{"id":292494,"date":"2010-02-08T02:35:17","date_gmt":"2010-02-08T07:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.opensecrets.org,2010:\/news\/\/8.1356"},"modified":"2010-02-08T21:52:04","modified_gmt":"2010-02-09T02:52:04","slug":"richard-shelbys-war-for-defense-dollars-nfl-love-for-louisiana-pol-and-more-in-capital-eye-opener-february-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/292494","title":{"rendered":"Richard Shelby’s War for Defense Dollars, NFL Love for Louisiana Pol and More in Capital Eye Opener: February 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Shelby02.JPG\"<\/a>Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:<\/p>\n

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MY EARMARKS FOR YOUR NOMINEES:<\/b> The White House wants the U.S. Senate to approve dozens of its federal agency nominees. Sen. Richard Shelby<\/a> (R-Ala.) wants a tanker jet-load of federal cash<\/a> for defense-related projects<\/a> he considers crucial to his state’s financial fortunes — and he’s holding up President Barack Obama<\/a>‘s nominees until he gets it.<\/div>\n
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Commence not-very-in-the-spirit-of-bipartisanship bickering. <\/div>\n
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“It boggles the mind,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Friday of the row. “Unaddressed national security concerns,” is how Shelby spokesman Jonathan Graffeo described the reasons behind his boss’ action. Argue both sides’ motivations. While doing so, consider this: Shelby loves his federal earmarks, and he has a cozy relationship with the defense industry, which has filled his campaign coffers with a seven-figure sum for his career, according to a Center for Responsive Politics<\/a> analysis.<\/div>\n
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Over the past 20 years, employees and political action committees associates with the defense aerospace<\/a>, defense electronics<\/a> and miscellaneous defense<\/a> industries each rank among Shelby’s top 15 campaign contributors when grouped by industry<\/a>. For the miscellaneous defense industry, Shelby is its fourth all-time favorite campaign cash recipient<\/a> among federal candidates. For the defense aerospace industry, he’s fifth<\/a>. Defense electronics? Sixth<\/a>. Taken together, they’ve contributed more than $1.2 million to the veteran senator.<\/div>\n
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As for federal earmarks, Shelby in fiscal year 2009 sponsored 160 earmarks<\/a> totaling more than $322.3 million, according to a joint study last autumn<\/a> by the Center for Responsive Politics<\/a> and Taxpayers for Common Sense<\/a>. That ranks Shelby ninth in earmark sponsorships among his 100 Senate colleagues. Shelby also ranked first<\/a> among his Senate colleagues when it came to directing earmarks to entities whose associates had contributed money to him.<\/div>\n
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UPDATE (9:50 p.m.)<\/span>: The Washington Post<\/i> is reporting<\/a> that Shelby has lifted the hold on the Obama administration’s nominees.<\/div>\n
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\"new+nfl+logo[1a].jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

WHO DAT? NFL LOVES AT LEAST ONE LOUISIANA POLITICO:<\/b> If you’re finding out from Capital Eye<\/a><\/i> that the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday to win the Super Bowl<\/a>, we humbly recommend a remedial course in sports fandom. What you may not know, however: Louisiana<\/a> also beats Indiana<\/a>, 1-0, when it comes to donations from the National Football League’s political action committee. That’s because the NFL’s PAC<\/a>, established in 2008, has contributed $1,500<\/a> to Rep. Charles Melancon<\/a> (D-La.), who’s running for the U.S. Senate this year. Indiana politicians? No love from the NFL just yet. But similar to football, the 2010 political season is long.<\/div>\n
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CRP, IN THE NEWS:<\/b> The New York Times<\/i>‘ David D. Kirkpatrick notes our research<\/a> that indicates Obama received $89 million during the 2008 presidential campaign from people and political action committees associated with the securities and investment industry … Disclosure must be a federal priority in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission<\/i> ruling, writes<\/a> Jonathan Riskind of the Columbus Dispatch<\/i>, who quotes us in his column … Sean Treanor of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal<\/i> quotes CRP Executive Director Sheila Krumholz in this piece<\/a> about U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl<\/a>‘s nephew, himself a rising political star … Politics Daily<\/i> columnist David Gibson mentions our September study<\/a> about the NFL’s political donations in his Saturday dispatch<\/a> about how Republicans are attracted to football, and perhaps, vice versa.<\/div>\n
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Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail press@crp.org<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics: MY EARMARKS FOR YOUR NOMINEES: The White House wants the U.S. Senate to approve dozens of its federal agency nominees. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) wants a tanker jet-load of federal cash for defense-related projects he considers crucial to his state’s financial fortunes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3994,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292494","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\/3994"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}