...either that or Citizen Action is breathtakingly disingenuous.
With much fanfare, they yesterday release a report called: "New Yorkers Pay When Big Money Plays: The Case for Public Financing of Elections" which animates the following findings:
• For a bill that would lead to discounts on prescription drugs, 99.99% of the $1,093,348 in campaign contributions came from the drug companies, drug stores and their trade associations.
• 94% of the $105,784 in contributions from entities that lobbied on a bill that would regulate how much health insurance companies can increase their rates came from health insurers. (Citizen Action, the only consumer group that made campaign contributions, gave the remaining 6%.)
• A bill that would allow the state to regulate and protect smaller parcels of freshwater wetlands passed the Assembly last year and again this year, but has not passed the Senate. Of the $310,441 in campaign contributions, 92% was given by real estate interests and builders.
• In the case of a bill that would reverse a state law allowing landlords to avoid rent regulation if an apartment rents for more than $2000 and becomes vacant, which would keep thousands of apartments affordable and limit tenant intimidation, we found that 99.8% or $594,365 in campaign contributions came from three organizations associated with the real estate industry.
• Finally, in the case of a bill that was passed in 2007 over consumer objections that removed caps on reseller markups of sports and concert tickets, all contributions, $451,213, came from the entertainment industry that was in favor of the law.
This is all fine and good, except that the Assembly Majority in each of these cases, has taken the same side as Citizen Action. Moreover, in those cases where Assembly Majority members received campaign contributions from some of the corporate interests delineated by Citizen Action--at least in the bills cited by Citizen Action in the study--those Assembly members voted against the so-called corporate interests.
So we now have a case where not only are Citizen Action's facts wrong, but better yet, they also refute the central tenet of their own report: that campaign contributions from corporate interests sway votes.
Nice work, guys. What are you doing for a follow-up? Maybe a report called "Research 101 For Good Government Groups."
