Money and Congressional votes for Fisa

[texshelters]

Source: CBS News and MAPlight.org

Tuesday :: Jun 24, 2008
Telecoms Bought Immunity From House Dems

by Steve Soto

Yep, the Telecoms may have bought that vote by the House last week. MAPLight.org, a research firm that compares campaign contributions to voting records, is set to release a report tomorrow which will show the following (from an email press release):

On March 14 of this year the House passed an amendment that rejected retroactive immunity for phone carriers who helped the National Security Agency carry out the illegal wiretapping program without proper warrants. Ninety-four House Democrats voted in favor of this measure--rejecting immunity--on March 14, then ‘changed’ to vote in favor of the June 20 House bill--approving immunity.

“Why did these ninety-four House members have a change of heart?” asked Daniel Newman, executive director of MAPLight.org, “Their constituents deserve answers.”

MAPLight.org's research department compiled PAC campaign contributions from Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint and correlated them with the voting records of all House members who voted on last week’s FISA bill. (The analysis used data from CRP; contributions were from January 2005 through March 2008). Here are the findings:

Comparing Democrats' Votes (March 14th and June 20th votes):

Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint gave PAC contributions averaging: $8,359 to each Democrat who changed their position to support immunity for Telcos (94 Dems)

$4,987 to each Democrat who remained opposed to immunity for Telcos (116 Dems)

88 percent of the Dems who changed to supporting immunity (83 Dems of the 94) received PAC contributions from Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint during the last three years (Jan. 2005-Mar. 2008). See below for list of these 94 Dems.

What we don't know yet is how much of this money went to the members over the last three months. But it's clear the telecoms seeded this quite well.

Rasmussen finds that voters are evenly split on the issue of telecom immunity (44% against it, and 41% OK with it), but then there’s this:

One thing voters overwhelmingly agree, however, is that the government needs a search warrant if it wants internet providers or telecommunications companies to turn over customer records: 69% say so, as opposed to only 17% who say a search warrant is not necessary.

Since most Americans don’t feel they’ve been swept up in any data mining or illegal invasion of their privacy, they may not feel that this is a big deal, and are therefore not too worked up one way or the other on telecom immunity.

If they only knew . . .

Read more: http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/012747.php#012747

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I'm just saying, find a true democrat to support this fall.

Put Obama to task and make sure he follows up on his promise to fix the "broken campaign finance system" for good of the party and the country.

Peace,
Tex Shelters