Senate Democrats Hold Fast To Anti-Piracy Bill (SOPA/PIPA) - RawStory [View all]

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Senate Democrats hold fast to anti-piracy bill
By Stephen C. Webster - RawStory
Thursday, January 19, 2012



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By all accounts, the Internet’s first politically motivated mass work-stoppage on Wednesday was a rousing success, and so far 13 19 U.S. Senators have flipped their stance on pending anti-piracy legislation that critics say would severely harm the freedom of speech online. But the real story is, all but two of them are Republicans. (Update, 1:20 p.m. EST: A third Democrat, Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), came out against the anti-piracy legislation later Thursday morning, bringing the total number of Senators now opposed to 26. Only eight are Democrats.)

While Silicon Valley may have found their voice echos on Capitol Hill more loudly than expected, what remains after Wednesday’s protest is even more telling that what provoked it: Senate Democrats are now the core pillars of support for the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), which has not otherwise engendered a strict partisan divide among lawmakers.

Far and away, the top beneficiary in the Senate from interest groups that support PIPA is Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), who’s taken in just short of a million dollars from those groups, according to data from OpenSecrets.org. She’s also the most recent Senator to co-sponsor PIPA, adding her name to the list on Dec. 12. The runner-up is Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), who’s taken $777,383 from PIPA-supporting interest groups, and has co-sponsored the bill since May 2011.

In fact, a list of the top 20 beneficiaries of special interest money in favor of PIPA reads like a list of the Senate’s most influential Democrats: Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-NY) in third; Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) in fourth; Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in fifth; Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), the bill’s primary sponsor, in sixth; Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in seventh; Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) in eighth; Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in ninth; and Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) in tenth. The list goes on like that until Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who places 15th with $274,600 in special interest money promoting PIPA.

More: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/19/senate-democrats-hold-fast-to-anti-piracy-bill/