Tip Sheet

A guide to the biggest vices in Congress

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Nailing down every special interest that contributed to the $910.1 million raised for this year’s federal elections would require serious Starr treatment. The biggest givers, however, can’t hide their cash. Here’s what they were after (listed in descending order of how much they gave through June 30):

Telecommunications ($12.6 million) The 1996 Telecommunications Act, ostensibly meant to spur competition among phone and cable companies and pass savings on to consumers, actually hastened mergermania in the phone industry and led to soaring cable rates. Nonetheless, in July, the Senate quashed a proposal to investigate the rate hikes. Especially interested: No. 110, No. 137, No. 202, No. 249.

Oil ($10.8 million) According to the Project on Government Oversight, oil companies owe the U.S. an estimated $2 billion in royalties on oil taken from public land. When the Interior Department tried to collect an additional $66 million by charging more for oil, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) inserted an eleventh-hour provision blocking the change into a spending bill. The provision itself sailed through without a separate vote. Especially interested: No. 215.

Alcohol, Hotels, and Restaurants ($9.8 million) In March, the House considered lowering the legal maximum blood-alcohol content level for drivers from 0.1 percent to 0.08 percent. But the food and beverage industry feared that fewer drinks would mean less profit. No lawmaker wanted to go on record opposing the measure, so the proposal was secretly killed in a House committee without a recorded vote. Especially interested: No. 33, No. 121, No. 179.

Pharmaceuticals ($7.4 million) In November 1997, Congress voted to allow drug manufacturers to promote their products for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, ignoring critics’ concerns about possible health risks. A few months later, Congress forced the FDA to back away from proposing new advertising restrictions on drug companies. Especially interested: No. 6, No. 25, No. 160.

Tobacco ($5.9 million) When lawmakers inserted a last-minute $50 billion tax break for tobacco companies in the 1997 budget bill, public outrage forced them to strip the measure. But tobacco money still carries clout in Congress: The industry won a bigger battle in June when the tobacco settlement died in the Senate. Especially interested: No. 121.

High-Tech ($4.8 million) The newly formed Technology Network PAC has hosted events for more than 100 politicians — and the face-time has paid off. With White House support, Congress passed two top items on TechNet’s legislative agenda: uniform national standards for securities lawsuits (despite complaints from consumer groups that the standards deprive aggrieved investors of valuable protections) and the expansion of a visa program that allows foreign high-tech workers into the United States. Especially interested: No. 40, No. 201.

Gambling ($3.6 million) The Treasury Department estimates that in 1995 more than 1,500 millionaires deducted gambling losses from their taxes, costing the government $377 million in lost revenues. But when Congress considered killing the gambling deduction, the industry’s friends in Washington came to the rescue. Especially interested: No. 74, No. 108, No. 168.

Credit ($3 million) This year, Congress passed a bill that will force bankrupt consumers to repay some of their debt despite protests from the Consumer Federation of America, which argued that the bill penalizes consumers but places no responsibility on credit card companies for extending credit indiscriminately. (According to the CFA, the portion of households with incomes less than $20,000 that received credit card offers rose to 58 percent in 1996.)

Health Insurance ($2.2 million) In the fall of 1997, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) reportedly made an eloquent appeal to representatives of the health care industry: “Get off your butts; get off your wallets.” Lott was warning them about President Clinton’s soon-to-be-announced patients’ bill of rights, a proposal to give Americans more leverage in health care issues. Money poured into the GOP from managed care companies, and House Republicans rallied around a watered-down version of the bill. At press time, it had stalled in the Senate. Especially interested: No. 98, No. 122.

Jennifer Shecter is a researcher for the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C.

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.

payment methods

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.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate