Reports from the Influence Market
Posted on: June 11, 2008Written by:
I certainly hope so."
Charles Keating
Owner of Lincoln Savings and Loan
The first step in solving any problem is recognizing and understanding it. The good news is that enough people have come to recognize the existence of the influence market that there are now hundreds of studies, reports, and articles that describe who is buying whom. To help you understand this problem, we have compiled links to what we have found on the net so far. These are arranged in a couple of different ways.
- An Overview of the Influence Market
- General discriptions of how things work.
- Who is selling influence.
- This is mostly reports on and databases of contributions to candidates.
- Who is buying influence.
- Reports on the special interest groups that are throwing money around. We aren't necessarily opposed to these groups' agendas, just their methods.
- Sources
- Some of the groups and media outlets that write these things
An Overview of the Influence Market
- Legislature for Sale - The landmark series from the San Jose Mercury News
- Shakedown - Mother Jones reports on Congressional Dialing for Dollars.
Influence Sellers
- California Politicians
- Capitol Addiction - The Common Cause report on 1995 Legislative Fundraising
- The Great Money Chase - Common Cause report on 1994 Legislative Fundraising
- The U.S. Congress
- Presidential Candidates
- Political Parties
Influence Buyers
- Agricultural Intersts
- California's Top Ten PACs
- Capitol Investors
- Like Money in the Bank - The Allied Business PAC
- Corporate Welfare Recipients
- Financial Companies
- The S&L Crisis - Probably the biggest smoking gun of all.
- Religious Right
- Like Money in the Bank - The Allied Business PAC
- Rich Folks
- Tobacco Industry
Sources
Please direct all questions, comments, suggestions to Michael Dee Gunn, mdgunn@itsa.ucsf.edu.
