Lobbyist Donations As High As Ever

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The midterm elections this fall will supposedly be all about the “culture of corruption” in Washington, wherein noble-minded reformers—most of them Democrats, presumably—will rail against lobbyists who are perverting and distorting government. So far, though, lobbyists are just carrying on as usual. Public Citizen released a report today looking at donations by lobbyists and their PACs—in 2006, lobbyist donations to members of Congress are on pace to be about 10 percent higher than they were in 2004 (totaling $34 million), which were in turn 90 percent higher than they were in 2000 (totaling $18 million).

Interestingly, Jack Abramoff is only the 30th-ranked lobbyist donor. And not surprisingly, most of the money goes to members of the Senate and House appropriations committees, which ultimately decides how federal money gets spent. Supposedly this is different from the actual bribery that took place when Duke Cunningham was sitting on the House appropriations committee, but the dividing line here seems pretty hazy.

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AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

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