BRONZE: With a $87 million lobbying push from the beginning of 2008 through the end of last year, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) takes home the bronze medal for this event. The group's most robust K Street operation came in 2009, when it spent over $26.1 million lobbying the federal government. PhRMA's more than 140 lobbyists direct most of their energy toward general health policy, Medicare and Medicaid and pharmaceutical issues. The majority of PhRMA's operation is run through its 25 in-house lobbyists, but the group also employs lobbyists from dozens of other firms around D.C.
SILVER: General Electric wins its second medal of the Influence Olympics, posting a $110.7 million lobbying figure from 2008 to 2011. During this period, GE spent the most by far in 2010. That year, it paid out $39.3 million to 195 different lobbyists, with most of the cash flowing to those working in-house. As noted in our last Influence Olympics post, GE has its hands in just about every policy area in Washington, including defense, budget and tax issues.
GOLD: Capturing its second gold medal in a row, the K Street giant U.S. Chamber of Commerce wins the Influence Olympics marathon after pouring a massive $460.1 million into its lobbying efforts from 2008 through 2011. The pro-business group's banner year came in 2010, when it spent over $157 million on lobbying. Like GE, the Chamber lobbies on seemingly every piece of legislation that makes its way around Capitol Hill, especially those dealing with finance and banking issues. The group's 87 in-house lobbyists are responsible for most of its government relations work, helping the Chamber accomplish what no Olympic runner has ever done -- take home the gold in both the 100 meter dash and the marathon.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
The Lobbying Olympics
The Center for Responsive Politics has calculated which organizations spent the most on lobbying from the beginning of 2009 to the end of 2011. It awarded "Olympic" medials to the top three:
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Who Tweets on the Hill?
Alicia M. Cohn writes at The Hill:
Most lawmakers do not disclose whether they write their own tweets, according to a review of lawmaker Twitter bios by The Hill, which also finds that most members likely use a ghostwriter.
While 84 percent of House lawmakers and 93 percent of senators are on Twitter, few follow President Obama’s example in personally signing or tagging their tweets, an indication that would highlight the tweet’s authenticity.
Only 14 members of the House and 12 senators include a line in their bios that indicate whether a tweet is written by the lawmaker or a member of his or her staff. Those numbers include two accounts that put “press” in their Twitter account name and five that credit the account to “the office of” the lawmaker.
Only two members of Congress follow Obama’s lead in pledging to sign their tweets with their initials when they send them personally: Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
The majority of lawmakers are following in the footsteps of celebrity movie stars and athletes, who often hire assistants to tweet under a high-profile name as a means of handling their social-media brand.
Wikipedia and the Vice Presidency
The act of observing something can sometimes change the thing being observed. Case in point: myobservation on Monday that we might be able to get useful clues as to the identity of Mitt Romney's vice president pick by watching for a surge of edits on their Wikipedia page.
Not any more.
Last night, Stephen Colbert played a snippet of a Fox News report noting the jump in last-minute edits to Sarah Palin's page four years ago, and then he went to town. Assuming that Wikipedia edits were the tip-off, he declared, "We could be looking at Vice President Season Six of Buffy-the-Vampire Slayer. So, Nation, let your voice be heard in this history decision. Go on Wikipedia, and make as many edits as possible to your favorite VP contender." He then proceeded to mime editing Tim Pawlenty's page. (You can find the segment at about 8:40 minutes in, here.)
Well, Rob Portman's page has had 112 edits since Sunday, against 52 for Marco Rubio and just 18 for Pawlenty. But as of last night, the Pawlenty page was locked to protect it from vandalism. In addition, the Portman and Rubio pages have been "semi-protected" by site administrators, which means they can only be edited by registered users. The same thing has been done to the pages for Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie, and David Petraeus (who got a burst of attention yesterday because of an item on the Drudge Report). That means that only people who have already been on Wikipedia for at least four days and previously made ten edits to other unprotected pages can edit these pages.
Polling Problems
Our chapter on public opinion discusses the challenges facing pollsters. Several recent articles touch on this subject.
At National Journal, Steven Shepard looks at declining response rates (see a May post) and increasing numbers of cell-only households
Former Democratic pollster Mark Blumenthal, cocreator of the site Pollster.com, examined a number of Gallup polls earlier this year. Blumenthal found that Gallup registers lower approval ratings and ballot-test performances for President Obama than other survey houses—differences that are small but statistically significant.
...
Gallup Editor in Chief Frank Newport defended his methodology in the article and in an interview withNational Journal. “One of the biggest changes in recent years, even as our response rates go down, we have millions of people, tens of millions who are desperate to give their opinion,” Newport said.
Incoming AAPOR President Paul Lavrakas said in a telephone interview with NJ that phone polling is “nowhere near dead, nor do I expect it to be dead for several decades. I don’t see that anytime soon we’re going to stop using random-digit-dial surveys in America,” he added.John Harwood writes at The New York Times:
Lavrakas also said that one reason telephone polling about elections remains fairly accurate is that the same individuals who are more willing to be surveyed also vote more often.
Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster, and Peter Hart, his Democratic counterpart, who conduct the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, proved the point in their latest poll, conducted July 18-22, when they increased the proportion of respondents who rely exclusively on cellphones to 30 percent from 25 percent. To home in on them, the pollsters ended calls answered on cellphones if the respondents said they also had land lines.
Their findings affirmed arguments that “cell only” Americans have significantly different, and more Democratic, political views than those with land lines. Over all, the poll showedMr. Obama leading Mr. Romney by 49 percent to 43 percent — providing a confidence-boosting talking point for Democrats and provoking sharp criticism from Republicans.
Scott Rasmussen, who owns an independent polling firm, approaches the “cell only” problem differently, as he must by law. His Rasmussen Reports conducts surveys through automated dialing, which under Federal Communications Commission rules is permitted for land lines but not cellphones.
So in Mr. Rasmussen’s polls, online interviews account for 15 percent to 20 percent of each survey, which he figures helps him reach the same kinds of voters, especially younger ones, in the “cell only” category. The result he reported the morning of July 25, a few hours after the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll was released, was strikingly different: Mr. Romney had 47 percent, and Mr. Obama 44 percent.
“Nobody has the answers,” Mr. Rasmussen said of different approaches to the issue. “We’re all experimenting with the same thing. How do you reach people in a way they communicate?”At The Hill, David Hill adds:
The unique challenges of 2012 don’t stop with cellphones. We’ve always known that the hardest thing to do in polling is predict whether a respondent will actually vote or not. Frankly, asking voters directly is the least effective means of making that judgment. Past research has demonstrated that the best ways to judge likely turnout are based on facts gleaned from a voter’s recorded history. How long has someone been registered to vote at his or her current address? (The longer, the better, for turnout.) And did he or she vote in the last election of the same type, in this case the 2008 election? A potential problem using these criteria in 2012 is that 2008 brought out hordes of new voters who seemed mostly motivated by anti-Bush sentiment and the pro-change imagery of Barack Obama.
Is there anything to give us assurance that the new voters of 2008 will return in 2012, like the models say they should?
I am starting to see uneven evidence for this. In some states, like California, they might. In other states, say, Iowa, they might not. So a lot of pollsters could get fooled on turnout.
Odd Behavior by a Senior House Member
Shane Goldmacher reports at National Journal:
A former California state lawmaker said Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., threatened his career and his family, questioned his religious faith and accused him of being mentally ill after he told the 40-year incumbent he was endorsing his opponent this November.
Alberto Torrico, the former majority leader of the California Assembly, told National Journal on Tuesday that Stark, 80, exploded in anger when he called to inform him he was backing Stark's Democratic opponent, 31-year old Dublin city councilman Eric Swalwell.
"Probably, for the next five, ten minutes he lit into me. I don't think I said more than three words," said Torrico, a Democrat who said he has supported Stark for the last decade.
After "calling me a turncoat," Torrico said that Stark "questioned my mental health. He asked me if I was well, if I was ill. He said that he was concerned for the safety of my children, that maybe he should send a social worker to my house to check on their safety because I'm clearly ill."
...
During their conversation, Stark, who is the only openly atheist member of Congress, also questioned Torrico's Christian faith, Torrico said. "He took the opportunity to say he'd come to my house and teach my children about the Christian faith because I couldn't," he said.
"From an atheist, I found it interesting," Torrico added.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Federal Benefits
Almost half of Americans receive some kind of federal benefit. Just over a third live in a household receiving help from at least one means-tested program.
The US Census Survey of Income and Program Participation reports on people by receipt of benefits from selected programs: monthly averages, April, May, June, 2011.
The US Census Survey of Income and Program Participation reports on people by receipt of benefits from selected programs: monthly averages, April, May, June, 2011.
The figures for means-tested programs include anyone residing in a household in which one or more people received benefits from the program. | ||||
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Monday, August 6, 2012
Landing on Mars
Our chapter on bureaucracy discusses some of the problems that the space program has encountered over the years. But last night, NASA had a moment of triumph on Mars:
Live video for mobile from Ustream
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