two amendments that would have created a public option when it drafted its plan.)

The public option passed by the House would be available as part of a newly created national insurance exchange for employees of small businesses, self-employed people and unemployed people not already receiving assistance through programs like Medicare.

The public option has recently returned to the political limelight after freshman Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) led his colleagues in urging Senate leadership to pass a public health insurance option via reconciliation — a procedural rule that allows budgetary measures to pass with a majority of senators. This avoids a cloture vote, which requires a three-fifths majority to end debate on an issue.

More than 20 Democratic senators have since signed this letter to the leadership, and more than 100 members of the House have signed a similar letter there circulated by fellow Centennial State freshman Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.).

White House vote counters have long been skeptical that the public option would garner enough votes to pass in the Senate, and Obama did not include the idea among his proposal released ahead of Thursday’s bipartisan health care summit.

Nonetheless, lobbying and debate on the public option is likely to continue as long as Democrats are discussing health insurance reform plans.

CRP researcher Matthias Jaime contributed to this report.

End-of-year campaign finance reports were due to the Federal Election Commission on January 31, and since then, the researchers at the Center for Responsive Politics have been busy processing the data.

A preliminary analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics shows that 433 sitting members of the U.S. House of Representatives raised $78 million during the fourth quarter of 2009, an increase of 5.4 percent above their third-quarter hauls.

Overall, these members raised $294 million during 2009, spent $169 million and ended the year with about $300 million in cash on hand, CRP found.

The mean amount these lawmakers raised during the fourth quarter was about $179,000 — and about $680,000 for the entire year. The median amount was about $133,000 during the fourth quarter, and about $526,500 for the entire year.

In the Senate, the Center for Responsive Politics found that 96 incumbent senators raised $36.6 million during the fourth quarter — an increase of 2 percent above their third-quarter totals. Overall, these senators raised $152 million during 2009, spent $79 million and ended the year with $235 million in the bank.

The mean amount a sitting senator during the fourth quarter was about $381,000, with an average of about $1.6 million raised for the entire year. The median amount raised was about $166,000 during the fourth quarter, and about $568,000 for the entire year.

Senators are not required to file their campaign finance reports electronically, unlike their counterparts in the House, which slows the disclosure of these records. (Encourage the Senate to require electronic filing! Tell your senators to support S. 482, the legislation that would establish this.)

A list of members of the House and Senate for whom the Center for Responsive Politics is still awaiting data from the FEC can be found here. You can also monitor the total and average amounts raised by all incumbents and all challengers on our website here. And profiles of all members and races are available as well.

In the coming days and weeks, the Center will continue to examine the end-of-year campaign finance data and report on all of our findings for giving trends, industry and sector totals and more.

Incumbent representatives running for higher office are among those who have raised the most money during 2009. These include:

• Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who is running for the Senate seat currently held by Democrat Roland Burris, who was appointed after Barack Obama was elected president, raised $4.8 million in 2009;
• Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), who is running for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Christopher “Kit” Bond, raised $4.6 million during 2009;
• Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.), who is running for the open Senate seat currently held by Republican Sen. George LeMieux, who was appointed after Republican Mel Martinez retired mid-term, raised $3.5 million;
• Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), who lost the special Democratic Senate primary to Martha Coakley after Ted Kennedy’s death, raised $3.1 million;
• Rep. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.), who is running for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, raised $2.4 million;
• Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), who is challenging Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter in a primary, raised $2.4 million; and
• Rep. Charles Melancon (D-La.), who is challenging incumbent Republican Sen. David Vitter, raised $2 million.

Furthermore, leaders in both parties were also among those with the biggest hauls in the House last year. Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) raised $2.6 million, while Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) raised $2.4 million. And Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) raised $2.3 million, while Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) brought in $1.5 million.

Vocal partisans on each side of the aisle also attracted large sums from their respective party’s bases. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), who infamously heckled President Barack Obama during an address to Congress, raised $416,100 during the fourth quarter, bringing his total haul for the year to $3.4 million. And outspoken liberal Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) brought in $1.7 million during the fourth quarter, for an end-of-year total of nearly $2.4 million.

In the Senate, incumbents facing heated reelection challenges were among those lawmakers who raised the most money during 2009 as well. These include:

• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who raised $2 million during the fourth quarter, bringing his 2009 total to $9.5 million;
• Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), who decided to retire in January, raised $2 million during the fourth quarter, bringing his 2009 total to $5.1 million
• Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who raised $1.9 million during the fourth quarter, bringing her 2009 total to $5.9 million;
• Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who raised $1.6 million during the fourth quarter, bringing her 2009 total to $7.1 million; and
• Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who raised $1.3 million during the fourth quarter, bringing her 2009 total to $5.5 million.

Leading the money race among all sitting senators was Democratic Conference Vice Chairman Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who raised $3 million during the fourth quarter to bring his 2009 total to $10.1 million. Only Republican Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was his party’s 2008 presidential nominee ended the year with more cash on hand: Schumer’s committee had $19.4 million in the bank, while McCain’s had $27.5 million — of which much remains from his presidential fund. (For his part, McCain will also be fending off a more conservative primary challenger in ex-talk radio host and former Rep. J.D. Hayworth.)

CRP Senior Researcher Douglas Weber contributed to this report.

As the Center for Responsive Politics reported last week, federal lobbying soared to record levels last year, as lawmakers clocked long hours and worked at a pace to be, in the opinion of one congressional scholar, the most productive Congress in decades.

This translates to about $1.3 million spent on lobbying for every hour that Congress was in session in 2009, the Center for Responsive Politics has found.

Lawmakers in both chambers met for a total of 2,668 hours, according congressional records. The U.S. Senate was open for business on 191 days, while the U.S. House convened on 159 days.

Federal lobbying records show clients spent $3.47 billion on lobbying Congress, the White House and other federal agencies.

Some clients — such as the big-spending U.S. Chamber of Commerce — also include dollars spent on grassroots lobbying efforts, and not just sums spent at the federal level. And lobbying expenditures are not only made when Congress is officially in session.

Still, through this prism, we see the power of various special interests in a different light.

Health-related lobbyists and lobbyists for business interests like the Chamber, for instance, earned more than $200,000 per hour that Congress was in session. Lobbyists for unions, meanwhile, took in $16,000 per hour that Congress was in session.

Below is a chart with this per-hour analysis for all 13 sectors tracked by CRP, based on data made available by the Senate Office of Public Records.

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

FISTFUL OF HARD COVERS: Through the end of 2009, former Republican vice presidential nominee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has raised more than $2.1 million for her political action committee, SarahPAC. Of this amount, she has spent $1.2 million, giving her some $930,000 cash on hand. The National Journal reports that her PAC expenditures include $47,777 on copies of Palin’s book Going Rogue — an amount that is more than her PAC has doled out to other candidates. “The FEC reports show Palin has been purchasing the book to send to donors, some of whom got a copy after contributing a certain amount to the PAC,” the National Journal notes. Incumbents and challengers among those receiving money from SarahPAC include: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate who forced Republican Dede Scozzafava out of the Congressional race in upstate New York where Democrat Bill Owens ultimately prevailed. 

NOT JUST A JOKER: Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is key-noting a fund-raiser for NARAL Pro-Choice America today in Washington, D.C. The one-time funny man took some heat during his 2008 senatorial bid for controversial jokes about women during his Saturday Night Live star and satirist days, including a column he wrote for Playboy magazine in 2000 entitled “Porn-O-Rama!” Ultimately in the course of his election, though, Franken raised more than $81,500 from groups supportive of women’s reproductive rights — making him the highest recipient of such cash of any congressional candidate, and the fourth highest overall. During his first year in the U.S. Senate, Franken introduced a bill to provide women in the armed forces overseas access to emergency contraception. He also successfully championed an amendment to bar the Pentagon from doing business with contractors who force employees into binding arbitration over rape and sexual assault charges. The Senate adopted that provision on a 68-30 roll call vote in October, and President Barack Obama signed the measure into law in December.

ILLINOIS VOTES: Voters in Illinois head to the polls today to select their respective parties’ nominees for the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama, among other offices, in today’s primary election. Through January 13, GOP Rep. Mark Kirk had raised the most of any candidate in the crowded field — $4.8 million. The Republican contender with the next biggest war chest, Patrick Hughes, had raised $515,000. On the Democratic side of the aisle, Alexi Giannoulias had raised the largest sum — $3 million. Democrat David Hoffman reported raising $2.2 million, and Jacob Meister reported raising $1 million. (Meister, the firstly openly gay U.S. Senate candidate in Illinois endorsed Giannoulias on Sunday.) See which industries favored which candidates on our website here. Polls close at 7 pm.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at [email protected].

More than 15,600 companies and organizations spent at least $3.2 billion on federal lobbying in 2009, the Center for Responsive Politics has found, based on a preliminary analysis of lobbying data filed with the U.S. Senate.

Additionally, CRP preliminarily found that the health- and health insurance-related companies and organizations spent more than $537.5 million on federal lobbying in 2009, an increase of about four percent above their 2008 spending — a sum that will certainly increase after the final reports are tallied.

Of the lobbying reports filed last week, the Senate Office of Public Records has made roughly 80 percent of them available in their xml feed. The researchers at CRP have finished processing these, and updated our website accordingly. As the final 20 percent of reports are processed in the coming week or so, these sums will likely increase even further, and specific dollar amounts for clients, lobbying firms and industries will change.

At this point in time, the Center for Responsive Politics has processed the reports of 15,612 clients. This represents an approximately four percent increase in the number of clients since 2008.

These companies and organizations hired some 13,590 lobbyists to advocate for them at the White House, at federal agencies and on Capitol Hill.

Influential lobby shops, including Patton Boggs, Akin, Gump, Van Scoyoc Associates, the Podesta Group, and Brownstein, Hyatt, were among the top firms cashing in on the boom.

Patton Boggs earned approximately $40 million in 2009. Both the Podesta Group and Brownstein, Hyatt pulled in at least $8.8 million more in 2009 than they did in 2008 — some of the largest increases among all firms.

Pharmaceutical and health product companies look to be the largest industry spender on lobbying in 2009, spending at least $245 million. Other big spenders include the oil and gas industry, the insurance industry and electric utilities, all of which spent more than $135 million on lobbying in 2009.

The top lobbying clients were all groups that have actively opposed or tried to water down major legislative proposals pushed by President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with $144.46 million spent on lobbying; Exxon Mobil, with $27.43 million spent on federal lobbying and the drug industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which spent $26.15 million.

After the final lobbying reports are processed next week, Capital Eye will weigh in with more analysis, so be sure to stay tuned.

CRP Research Director Jihan Andoni and Lobbying Researcher Matthias Jaime contributed to this report.

The Supreme Court’s ruling Thursday in its high stakes campaign finance case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission could usher in a flood of new independent expenditures.

As Capital Eye detailed last year, political action committees spent $135.2 million on independent expenditures during the 2008 election cycle, according to the FEC. That represented an increase of 250 percent over similar expenditures in the 2006 election cycle and an increase of 100 percent over such groups’ independent expenditures during the 2004 election cycle.

Some of the biggest spenders on independent expenditures during the 2008 election cycle included several unions — such as the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the United Auto Workers.

Ideological groups like the National Rifle Association, the Club for Growth, the National Right to Life Committee and Moveon.org also shelled out considerable amounts.

The bulk of contributions from PACs, however, comes from business, not labor or ideological groups. During the 2008 election cycle, the political action committees of business interests contributed roughly four-and-a-half times as much to candidates and parties than their labor counterparts, and nearly five times as much as ideological PACs. The ratio between business PACs and labor PACs is about the same so far during the 2010 election cycle.

The PACs that gave the most to politicians during the 2008 election cycle include the National Association of Realtors, AT&T, the American Bankers Association, the National Beer Wholesalers Association, the National Auto Dealers Association and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

While money from corporations often follows the political party in power, over the years, many groups — and certain industries — have not shied away from picking partisan favorites.

Unions, environmentalists, lawyers and women’s organizations have strongly backed Democrats, while oil and gas companies, business associations, anti-abortion groups and gun right supporters have tilted toward Republicans.

You can see how the money flows to each party among the top 100 companies, unions and organizations on our “Heavy Hitters” list here, or check out the 2008 cycle giving among the top 10,000 companies, unions and organizations in our national donor profiles here.

And before the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 went into effect, many organizations contributed hundreds of millions of dollars directly to political parties via soft money donations — of which about 60 percent went to Republicans.

CRP PAC researcher Erin Williams contributed to this report.

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:

CITIZENS UNITED AFTERMATH: The Center for Responsive Politics has served as a trusted resource in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in its high stakes campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Dozens of journalists have called us and scores of reports have cited our data — from the Cleveland Plain Dealer to the New Mexico Independent to the Daily Telegraph in London. CRP data also was mentioned in Bloomberg’s “High Court Decision May Bring ‘Cascade’ of Election Spending,” McClatchy’s “Ruling could magnify special interests’ role in U.S. politics” and the Wall Street Journal’s “Big Donors Plan Boost in Campaign Spending.”

WALL STREET FIGHT CONTINUES: President Barack Obama continued his efforts to go after Wall Street, announcing Thursday that no bank or financial institution that contains a bank could also invest in or sponsor a hedge fund or private equity fund — the sometimes risky investment vehicles that have not seen strict levels of federal regulation. Obama also announced a proposal to limit consolidation within the financial services sector to prevent “too big too fail” institutions. In this announcement, Obama was joined by former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, former SEC Chairman Bill Donaldson, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd and several members of his economic team. Read more about the Democrats’ quest to reign in Wall Street in our recent series of Capital Eye reports.

ENQUIRER SHOOTS FOR PULITZER: A federal grand jury is still investigating whether 2008 Democratic presidential contender John Edwards broke campaign finance rules when he attempted to cover up his affair with Rielle Hunter. In the meantime, an upcoming new book by former Edwards aide Andrew Young will fuel the drama. In advance of the book, the former North Carolina senator admitted on Thursday that he fathered a daughter with Hunter. Now the National Enquirer — which first broke the news of the affair, the child, Edwards’ likely paternity and the grand jury investigation — is hoping to get some love from the mainstream media establishment. The executive editor of the tabloid tells the Washington Post that he plans to enter their reports in the competition for the Pulitzer Prize. “It’s clear we should be a contender for this,” he said.

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at [email protected].

Corporations, trade associations, unions and nonprofit groups still aren’t allowed to make direct contributions to federal politicians, but today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that such groups may now spend unlimited amounts of money advocating for or against politicians.

In doing do, the Supreme Court, led by Justice Anthony Kennedy, tossed out the distinction between individuals and corporations and their ilk when it comes to independent expenditures.

“This Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption,” Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. “That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia joined Kennedy today in overturning Supreme Court precedent that relates to these restrictions. They were not persuaded by the rational for distinguishing between the wealth of individuals and corporations. Nor were they sympathetic to the anti-corruption argument.

The court’s more liberal bloc — Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor — disagreed.

“The Court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation,” Stevens wrote for the minority. “The financial resources, legal structure and instrumental orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about their role in the electoral process. Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to guard against the potentially deleterious effects of corporate spending in local and national races.”

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which was championed by Republican Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), restricted independent expenditures made by corporations, trade associations, unions and nonprofits in the run-up to elections. These groups could not spend money on advertisements in the 30 days prior to a primary election and within 60 days before the general election. Independent expenditures bankrolled by individuals were not subject to the same prohibition.

In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of these “electioneering communication” rules for corporations and unions in the case McConnell v. Federal Election Commission. This ruling relied on a 1990 decision known as Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce. In that case, the high Court declared, “Corporate wealth can unfairly influence elections when it is deployed in the form of independent expenditures.”

The McCain-Feingold campaign finance rules also banned direct “soft money” contributions from the treasuries of corporations, unions and other groups. The legislation required these groups to use political action committees, should they choose to make federal political donations. It also established campaign contributions for PACs and for individuals. Today’s decision by the Supreme Court did not affect these regulations.

Many groups now warn of a flood of corporate money in elections.

“Now the spigot has been opened even further for corporations, trade groups and unions to use as much money as their hefty bank accounts can muster to aid or attack a federal candidate,” said Sheila Krumholz, the Center for Responsive Politics’ executive director. “Such action could potentially come in the eleventh hour of a campaign when the target may not be capable of an effective response, for want of time, funds or both.”

“The decision will unleash unprecedented amounts of corporate ‘influence-seeking’ money on our elections and create unprecedented opportunities for corporate ‘influence-buying’ corruption,” Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, said in a statement. “In a stark choice between the right of American citizens to a government free from ‘influence-buying’ corruption and the economic and political interests of American corporations, five Supreme Court Justices today came down in favor of American corporations.”

Others are more cautious.

“Corporations and unions already had a lot of ways to participate in the political process,” Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Capital Eye.

 “I don’t think you’re going to see an immediate flood,” Mann continued. “I think there’s a wariness [on the part of corporations] about getting a bad name.”

Those on the side of the plaintiffs eagerly welcomed the ruling as a victory for free speech, and pledged to fight on against restrictions on political speech this case did not address.

“For too long, some in this country have been deprived of full participation in the political process,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the namesake of the 2003 challenge against the McCain-Feingold campaign finance rules. “With today’s monumental decision, the Supreme Court took an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights of these groups by ruling that the Constitution protects their right to express themselves about political candidates and issues up until Election Day.”

“By overruling Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and striking down McCain-Feingold’s ban on so-called electioneering communications, the Supreme Court has made possible the participation in our political process that is the right of every American citizen — a right that had been severely curtailed under McCain-Feingold,” said David Bossie, president of Citizens United.

“There’s still more to do,” attorney James Bopp told Capital Eye. “The court hasn’t addressed the inequalities between political parties and everyone else, and the constitutionality of contribution limits has been drawn further into question.”

But President Barack Obama today said he envisions legislative action to address the post-Citizens United world.

Obama called the ruling a “major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and other powerful interests” and promised his administration would work with Congress to “develop a forceful response to this decision.”

Rep. Leonard Boswell (D-Iowa) has also already introduced a constitutional amendment to bar corporations and labor unions from funds from their treasuries to pay for advertisements in connection with federal campaigns.

Citizens United’s challenge began over the question of whether the Federal Election Commission properly regulated as electioneering communications the group’s 2008 movie (and related advertisements) critical of Democrat Hillary Clinton. During the 2008 presidential primaries, the FEC ruled that Citizens United could not air the movie or ads for the movie within the 30-day period before elections. It also required Citizens United to feature disclosure information about who paid for the ads.

The case was first argued before the Supreme Court in March, and in June, the court called for a rare, expanded second hearing to tackle the large constitutional questions regarding Austin and McConnell. The second round of arguments was made in September.

In today’s ruling, the conservative majority argued that Citizens United case could not be resolved a narrower fashion “without chilling political speech.”

In an 8-1 ruling, the court also affirmed the FEC’s disclosure requirements, and it denied Citizens United’s claim that these rules would “chill donations by exposing donors to retaliation.” Thomas was the sole dissenting vote.

“The government may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but it may not suppress that speech altogether,” writes Kennedy for the majority.

Kennedy’s majority opinion continues, “Citizens can see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests …and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.”

While the validity of disclosure rules is welcomed as a silver lining, some observers are skeptical of the power of disclosure rules alone.

“Given the history of money and elections, why should we think that disclosure alone will be enough to deal with the problems of corruption and inequality that threaten our government?” wrote Loyola Law School professor Rick Hasen for Slate. “I have my doubts. But I’m sure this is a bad day for American democracy.”

While the U.S. economy had a tough year in 2009, the economy on K Street continued to boom. Federal lobbying reports were filed on Wednesday with the Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House, and here at the Center for Responsive Politics, we are busy processing the new data.

Within the next week or so, we aim to release our final report on 2009 lobbying. In the meantime, though, here are some initial findings:

CHAMBER LEADS THE WAY

The U.S. Chamber Commerce, one of the leading opponents of Democratic plans to reform health insurance and tackle climate change, spent about $79.2 million during the final three months of 2009 on lobbying.

This brings its total expenditures for the year to a jaw-dropping $144.5 million. This represents an increase of nearly 60 percent compared to the amount the Chamber spent in 2008, the Center for Responsive Politics has found.

Unlike many groups that file reports using Congress’ definition of lobbying (based on the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995), the Chamber uses internal revenue code definitions. So their reports include money spent on state lobbying and grassroots lobbying efforts, as well as federal dollars. Had the Chamber used the congressional method, its lobbying numbers would likely be smaller.

OTHER HEALTH-RELATED PLAYERS ALSO SPENT BIG

Many of the other groups attempting to influence the debate over health insurance reform also spent big during the final quarter of 2009 — and the year in general.

The drug industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) spent $6.3 million on federal lobbying during the last three months of the year, bringing their total spending for 2009 up to $26 million. This represents an increase of about 30 percent over their spending on federal lobbying in 2008.

Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Amgen and Eli Lilly also spent considerable sums on their lobbying efforts.

Pfizer invested about 80 more in federal lobbying in 2009 than they did in 2008. During the fourth quarter of 2009, it spent $5.6 million on federal lobbying, for an overall total of $21.9 million.

Amgen spent about $3.3 million on federal lobbying during the fourth quarter of the year, bringing its overall 2009 spending to $12.4 million. This represents an increase of more than 20 percent over their 2008 lobbying spending.

For its part, Eli Lilly spent about $2.2 million on federal lobbying in the last quarter of 2009. Over the course of the entire year, the company spent $11.2 million, which represents a 10 percent drop compared to 2008.

And the health insurance industry trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) also spent large sums on lobbying efforts this year. The group spent $2.5 million on federal lobbying in the fourth quarter, for an overall total of about $8.9 million. This represents a 17 percent increase over their lobbying spending in 2008.

BIG ENERGY COMPANIES DISPLAY BIG MONEY

With President Barack Obama and Congress pushing for legislation to address climate change, curb U.S. carbon emissions and create green jobs, energy companies were major players on K Street in 2009.

ExxonMobil spent about $6.7 million on federal lobbying in the last quarter of 2009. That amount brings their total for 2009 to $27.4 million, a decrease of about five percent compared to 2008.

Chevron, meanwhile, increased its spending on federal lobbying by 60 percent during 2009. Over the course of the year, it spent $20.8 million, with $5.3 million being spent in the last quarter.

ConocoPhillips also reported a bumper year. Their federal lobbying more than doubled between 2008 and 2009. During 2009, the petroleum giant spent $18 million on lobbying, with about $4.8 million being spent during the last quarter.

Additionally, BP spent about $16 million on federal lobbying during 2009. This is an increase of 53 percent compared to its 2008 spending. During the fourth quarter of 2009, it spent $4.6 million.

The following table shows an assortment of high-profile companies and organizations, along with their total lobbying expenditures in 2008 and 2009.

CRP lobbying researcher Matthias Jaime and communications interns Cassandra LaRussa and Steven Spires contributed to this report.