The Big Spenders in Politics
You would think that the organizations consistently giving the most money to American politicians would be big businesses, right? After all, we hear plenty about corporate control of Washington, so logically, you might assume that they’re buying their influence.
But take a look at this list of the top ten donors between 1989 and 2008.*
- American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees ($39,106,885)
- AT&T Inc ($38,436,035)
- National Association of Realtors ($31,241,156)
- National Association for Justice ($28,005,639)
- National Education Association ($27,335,150)
- Goldman Sachs ($27,162,732)
- Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ($27,027,936)
- Laborers Union ($26,068,139)
- Service Employees International Union ($25,225,643)
- Carpenters & Joiners Union ($25,164,032)
Only two of the top ten are corporate. The rest are unions and associations. It doesn’t stop there. If you go to a list of the top twenty donors, Citigroup and Altria slip in, but the other eight are all unions and associations as well.
It’s only when you get below that top twenty does big business start making it’s presences felt, and even then, there are unions and associations scattered all the way down.
*Found on opensecrets.org, here.
Interesting. I had no idea that unions had that much money that they could afford to throw it after politicians like that.
Oh yes, unions are BIG. And it’s equally as big for a candidate to get a union endorsement.
I agree, interesting post, in fact the whole blog is pretty interesting. Yep, unions have a huge say so in politics, and the problem is the rank and file members might not agree with the union leaders about who the union supports. I read one time where a supposedly grassroots campaign that was gaining momentum had actually been a union driven campaign. Don’t remember what it was now, but I always look twice at those “grassroots campaigns” now.