Who Owns Congress?

[MNeagle]

What if members of Congress were seated not by party but according to their major business sponsors?

If you want to understand why Finance Reform was so milquetoast, note how significant it is in both the Senate and House. The following shows the US elected Senators and Representatives by the dominant campaign contribution:

>

click for full list of congresscritters

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Senate-sponsors.png

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/House-sponsor.png

Its not quite the Nascar idea, but it communicates by sector whose money is influencing whom.

link (http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/10/who-owns-congress/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheBigPicture+%28The+Big+Pict ure%29)

[Dogman]

Thank you for giving one of the easiest examples to understand. Why we have the very best government that

Money can buy!:sarc:

:redfc

[k-os]

Those images make me want to vomit.

[Libertarian_Guard]

One day last summer Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, chairman of the House Republican Conference, decided to play Santa Claus. … In any event, Mr. Boehner took it upon himself to begin handing out money from tobacco lobbyists to certain of his colleagues on the House floor.

Boehner stopped handing out the checks only “after being questioned about the practice by two freshmen who’d heard about the handoff on the House floor” [Charleston Gazette, 5/11/96]

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/01/09/boehner-western-union/

In late June of 1995 then-GOP Conference Chairman John Boehner handed out "about a half-dozen" checks from the political action committee of tobacco company Brown & Williamson Corp. to fellow Republicans on the floor of the House.

Boehner's chief of staff Barry Jackson stated, "We were trying to help guys who needed to get their June 30th numbers up, their cash-on-hand numbers up. All leadership does this. We have to raise money for people and help them raise money."

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Boehner