Thread: Dodd Keeps Taking Lobbyist Money Despite Claiming Independen

Dodd Keeps Taking Lobbyist Money Despite Claiming Independence

Despite boasts about snubbing lobbyists, the embattled Connecticut Democrat is still cashing lobbyist campaign checks and rubbing shoulders with them at fundraisers and party gatherings.

Facing the toughest re-election fight of his nearly 30 years in the Senate, Sen. Christopher Dodd boasts about snubbing lobbyists.

Yet even as he touts his independence, the embattled Connecticut Democrat is still cashing lobbyist campaign checks and rubbing shoulders with them at fundraisers and party gatherings.

Dodd, perhaps the most vulnerable Senate Democrat in 2010, has driven home his message in fundraising pitches and campaign videos.

"The lobbyists can't get meetings with Chris," Dodd's campaign manager Jay Howser said in a recent e-mail to supporters. "He won't return their phone calls ... Chris just isn't giving them the time of day."

The videos even suggest Dodd has been so hard on lobbyists that he's made them cry.

But the tough talk hasn't stopped Dodd from raking in tens of thousands of dollars in lobbyist campaign contributions this year. It hasn't prevented Dodd from letting lobbyists host his fundraising events. Or kept Dodd from schmoozing with lobbyists at places like Martha's Vineyard, a favorite summer getaway spot for the rich and famous off the Massachusetts coast.

A few days after Howser's e-mail, Dodd trekked to Martha's Vineyard for a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee weekend retreat where about 30 senators joined major party donors, including lobbyists.

Dodd's leading role in the Senate's big health care reform fight has made him a popular target for the many lobbyists working for hospitals, doctors, drug companies, insurers and other medical industry groups with major stakes in the outcome.

Dodd was tapped by ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee, to take over the panel in his absence as it tackled the sweeping health care overhaul.

Dodd led the committee in recent weeks as it hammered out a bill to expand insurance coverage to all Americans, becoming the first congressional panel to approve a health care reform plan.

More than a dozen health care lobbyists wrote him checks in the weeks before the panel began drafting its bill, Dodd's fundraising report for the second quarter that ended June 30 shows. Some of K Street's most prominent lobbyists ponied up.

The Glover Park Group's Joel Johnson and Susan Brophy each gave $1,000. The prominent firm with Democratic ties represents Pfizer Inc., WellPoint Inc., the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association and United Health Care Services, Inc.

Richard Tarplin, a former Dodd aide who is a health care lobbyist, gave $2,500.

Christopher R. O'Neill, the son of the late former House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr., gave $1,000. O'Neill's firm lobbies for the American Hospital Association, which paid them $50,000 during the second quarter. The firm also got $150,000 during the quarter from Partners HealthCare.

Anthony Podesta, one of Washington's best-known Democratic lobbyists, contributed $500. The Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care paid Podesta's firm, the Podesta Group, $120,000 for the quarter.

Podesta's wife, Heather Podesta, hosted a $1,000 per person fundraiser in March for Dodd at the Podestas' home in the affluent Woodley Park neighborhood of Washington. Her firm, Heather Podesta + Partners, was paid $50,000 this year by HealthSouth Corp., one of the country's largest health care service providers.

Two lobbyists for U.S. Oncology, a leading oncology services company, hosted a $1,500 per person Dodd fundraiser in June. The event was sandwiched between a health panel session chaired by Dodd and a later White House event attended by Dodd.

All told, Dodd has collected $436,062 from lobbyists since 2005, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a group that tracks money in politics.

Republicans have accused Dodd of publicly denouncing the same lobbyists he cozies up to privately for cash.

"Voters can see through Dodd's nonsensical doublespeak, especially when he's collecting millions of dollars from the same people who he claims to make cry," said National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson.

Howser said Dodd is simply highlighting complaints by lobbyists -- made anonymously in a few news stories -- about how Dodd is giving them the cold shoulder.

"The big point that everybody's missing is why are (lobbyists) mad at him," Howser said. "They're mad at him because he's cracking down."

Dodd's popularity has tumbled in the wake of the financial meltdown and his failed 2008 presidential bid. He provoked a home-state backlash after temporarily moving his family to Iowa before his poor showing in the caucuses there.

Dodd has been criticized for collecting Wall Street contributions while chairing the Senate banking panel. He's also come under fire for his role in writing a bill that protected bonuses for executives at bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc. and for allegations he got favorable treatment on two mortgages with Countrywide Financial Corp.

A recent poll showed Dodd running 9 points behind former GOP congressman Rob Simmons.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07 ... ependence/

"Voters can see through Dodd's nonsensical doublespeak, especially when he's collecting millions of dollars from the same people who he claims to make cry," said National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson.

Someone educate me here, please. where does all the money go that congress people get from lobbyists? Does it go to their campaign funds or does it go in their pocket?

What is the differences? Co mingling of funds sure enough, and don't forget the piggy bank receipts in the basement closet of both Congress and Senate open for public scrutiny. Some watch dog group has been pouring over these receipts. It is fraud and stealing from the taxpayers: travel, trips, televisions, and more....

Then there is the inside trader issue:
http://insidertrading.procon.org/viewre ... eID=001514



Did You Know?
Little-known facts in the congressional insider trading debate


US Senators' average annual stock performance beat the market average by approximately 12.3%, while stock purchases made by corporate insiders on average outperform the market by 7.4% and stock portfolios of the average US household underperform the market by 1.5%.


Insider trading was not federally regulated until 1934 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Securities Exchange Act following the 1929 stock market crash.



William Duer, who was appointed the first Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury in 1789, was the first known inside trader. He used his official position to gain inside information for speculating in the newly formed US investment market.



In 2007, the 10 wealthiest US Senators traded stocks in a total of 45 different companies spanning finance, insurance, oil, pharmaceutical, telecom, and other industries. Those 45 businesses also received $18 billion in federal appropriations that same year.



Congressman Oakes Ames was censured by Congress in 1873 for bribing other Representatives to avoid investigating his illicit government contracts that profited the railroad and construction companies in which he was a stockholder.



Although commonly considered illegal, insider trading can also be legal.



A person who is convicted of insider trading can be fined up to $5,000,000 and/or imprisoned up to 20 years.



A person is not subject to imprisonment for insider trading if it can be proven that he/she had no knowledge of the rule or regulation that was violated.



After the market crash of 1929, JP Morgan & Co. gave guaranteed profits and sold specially discounted stocks to select clients including former President Calvin Coolidge, then sitting Treasury Secretary, chairmen of both the Republican and Democratic national committees, and CEOs of General Electric, AT&T, and Standard Oil.


Until 1977 Congressional representatives had no restrictions on their non-congressional income and no rules about disclosing their finances and investments to the public.



Employees of 817 executive agencies, 17 executive offices, and 132 independent agencies are prohibited from trading stocks based on insider government information, unlike Congressmen and Supreme Court Judges.



Two Congressional representatives are trying to extend insider trading regulations to the legislative branch with the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act that was introduced in 2006, 2007, and again on Jan. 26, 2009 but has not come to a vote (as of Apr. 8, 2009).

Pirates on Wall Street and within the government

Time for campaign reform and end the career of all lobbyists