Congressional Contributors Seating Chart..

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..To Whom Own Congress.

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Who Owns Congress? A Campaign Cash Seating Chart


— Illustration: Steve Brodner

What if members of Congress were seated not by party but according to their major business sponsors? We gave it a try.
— By Dave Gilson

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September/October 2010 Issue
Read also: The rest of this special report and MoJo's daily political coverage.
When it comes to corporate donors, Democrats and Republicans may be closer than you think.
The Senate: Lawyers, Drugs, and Money


The Senate

SECTOR | # OF MEMBERS
Finance, insurance, and real estate 57
Lawyers and lobbyists 25
Health 5
Agribusiness 3
Labor 2
Energy and natural resources 2
Miscellaneous business 2
Communications and electronics 1
No money raised 3
Total seats | 100

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)
Terms: 2 (9 in House)
Total raised: $62.2 million, 27% from finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE)
Top donors: A major defender of Wall Street interests before the crash, Schumer has netted more big bank money than any member of Congress who hasn't run for president.
Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.)
Terms: 1
Total raised: $17 million, 7% from FIRE
Top donors: In the special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat, Brown's biggest donors were Fidelity Investments, Bain Capital (Mitt Romney's old firm), and Credit Suisse. But—whoops!—he voted for the financial regulation bill.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
Terms: 5
Total raised: $37.2 million, 14% from FIRE
Top donors: The top Senate Republican's most generous contributors have been US Smokeless Tobacco—now part of Altria, née Philip Morris—and Brown-Forman, the maker of Jack Daniel's. Cheers!
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
Terms: 4 (2 in House)Total raised: $35.4 million, 17% from lawyers and lobbyists
Top donors: 5 out of the majority leader's top 10 lifetime donors are casinos or gambling interests. The industry has bet more than $1.7 million on him, plus $1.3 mil on fellow Nevada Sen. John Ensign.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)
Terms: 3 (5 in House)
Total raised: $75.3 million, 7% from lawyers and lobbyists
Top donors: Boxer is Hollywood's favorite member of Congress (aside from Sen. John Kerry). Her second-biggest donor is Time Warner; Disney is sixth.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.)
Terms: 2 (4 in House)
Total raised: $31.8 million, 12% from agribusiness
Top donors: The ranking member of the ag committee has never met a federal farm subsidy he didn't like. He just happens to be Congress' second-most bountiful recipient of agribusiness cash.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.)
Terms: 4 (4 in House)
Total raised: $16.2 million, 13% from energy and natural resources
Top donors: Inhofe, who's declared that "man-induced global warming is an article of religious faith," has received more money from Koch Industries than any other company. The oil firm has given nearly $25 million to climate-change denial groups.
The House: Big Labor vs. Big Money


The House

SECTOR | # OF MEMBERS
Labor 159
Finance, insurance, and real estate 159
Health 26
Agribusiness 23
Lawyers and lobbyists 20
Miscellaneous business 18
Energy and natural resources 10
Defense 7
Transportation 6
Communications and electronics 4
Construction 1
Unfilled seats 2
Total seats | 435

Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.)
Terms: 21
Total raised: $10.8 million, 21% from labor
Top donors: The chair of the appropriations committee and a subcommittee with oversight of labor matters, is the House's second-biggest recipient of union cash. Obey's retiring in the face of a challenge from Real World star Sean Duffy.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)
Terms: 12
Total raised: $11.9 million, 19% from FIRE
Top donors: Sure, her husband is a major real estate investor, but the biggest all-time donor to the speaker (who has her own Napa vineyard) has been California wine giant E&J Gallo.
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.)
Terms: 5
Total raised: $17.3 million, 24% from FIRE
Top donors: The top donor to the GOP whip, a , a Virginia power company.
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.)
Terms: 1
Total raised: $6.4 million, 25% from FIRE
Top donors: The freshman rep, a former Goldman Sachs veep, now collects campaign checks from the firm—more than any other House member. Financial regulation vote: Yes.
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)
Terms: 7
Total raised: $50.5 million, 3% from FIRE
Top donors: GIs, meet geeks. The small-government libertarian's biggest givers are members of the military, followed by Google and Microsoft employees.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas)
Terms: 13
Total raised: $17.2 million, 19% from energy and natural resources
Top donors: Barton, who decried the "shakedown" of BP, has watched the cash flow from Anadarko Petroleum, owner (PDF) of 25% of BP's Deepwater Horizon well.
Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.)
Terms: 17
Total raised: $8.3 million, 17% from defense
Top donors: The Armed Services Committee chair is—surprise!— Congress' top recipient of defense-industry cash.










Who Owns Congress? A Campaign Cash Seating Chart | Mother Jones

Capitol Hill's Top 75 Corporate Sponsors


— Illustration: Steve Brodner

How industry donations rule the political money game.
— By Dave Gilson

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September/October 2010 Issue
Read also: The rest of this special report and MoJo's daily political coverage.
Want to follow the money? Below, 75 of the heaviest hitters in campaign cash.
1 AT&T
2 National Association of Realtors
3 Goldman Sachs
4 American Association for Justice
5 Citigroup
6 American Medical Association
7 National Automobile Dealers Association
8 United Parcel Service
9 Altria
10 American Bankers Association
11 National Association of Home Builders
12 National Beer Wholesalers Association
13 Microsoft
14 JPMorgan Chase
15 Time Warner
16 Morgan Stanley
17 Verizon
18 Lockheed Martin
19 General Electric
20 Pfizer
21 FedEx
22 Credit Union National Association
23 Bank of America
24 Ernst & Young
25 Blue Cross/Blue Shield
26 American Dental Association
27 American Hospital Association
28 Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu
29 Pricewaterhouse Coopers
30 UBS
31 Aflac
32 Natl. Assn. of Insurance and Financial Advisors

33 Boeing
34 Union Pacific
35 Merrill Lynch
36 Reynolds American
37 Northrop Grumman
38 American Institute of CPAS
39 BellSouth
40 Credit Suisse
41 Anheuser-Busch
42 National Rural Electric Cooperative Association
43 General Dynamics
44 American Financial Group
45 GlaxoSmithKline
46 Chevron
47 Walt Disney
48 DLA Piper
49 ExxonMobil
50 KPMG
51 MBNA
52 UST
53 Southern Company
54 National Restaurant Association
55 Freddie Mac
56 AIG
57 Koch Industries
58 Prudential Financial
59 MetLife
60 Wal-Mart
61 American Academy of Ophthalmology
62 American Health Care Association
63 Securities Industry and Financial Market Association
64 General Motors
65 CSX

66 Eli Lilly
67 Associated General Contractors
68 Amway/Alticor
69 Archer Daniels Midland
70 American Airlines
71 MCI
72 National Federation of Independent Business
73 American Council of Life Insurers
74 Bristol-Myers Squibb
75 Enron
How Business Rules the Political Money Game


Donations by Industry, 1989-2010