MoJo 400 Central (1997)

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The 1997 Mother Jones 400

April 1997

Jane
Huang was the “homemaker” who ranked #262 on last year’s
Mother Jones
400.
Although few suspected that her husband John’s fundraising for the
Democratic
National Committee would become part of a national scandal,
the very size of her
combined $66,000-plus in contributions should have
given pause.

Similarly, this year’s list,
covering the 1995-96 election
cycle, provides clues to future
campaign scandals. With gifts to the
political parties virtually unregulated,
huge donations have become
outrageously common. The current rankings are based on
such “soft money”
gifts as well as contributions to federal candidates and
political
action committees. They do not include money spent on the renting of
lobbyists
or the fueling of sophisticated public relations campaigns
through so-called
independent expenditures.

True, the likes of Apple
founder Steve Jobs (#128) or
Barbra Streisand (#369)
appear to have contributed out of charity or vanity. But
big donors are
more often motivated by the need for a legislative or regulatory
fix.
Take David H. Koch (#10), an oil
magnate who spread around scads of cash to
block tougher EPA regulations
of a type of air pollution that may cause 40,000
premature deaths each
year. Or investment banker and fundamentalist Foster Friess (#14),
who
pursues favorable treatment of mutual funds when he’s not helping run
a
cabal that shapes GOP policy.

On the opposite curb of this shakedown
street
stand fundraisers like Terry McAuliffe. He likes to stress that he
worked for
President Clinton rather than the troubled DNC. But our
profile of him (see
Big Game Hunter“) reveals
otherwise and demonstrates the blurry moral
character of the status quo.

That both parties play the big-money game offers no
consolation to
voters. An unacceptable corrosion occurs when the influence of
donors so
clearly trumps that of average citizens. But reform is possible: The

proposals in “Reform School” would increase
both transparency and accountability. Crisis
breeds opportunity, and
rather than being enervated by the current scandals, we
should seize this
rare chance to shift power from the bigwigs to the electorate.

Profiles of Top Contributors |
The MoJo 400 list |
Search
the Itemized Contributions


Acknowledgments

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MoJo 400
articles

Big Game Hunter

Meet Terry McAuliffe, the man who created Clinton’s
fundraising monster.



Sugar Daddie$

Cuban-born
sugar magnate José Fanjul can’t vote, but he — and his family —
sure can donate!



Oil
Slick


This donor’s oil business is fighting
EPA clean air regulations by
paying others to do its dirty work.



Especially
Interested


Meet two senators who voted on
legislation that affected special
interests — their own.




Reform School
What
we all need to know about campaign finance reform.

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

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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.

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