Fri, Jul 18 2008
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Published March 08, 2008 04:27 pm - I expected to find all the usual suspects on the list: Big Oil, Big Tobacco, the NRA, the NEA. Scouring the Web site of the Center for Responsive Politics, I stumbled upon its 100 biggest givers list. Andy Ostmeyer: List of biggest donors to federal campaigns offers some surprises By Andy Ostmeyer Globe metro editor I expected to find all the usual suspects on the list: Big Oil, Big Tobacco, the NRA, the NEA. Scouring the Web site of the Center for Responsive Politics, I stumbled upon its 100 biggest givers list. The Center is a not-for-profit non-partisan watchdog group in Washington, D.C., that has tracked contributions to federal candidates and federal parties since 1989. It recently compiled a list of the biggest of the big dogs over the past 20 years. With gas prices pushing into low-Earth orbit again and rumors of $3.50 and even $4 a gallon gas, and with oil companies reporting not just record-breaking but scandalous profits, I truly expected to find them near the top of the list, lubricating the political machine. Not so. Not even close. Chevron, the first oil company on the list, was 71st and ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, ranked 75th, packed right in there between the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and the National Restaurant Association. I also expected the National Rifle Association and the National Education Association to be duking it out for a top spot. Actually, the NRA was 32nd, behind Fed Ex and the National Beer Wholesalers Association. The NEA, however, was sixth. And Big Tobacco? Well, the Altria Group came in 17th, behind the American Medical Association, which explains the justifiable and long-deserved beating cigarettes and their dealers have taken over the last couple of decades from government regulators and legislators. So who made the list of America’s top donors? Unions. They had six of the top 10 and 12 of the top 20 spots. Only two corporations were in the top 20: AT&T and Citigroup. AT&T, which was second, has given $38.9 million to federal candidates and parties. Remember that the next time you want an explanation for all those fees and charges on your cell-phone bill. Others in the top 10 are the National Association of Realtors, the American Association for Justice (formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America) and Goldman Sachs. The latter gave $27.8 million over the years, which is no small part of the reason that a former Goldman Sachs golden boy, Robert Rubin, served as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during Bill Clinton’s two administrations. But the other top spots belong to unions: The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the Laborers’ Union, the Service Employees International Union and the Carpenters and Joiners union, and on and on. 
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