The Mother Jones 400 (1996): An Overview

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Who are these guys?

Well, for one thing, they are predominantly guys–there are only 50 women on the list. Fully half of the Mother Jones 400 are either heads of corporations or lawyers. Many of them also appear on Forbes magazine’s list of wealthiest individuals. More than anything, the Mother Jones 400 are people who want something from Congress (see “Backing Winners“).

Why do they give?

While some give for reasons of philanthropy or vanity, the majority are bankers, lawyers, investors, or other businessmen with a big financial stake in the outcome of legislation like securities deregulation, tort reform, or the telecommunications bill. While there are slightly more Democratic givers than Republicans on the list, the GOP agenda of tax cuts and industry deregulation has opened up a number of new pockets.

How do they give?

Every which way they can. In addition to direct contributions to federal candidates (limited to $1,000 per candidate per election), donors can give money to the Democratic and Republican parties.

Many members of the Mother Jones 400 also give through corporate or single-issue political action committees (PACs), which in turn give money to candidates who support their interests. The total amount an individual may give to national candidates, parties, and PACs combined is limited to $25,000 per year.

Getting around this limit, however, is not hard. The biggest loophole is “soft money” to the political parties. There are no limits to the amount of soft money an individual may give. Although soft money is supposed to be used only for “party-building” activities such as get-out-the-vote drives, in practice it pays for overhead and other behind-the-scenes expenses, freeing up other party money to support candidates.

Soft money and donations to federal candidates, parties, and PACs are all reflected in the Mother Jones 400 list. What the list does not reflect is the money these large donors may have convinced others to give, through fundraising efforts or through a loophole called bundling.

Bundling is when a donor collects contributions from family members, business associates, etc., “bundles” them all together, and sends them to a candidate. For example, Steve Wynn (#373 on the Mother Jones 400 list) reported giving Bob Dole just $1,000 since 1993. However, 99 employees and family members of firms owned by Wynn gave Dole bundled contributions of $78,300 in 1995. In some cases, like Fred Lennon (#1 on the list) and his company’s distributors, it appears that employees are pressured to give.

Who they give to

Democratic givers outnumber Republican givers slightly. A few donors give to both political parties.

Where they are

The 400 donors are heavily concentrated in just four states: New York (76), California (73), Texas (43), and Florida (24).

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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