Lawmakers Seek Cash During Key Votes

Source: Washington Post

Lawmakers seek cash during key votes

By Carol D. Leonnig and T.W. Farnam
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, December 26, 2010; 12:00 AM

Numerous times this year, members of Congress have held fundraisers and collected big checks while they are taking critical steps to write new laws, despite warnings that such actions could create ethics problems. The campaign donations often came from contributors with major stakes riding on the lawmakers' actions.

For three weeks in June, for instance, the members of a joint House and Senate committee worked to draft final rules for regulating the financial industry in the wake of its 2008 meltdown. During that time, the 35 members of the drafting committee collected $440,000 in donations from that same industry, which was then lobbying heavily for looser rules.

Earlier this month, the chairman of the Senate committee overseeing tax policy, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), gave himself a birthday-party fundraiser - on the same day that the chamber took its first vote on an $858 billion tax package that would provide breaks to wealthy citizens and business interests. snip

But just as the public learned of the ethics office's probe in June, a conference committee of House members and senators met to draft a compromise bill on landmark Wall Street reform. The measure would force firms to follow new rules for previously secret and risky transactions that were blamed for the 2008 market meltdown. Over the course of three weeks in June, the 35 conference committee members collected $440,000 in donations from the financial industry. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the Senate banking committee and a powerful conferee, collected the most that month - about $90,000 from financial interests. snip

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/25/AR2010122502236_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010122600556

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More fuel for the fire but the sheeple continue to ignore what's going on.

Many top Dems implicated in this article. No wonder so many spineless DINOs.

paid employees of Wall Street and this country's other controlling powers.

:puke:

er, bribed with. :puke:

Very ballsy of them. Spineless when it comes to doing for the people, but ballsy when it comes to doing for their wealthy puppetmasters.

Incredibly, the American electorate refuse to toss these clowns out.

wrong in this country one needs to really look no further than this story. The only thing that matters to todays politicians is greed, power and wealth.