Silicon Valley has become a force to be reckoned with on Capitol Hill, spending more than $100 million on lobbying and tens of millions on campaign contributions.
Former President George W. Bush loomed large throughout the 2010 campaign even though he has been out of office for nearly two years.
The financial industry has spent $251 million on lobbying so far this year as lawmakers hammered out new rules of the road for Wall Street, according to the latest lobbying reports compiled by a watchdog group.
In a most public fashion, congressional lawmakers have been grilling Toyota officials this week about safety defects that have caused some of the automaker's vehicles to accelerate without warning. Accidents and deaths are being linked to these problems.
The amount of money lobbyists are spending on health care reform could break records, and now that the five bills before Congress have cleared committee, that spending is expected to go into overdrive.
updated: Thu Oct 15 2009 10:21:00
The amount of money spent by lobbyists on health care reform could break all records. CNN's Jim Acosta reports.
In case you hadn't noticed, Washington is in the midst of a revolution. A new president, an economic meltdown.
The life of Sir Allen Stanford, the cricket and polo-loving financier who is being investigated for a potential Ponzi scheme, is a case study in how to buy respectability and influence.
Call it a shot fired across the bow, or simply a stern warning to congressional Democrats: Power corrupts, and we are watching your every move. And if we think you are no longer representing the interests of your constituents, we will try to defeat you next year.
updated: Fri Feb 27 2009 13:37:00
DailyKos, MoveOn and other Democratic activists vow to target Democrats who represent corporate America's interests.
Unfortunately, we are again asking the president to explain why exactly he announced, with great fanfare, new ethics rules if he had no intention of abiding by them.
updated: Thu Jan 29 2009 07:07:00
CNN's Campbell Brown asks Obama administration officials to do what they think is best for the country.
Before being sworn in or casting their first votes, some newly elected members of Congress were introduced Wednesday to another hallmark of life on Capitol Hill -- the big-ticket reception for big-money donors.
updated: Mon Nov 17 2008 21:14:00
Obama said that lobbyists will not work in his White House, but some have accepted jobs. CNN's Campbell Brown reports.
Corporate lobbyists may have to jockey for attention alongside smaller, grassroots organizations under new ethics rules issued by President-elect Barack Obama's transition team, one analyst says.
updated: Tue Sep 09 2008 18:13:00
Republicans release a new ad, which they say highlights Sen. John McCain's maverick roots.
Republicans say Sen. John McCain and his vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, are mavericks. But in a new ad, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign says not so fast -- they're no maverick reformers.
updated: Tue Jul 29 2008 11:35:00
CNN's Joe Johns reports on how John McCain interacts with Washington's lobbyist culture.
Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama like to portray themselves as Washington outsiders, but neither candidate is completely clean of the influence of lobbyists.
updated: Thu Jun 12 2008 19:44:00
CNN's Brian Todd reports on the buzz surrounding Barack Obama's possible VP choices.
The day after Jim Johnson resigned from Sen. Barack Obama's vice presidential candidate vetting committee, Sen. John McCain set his sights on Eric Holder, one of the two remaining members of the committee.
Lobbyist. It's a word that's making people and politicians cringe. But even though lobbyists are a target of Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, many people can't do without them.
updated: Thu Jun 12 2008 17:42:00
McCain responds to resignation of Jim Johnson and sets sights on another member of Obama's VP committee.
updated: Wed Apr 09 2008 21:07:00
CNN's Carl Azuz discusses the finer points of campaign finance and how much one can donate.
Use this information to teach your students about campaign finance.
updated: Thu Sep 13 2007 10:03:00
CNN's Abbi Tatton previews an online-only Democratic presidential forum that lets users create their own debate videos.
John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton tussled over accepting campaign contributions from powerful health care groups Monday at a forum on cancer that attracted four Democratic hopefuls.
A powerhouse Republican lobbying firm with close ties to the White House has begun a public campaign to undermine the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, CNN has confirmed.
Iraq's former interim prime minister accused Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of fomenting sectarian violence plaguing the war-ravaged nation.
Democratic presidential front-runner Sen. Hillary Clinton is being taken to task by her two closest rivals for accepting $400,000 in campaign contributions from Washington lobbyists.
The Democrats claim their new ethics bill fulfills a campaign promise to clean up Congress. But some Republicans say there are too many loopholes
John Edwards, who reiterated his commitment Tuesday to never accept campaign donations from special interest groups, has returned thousands of dollars from lobbyists
In March of 1898 a group of old-time Willy Lomans met at a New York City hotel and agreed to hire David B. Hill, the former senator, New York governor and renowned constitutional lawyer, to fight legislation banning the resale of rail tickets.
President Bush's choice to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission withdraws. It's a rare setback for the Administration's crusade to turn lobbyists into regulators
The House passed restrictions Thursday that limit how lobbyists can raise money for members and bar spouses from lobbying lawmakers, in what Democrats called the most sweeping reforms in decades.
Talk is cheap. Just ask some of the Democratic presidential candidates jockeying for position on the 2008 campaign trail. They're reserving some of their most venomous verbiage for the nation's drugmakers. Yet, despite all the demonizing, the drug lobbying in Washington remains surprisingly strong - even under the new Democrat-controlled Congress.
For the first time in 12 years, the Democrats are in control of both houses of the U.S. Congress.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The leaders of the new Democratic majority in the House will kick off their tenure Thursday with new rules designed to rein in the influence of lobbyists, limit free travel by members and make it harder for lawmakers to slip their pet projects into spending bills unnoticed.
I don't know about you, but I can't take seriously anyone who takes either the Republican Party or Democratic Party seriously -- in part because neither party takes you and me seriously; in part because both are bought and paid for by corporate America and special interests. And neither party gives a damn about the middle class.
Gee, the Republicans seem to have lost their moral compass since Tom DeLay quit. Who knew it could get worse without that pillar of rectitude from Texas? What a snakes' nest of corruption and nastiness.
It slipped through the House by four votes, divided largely along party lines, but now comes the real test: Is the new ethics bill enough to rejuvenate Congress' battered image after a series of high-profile lobbying scandals?
THIS SPRING in Washington, D.C., many lobbying shops are contemplating doing something they haven't done in years: hiring Democrats. That, in turn, may spell the beginning of the end of the decade-...
In general, I'm against kicking 'em when they're down ... unless really awful people are involved. I figured Tom DeLay is so awful, plenty of people would gang up on him and I could pass.
A former senior aide to Rep. Tom DeLay pleaded guilty Friday in federal court to fraud conspiracy, saying he joined a scheme with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others to enrich themselves and illegally influence members of Congress.
The wording is so bland and buried so deep within a 324-page budget document that almost no one would notice that a multibillion-dollar scam is going on. Not the members of Congress voting for it and certainly not the taxpayers who will get fleeced by it. And that is exactly the idea.
Cynics are fond of meditating on the evil done in the name of reform. I'm a great believer in perpetual reform myself, on the theory that political systems, like houses, are always in want of some fixing. However, I have seen some pluperfect doozies passed off as reform in recent years, starting with "Social Security reform."
Yes, the Jack Abramoff scandal is a cancer eating away at the heart of Washington, fresh proof of the Beltway's culture of corruption, etc., etc. But for business, this tawdry episode is a reminder of something that gets too little notice: A company's return on lobbying and campaign contributions--let's call it return on political investment, or ROPI--is astronomically higher than any real investment it can make. These remarkable returns, not any inherent venality, explain why the pseudo-reforms likely to come in Abramoff's wake will do nothing to stop the meltdowns from recurring.
If the last two days are any indication, ethics reform is now the hottest issue in Washington. A day after Republicans recruited Senator John McCain to announce their plan to clean up government, close to one hundred congressional Democrats stood together in the Library of Congress as Senator Barack Obama talked about the importance of the reforms his party was introducing. And both parties put out plans that included tighter restrictions on lobbyists and their interactions with Congress.
Congressional Democrats made a sweeping election-year promise Wednesday to clean up Capitol Hill amid an influence-peddling scandal that has spurred Republicans to propose a reform package of their own.
No fewer than six lobbying-reform proposals were floating around Congress late last week, and leaders of both parties were promising that one, or perhaps elements of all, would pass before Groundhog Day. TIME surveyed the latest proposals and the lawmakers behind them to handicap the probable outcome.
The Republicans hope Tom DeLay's successor will repair their reputation, but the stink of the lobbying scandal clings hard to the GOP.
When does good old-fashioned lobbying become bribery? That's the question Congress and business leaders alike find themselves grappling with since the fall of Jack Abramoff, Washington's most notor...
Abramoff tended to pick clients far removed from the Beltway who were sometimes either too desperate or too unfamiliar with the lobbying trade to question his unorthodox tactics and exorbitant fees
Michael Scanlon, a former top aide to Rep. Tom DeLay and a onetime partner of high-powered Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pleaded guilty to a federal conspiracy charge Monday.
A lawyer who worked with high-powered Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is expected to testify against him as part of a plea bargain with the Justice Department, two government sources have told CNN.
There's no denying both political parties in Congress are now owned lock, stock and barrel by corporate interests. Our nation's elected officials in Washington have formed a partnership with the corporate supremacists and special interest groups in an effort to drive profits to the bottom line of U.S. multinationals at the expense of hard-working Americans.
Disgraced former energy giant Enron is once again flexing its lobbying muscle in Washington, trying to convince lawmakers to strike a provision that would allow a group of Western utility companies to get out of paying Enron big fees for terminating their contracts with the bankrupt firm, according to a report in the Houston Chronicle.
At this stage, it's not easy to make Jack Abramoff's reputation worse. The Washington superlobbyist has been caught, in his e-mails, calling his Indian tribal clients "monkeys" and "morons."
Since he emerged as a leading character in the controversy over House majority leader Tom DeLay's ethical standards, Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff has been famously tight-lipped.
The G.O.P. leader's troubles mount, with new questions about his dealings with the former aide who helped build his political machine.
There won't just be a lot of arguing among lawmakers over Social Security reform in the coming months.
Check out the links below to hot political stories around the country this morning.
Check out the links below to hot political stories around the country this morning.
Haiti is the Western Hemisphere's poorest country. But with the departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, it is becoming clear how much money both he and his chief foe, the Bush Administration, spent not on alleviating that poverty but on politicking against each other.
Tension is mounting within the National Association of Manufacturers, with many smaller members urging the big lobbying group to do more to fight the migration of jobs overseas even as many of its larger members embrace the trend, Tuesday's Wall Street Journal reported.
Education Secretary Rod Paige called the National Education Association a "terrorist organization" Monday as he argued that the country's largest teachers union often acts at odds with the wishes of rank-and-file teachers regarding school standards and accountability.
Sen. John Kerry braved sub-zero temperatures Sunday to stump for votes in frosty North Dakota, while his rivals tried to heat up the race with a new line of attack: that the Democratic front-runner has been too cozy with lobbyists to effectively lead the fight against powerful special interests.
Howard Dean lashed out Saturday at Democratic presidential front-runner Sen. John Kerry with some of the harshest rhetoric of the campaign, calling Kerry "another special interest clone."
With almost daily bombings and terror attacks, Iraq borders on anarchy. The situation is so dicey that not even diplomats can conceal the danger. David Kay, the chief U.S. weapons inspector, says I...
When chief executives of American corporations come to Washington, they discover that, to get what they want, they are forced to act in unnatural ways. For instance, nobody at insurance giant Ameri...
After the Catholic church, AAA--the official name of the American Automobile Association--is the second-largest organization in the U.S. With 46 million members, the century-old AAA is a beloved Am...
For a couple of embarrassing years in the mid-'90s, Microsoft's primary lobbying presence in D.C. was "Jack and his Jeep." As the software giant's sole in-house lobbyist, Jack Krumholtz, then 33, h...
It's 10 A.M. and Dirk Van Dongen is taking his seat in the West Wing. Around him are a select group of other lobbyists and two of the President's men, political strategist Karl Rove and economic ad...
In a private dining room situated near the top of a downtown Nashville office building, nearly 50 Republican activists are having a good laugh. The nation's capital, their luncheon speaker jokes, i...
Maybe it's a coincidence, but Washington is gorging on red meat. Carnivores have stormed the capital, and this city is nothing if not adaptive. From Smith & Wollensky to Nick & Stef's, from Angelo ...
From outside the Beltway, the nation's capital looks like a maze run by hobbits who speak a strange language and indulge in strange rituals. What's scary is how much power they have to help or hind...
You've seen this drama before. An important trade vote in Congress. Huge mobilization efforts by business and labor. Desperate meetings in Capitol suites and the Oval Office. Late-hour agonizing by...
Robert H. Rines is no stranger to complex topics or to controversy. An MIT-trained physicist and inventor, he holds dozens of patents on advances in fields as diverse as radar and fish farming. A p...
Looking down on Washington (is there any other way?), the common view is that beneath the surface of benevolent democracy seethes a crass commercialism. A little campaign cash from your neighborhoo...
If ever there was a time when the gun lobby should be vanquished, it is now. This year alone, there have been Columbine (15 dead, 23 wounded), the Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth (eight dead,...
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon was feeling good. A few magazine articles had cited him as one of the most Internet-savvy members of Congress, praise he was certain would impress his 10-year-old daught...
This has been a weird year for Washington legislation. Bills that should have been surefire failed, including ones designed to reduce teen smoking and improve the service of HMOs. Other measures th...
It's hard to imagine gentlemen denying a civil request from a polite older lady, but that's what kept happening to Esther Burns. The mother of five grown children, she lives with her husband near B...
Nick Franklin isn't your typical executive. He earned his spurs not in marketing, manufacturing, or finance but in the rough-and-tumble of campaigns and elections. Prior to becoming a senior vice p...
The Yinglings of suburban Washington, D.C., have a peculiar family tradition. For more than 40 years, at least one Yingling has made his living fretting about the Bank Holding Company Act, the 1956...
Three years ago--in other words, 20 years after he and Paul Allen founded the company--Bill Gates decided to open Microsoft's first lobbying office in Washington, D.C. The effort, to say the least,...
Washington, of course, is about power. And in our story on Washington's Power 25, bureau chief Jeffrey Birnbaum delivers the authoritative taxonomy on the lobbyists who earn their living pressing m...
Not long ago real-life lobbyists looked and acted like their caricatures: fat, cigar-smoking men who shoved hundred-dollar bills into the pockets of lawmakers. Nowadays a few people still fit that ...
Most leaders of lobby groups are as slick and silver-tongued as the politicians they try to influence. Not Horace B. Deets, head of the most feared lobby in Washington, the American Association of ...
When business leaders want to be heard in Congress, they have a special place in the House of Representatives--a conference room in the suite of Speaker Newt Gingrich. There, at 11 o'clock on most ...
Back in the 1970s, when state governments began taking over one of the Mob's favorite rackets--the numbers--and turning the game into state-run lotteries, cynics (and moralists) foresaw new frontie...
Some 51 years ago, while the public was preoccupied with winning World War II, Congress passed a seemingly benign law giving insurers one of the sweetest deals in U.S. financial history. Instead of...
YOU GOT THROUGH TO THE PRESIDENT. MORE THAN 1,000 MONEY readers so far have written us urging President Clinton to veto this Congress' misguided securities litigation reform, as this column propose...
When Dick Cheney kicked off his New Year by deciding not to make a run for the White House in 1996, business executives lost their favorite candidate for President. But corporate America has a muc...
DEMOCRATIC SENATOR John Breaux wanted to support Bill Clinton's economic plan. But when he went home to Louisiana, the streets were lined with angry protesters carrying placards that read BTU -- BR...
WHY IS THIS MAN smiling? Well, one reason is that taxes are going up and the federal budget deficit is going down. As the new head of the Business Roundtable, Union Pacific CEO Drew Lewis, 59, lobb...
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