Happy Trails

"Nuther load of tobacco money headin' North, Ma."
"Yep."

Some Trails are happy ones
Others are blue,
it's the way you ride the trail that counts--
here's a happy one for you
--Happy Trails, Roy Rogers Show theme

________

David Pogue, the New York Times tech guru, has posted an important piece today on how Congressmen's voting records corroborate with lobbyist money received on a new site -- Maplight.org (Following the Money Trail Online):

The first step to solving a problem is recognizing that you have one.

That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway, to avoid becoming depressed by Maplight.org.

It's a new Web site with a very simple mission: to correlate lawmakers' voting records with the money they've accepted from special-interest groups.

All of this is public information. All of it has been available for decades. Other sites, including OpenSecrets.org, expose who's giving how much to whom. But nobody has ever revealed the relationship between money given and votes cast to quite such a startling effect.

If you click the "Video Tour" button on the home page, you'll see a six-minute video that illustrates the point. You find out that on H.R.5684, the U. S.-Oman Free Trade Agreement, special interests in favor of this bill (including pharmaceutical companies and aircraft makers) gave each senator an average of $244,000. Lobbyists opposed to the bill (such as anti-poverty groups and consumer groups) coughed up only $38,000 per senator.

Surprise! The bill passed."

Though most payola is predictably effective, Pogue notes that a few lawmakers are "deliciously contrary":

Jim Brulte has accepted over $67,000 from the tobacco industry, but hasn't voted in their favor a single time. Is that even ethical -- I mean, by the standards of this whole sleazy business?"

I probably sound absurdly naive here. But truth is, I can't quite figure out why these contributions are even legal. Let the various factions explain their points till they're blue in the face, sure -- but to cut checks for millions of dollars?

Alas, poor David.