The Washington Independent » contributions

Environmentalists Target ‘Dirty’ Politicians, Including Many Democrats

Andrew Restuccia — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:27:31 +0000

A coalition of environmental groups launched a new web site yesterday that targets lawmakers who have taken money from the oil, natural gas and coal industries.

DirtyEnergyMoney.com tracks industry contributions from 1999 to June 2010 based on Federal Election Commission disclosures. The web site was launched by MoveOn, Public Citizen, Greenpeace, Energy Action Coalition, True Majority, 350.org and others.

According to the site, the top five “dirtiest politicians” (those that took the most money from industry) are:

1. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas)

2. Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas)

3. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)

4. Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.)

5. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.)

The site also targets Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), who is facing a tough reelection battle this year. Lincoln has accepted $814,882 since 1999, the site says. According to the site:

Arkansas’ Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln seems to have drilled into the largest deposit of dirty campaign cash in the most recent election cycle. What has she done to deserve such generosity? She voted for the Murkowski Big Oil Bailout, a bill that would have gutted clean air protections and increased our oil dependence. She also voted to keep sending our taxpayer money to big oil and gas.

Obama Transition Team Releases Donors

Matthew DeLong — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:12:03 +0000

The Obama-Biden transition team today released its first monthly list disclosing the names of donors to the transition and the size of their contributions. The list can be found here.

As of November 15, the transition has raised $1,170,937.44 from 1,776 donors, for an average donation of $659.31. The contributions range in size from $5 to the $5,000 legal maximum.

According to the transition, it accepts donations only from individuals, and rejects any from corporations, labor unions, political action committees, registered federal lobbyists and registered foreign agents.

A quick review of the largest donations indicates many appear to come from lawyers and those working in the financial industry. This is not entirely surprising. According to OpenSecrets.org, lawyers and the financial industry were the second and fourth largest sources of contributions to the presidential campaign’s of both Obama and Sen. John McCain (‘retired’ was the largest.)

There are a few interesting donors. Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, and William Daley, former commerce secretary, both are advisers to the transition and contributed the maximum.

However, the one that really jumped out was a $5,000 donation from George Lucas, of the San Rafael, Calif.-based Lucasfilm Ltd. — the director and producer of the “Star Wars” franchise.