but guess who dumps huge quantities of money into the pockets of our politicians every year: the trial lawyers. Don't hold your breath waiting for reforms.

The following article, pulled from a cache since the link has expired, discusses the cozy relationship between Democrats and lawyers, as well as that between Republicans and the energy industries. Heck, at least the energy industry produces something useful, although judging by the amounts mentioned below, they seem to be a lot chintzier than the lawyers. The backscratching between the private sector and the government continues. Don't you just love living in a mixed economy system?

If anyone is naive enough to think that "campaign finance reform" will change any of this, I've got a nice bridge for sale.

Big donors reap political spoils from Senate Democratic control



June 20, 2001
from TheHill.com

By Alexander Bolton

Two weeks after Senate Democrats gained the majority, their biggest political contributors are reaping the spoils of victory while promises made to Republican donors by the old guard go unfulfilled. By scheduling debate on a patients’ rights bill strongly favored by trial lawyers as their first order of business, Senate Democrats have rewarded a group of their most loyal supporters.

The bill replaces the energy bill that Republicans hoped to have on the floor before losing control earlier this month. Oil and gas were major contributors to Republican candidates.

The Democrats’ patients’ rights bill, sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John Edwards (D-N.C.) would be a boon to trial lawyers around the country because it would allow patients to sue their health maintenance organizations.

In terms of campaign contributions, trial lawyers have been one of the most partisan. Since Democrats lost control of the Senate in 1994, lawyers have given over 70 percent of their contributions to Democrats. And lawyers have been by far the most generous donors to members of the Senate Democratic leadership.

“There is no question that trial lawyers wrote the language,” said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), referring to liability provisions in the bill that allow employers to be sued, eliminate caps damages, and allow a plaintive to pursue litigation in the most friendly court.

“It’s a lawyer’s dream bill,” he added.

As the ranking member of the Senate Health Committee, Gregg will manage Republican amendments to the bill.

What Gregg calls a lawyer’s dream replaces legislation that environmentalists called a dream for companies in the energy industry.

“Both the Bush and the Murkowski [energy] approaches [would have] return[ed] favors to the polluters who filled the Republican campaign coffers,” said Dan Becker, director of Global Warming and Energy for the Sierra Club.

Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), the former chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, told The Hill that then-Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) had promised weeks ago to schedule floor action on the energy bill on the heels of the recently completed education bill.

But now that Lott is minority leader, the GOP energy bill is DOA [dead on arrival], according to Becker.

Just as lawyers have heavily tilted their political contributions toward Democrats in the last decade, oil and gas companies have favored Republican candidates.

Since the 1990 election cycle, oil and gas interests have given 73 percent of their contributions to Republicans, data compiled by the Center For Responsive Politics shows.

Some lawmakers say the shift from a legislative agenda benefiting big Republican donors, such as oil and gas companies, to one benefitting trial lawyers is not a coincidence.

“In the last few years we have moved from the retail purchase of access to the wholesale purchase of the agenda,” said Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), referring to the influence of unlimited, unregulated contributions known as soft money on the political process.

In the past campaign contributions bought donors access to lawmakers, a $1,000 contribution might ensure a returned phone call, Feingold explained.

Now, he noted, large soft-money contributions give donors or a donor industry “a leg up with the leadership who will determine what bills come up.”

When asked if trial lawyers had purchased the Democratic agenda, Feingold demurred, saying that groups opposed to the patients’ rights bill had given more in political contributions than money interests that supported such a bill.

But Feingold is mistaken. Trial lawyers have donated more money to federal candidates than any other class of donors in every election cycle since 1990.

The two Democratic sponsors of the patients’ rights bill have received more of their contributions from lawyers than from any other industry. Since 1995, lawyers have given $1.2 million in contributions to Kennedy, three times the amount given by the securities and investments industry, his second most generous supporter.

Edwards has received $1.3 million in contributions from lawyers and law firms since his election to Congress in 1998.

In fact, every member of the Democratic leadership, Sens. Tom Daschle (S.D.), Harry Reid (Nev.), Byron Dorgan (N.D.), John Breaux (La.), Barbara Mikulski (Md.) received more money from lawyers than from any other industry in the last six years.

The fundraising records of the Senate Republican leadership are markedly different. Oil and gas companies are the biggest contributors to two members of the leadership, Assistant Minority Leader Don Nickles (Okla.) and Republican Policy Committee Chairman Larry Craig (Idaho). Nickles and Craig have accepted $314,000 and $121,000 respectively from oil and gas interests since 1995.