{"id":272035,"date":"2010-02-03T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.opensecrets.org,2010:\/news\/\/8.1349"},"modified":"2010-02-02T23:37:55","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T04:37:55","slug":"citizens-against-citizens-united-contractors-to-the-moon-and-more-in-capital-eye-opener-february-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/272035","title":{"rendered":"Citizens Against Citizens United, Contractors to the Moon and More in Capital Eye Opener: February 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

<\/b>\"citizensunited.jpg\"NEW POLL SAYS CITIZENS DISAGREE WITH CITIZENS<\/i>:<\/b> A new poll <\/a>out on Tuesday said that 65 percent of people surveyed disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission<\/i><\/a>, while only 17 percent agreed and 18 percent were undecided. The poll, conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion<\/a>, found that attitudes toward the ruling transcended the political spectrum, with 67 percent of Democrats, 63 percent of Republicans, and 72 percent of independents disagreeing with the Court. The poll also found that 75 percent — with little variation across partisan affiliations — support regulations on corporate expenditures for political advertisements, such as requiring shareholder approval, having a company’s CEO appear at the end of the ad saying, “I approve this message,” and placing spending constraints on companies that receive federal contracts or bailouts. These numbers may give some momentum to Democrats in Congress who are hoping to pass campaign finance legislation<\/a> this year.

CITIZENS UNITED<\/i> HEARD ON THE HILL:<\/b> On Tuesday, the Senate Rules Committee<\/a> held a hearing on last month’s controversial Supreme Court case<\/a> Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission<\/i>. During the hearing, Sen. John Kerry<\/a> (D-Mass.) expressed his support for a constitutional amendment to trump the ruling, reported The Hill<\/i><\/a>, while other senators outlined support for legislative responses<\/a>. Sen. Chuck Schumer<\/a> (D-N.Y.), who presided over Tuesday’s hearing, is leading an effort for new legislation in the Senate, as is Rep. Chris Van Hollen<\/a> (D-Md.) in the House. You can see the archived webcast of the hearing here<\/a>. Center for Responsive Politics Executive Director Sheila Krumholz also submitted a statement<\/a> to the committee. Today, the House of Representatives’ Committee on House Administration<\/a> and Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties<\/a> will both hold hearings. Meanwhile, David Bossie, the president of Citizens United, calls these outraged lawmakers hypocritical in an op-ed in Politico<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OUTSPENDS PARTIES:<\/b> With the campaign finance world still trying to sort out the aftermath of Citizens United v. FEC<\/i><\/a>, Marc Ambinder over at The Atlantic<\/i> makes an interesting observation<\/a> about the potential for corporate spending to surpass that of political parties. Using Center for Responsive Politics<\/a> data, he points out that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce <\/a>spent more on lobbying and grassroots efforts in 2009 — a record $144.5 million — than the amount of money spent by the Democratic National Committee <\/a>or the Republican National Committee<\/a>.
\nThe Chamber’s expenditures are almost as much as the DNC and RNC
\ncombined. Their spending in 2009 is roughly in the neighborhood of what
\nthe congressional and senatorial campaign committees <\/a>spent
\nduring the 2008 election cycle. Even more shocking: the Chamber spent
\nover half of last year’s $144.5 million in the last three months of the
\nyear — spending about $79.2 million in the fourth quarter, according
\nto CRP analysis<\/a>.
\nThis push in spending coincided with high-profile legislative battles
\nover health care, climate change and financial regulatory reform, which
\nthe Chamber opposes. Many expect associations like the Chamber to
\nincrease their expenditures on campaign activities and advertising post-Citizens United<\/i>. <\/p>\n

\"nasa.jpg\"NASA BUDGET GROUNDED:<\/b>
\nThe White House budget released on Monday didn’t please the National
\nAeronautics and Space Administration. In an effort to save
\nmoney, the White House terminated NASA’s “Constellation” program, which
\naimed to return man to the moon by 2020, according to the Washington Post<\/i><\/a>.
\nHowever, this doesn’t mean the end of space travel. NASA’s new budget
\nwould include about $6 billion in “seed money” for private companies to
\ndevelop spacecrafts, and on Tuesday, NASA announced the private
\ncompanies that would receive initial money, according to the Post<\/i><\/a>. They include the well-known Boeing Company<\/a> and Blue Origin, a small aerospace company headed by Amazon.com<\/a> founder Jeff Bezos. The other companies are Sierra Nevada Corp.<\/a>, United Launch Alliance<\/a>, Orbital Sciences Corp.<\/a> and Paragon Space Development Company. Boeing, the largest of the
\ngroup, contributed $2.3 million to federal candidates and parties
\nduring the last election cycle and spent $16.85 million on lobbying <\/a>last year. During the 2008 election cycle, the defense aerospace<\/a> industry as a whole made $8.8 million in campaign contributions, and spent $58 million on lobbying <\/a>in 2008.<\/p>\n

Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:NEW POLL SAYS CITIZENS DISAGREE WITH CITIZENS: A new poll out on Tuesday said that 65 percent of people surveyed disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizen’s United v. Federal Election Commission, while only 17 percent agreed and 18 percent were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4759,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4759"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}