With the primaries right around the corner, MAPlight.org, a Berkeley-based nonprofit, is trying to figure out where the money is coming from to fund the candidates’ campaigns. Some of their findings are surprising.
According to Executive Director Dan Newman, some 40 percent came from businesses and trade associations, compared to just 16 percent from unions. Big business and unions are generally thought to balance each other out in election cycles, but the fact is that in California, unions have less to give than individual contributors, who total 17 percent. Business contributions also have a greater impact on legislation. Take the insurance industry, for instance. According to Newman, “Legislators who voted with the insurance companies got more than double the campaign funds from insurance companies as the legislators that voted the other way.”
But that’s not the only surprising finding. While Assembly members should be expected to care for their districts first, MAPlight found that 58 percent of lawmakers raised 80 percent of their contributions from outside their districts, while nineteen lawmakers earned more than 90 percent from outside their districts. Constituents simply can’t compete with the lure of big business.
Read More at KCBS.
