Lobbying

As we mentioned here last week, the recently passed jobless benefits extension, though packaged as a boost for Main Street, provided many times more funding to the nation’s businesses, including the largest corporations. Specifically, the law allows companies to recover already-paid taxes by applying recession-year losses to income made over the past five years. The [...]

The push is on to dilute the climate change bills moving through Congress, and it’s not coming only from conservatives. Mother Jones’ Kate Sheppard reports today that 14 Senate Democrats are urging their leadership to amend the proposal to grant more free polluting permits to the coal-burning utilities that emit the most greenhouse gases. In [...]

In January of 2008, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee against Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). CREW wondered if a $2 million earmark Landrieu had showered on a children’s literacy company wasn’t inspired by a $30,000 fundraiser the company had held for the senator days earlier.
Twenty-two months [...]

As Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) marks his line of opposition to a public insurance plan in the Democrats’ health reform bill, it’s worth noting that no industry has given more to Nelson’s congressional career than the insurers. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign contributions, insurance companies have donated nearly $1.3 million to Nelson [...]

Over a complete Republican boycott, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed its climate bill last week by a vote of 11-1. The lone dissenter was Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) — a name you’ll be hearing a lot more if you’re keeping tabs on the climate debate. Baucus chairs the powerful Finance Committee and [...]

The news that “dozens” of House lawmakers are under scrutiny by ethics investigators — reported last night by The Washington Post — will likely stir a small storm in Washington, particularly on an otherwise quiet Friday when Congress is out of town.
Yet few details contained in the leaked document are new (which makes some sense [...]

Reid called the insurers’ anti-trust exemption “anticompetitive and damaging to the American economy.”

What seemed like a clear path ahead was upstaged by the health care battle.

Pro-immigrant religious groups with about 700 members from nine different states plan to rally this afternoon on the West Lawn of the Capitol to press for immigration reform.
Immigrants, including veterans fighting deportation, will speak at the event, as will Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), who, with House and Senate allies, will set out key principles of [...]

The American Association for Justice — the trial lawyers’ lobby group — has just released an astounding statistic:  medical malpractice insurance companies’ average profits are higher than those of 99 percent of Fortune 500 companies.
As the nation remains mired in a debate over health care reform and how to keep down the costs of expanding [...]