On October 29th, something absolutely INSANE happened in the House of Representatives

[octoberlib]

15. Campaigns need to be publicly funded. This is ridiculous.

CONGRESS’ ‘PARTY DUES’ PRACTICE CHARGES MEMBERS FOR COMMITTEE SPOTS

A study conducted by the Sunlight Foundation last year found that “when it comes to fundraising potential, not all committee assignments in the U.S. House are created equal. ” The study concluded that certain committee assignments afforded politicians an improved ability to solicit donations. According to the report,

In particular, Ways and Means, Financial Services, and Energy and Commerce are very good fundraising committees. And for good reason: Ways and Means has jurisdiction over tax policy, Financial Services over securities and banking policy, and Energy and Commerce over energy policy. In all three policy areas, a substantial number of corporations care very much about how policy gets made, and their employees are willing to contribute substantial sums – both through their PACs and individually – to make sure that they have access.

Committee assignments that give a politician the ability to directly affect the policies most important to monied interests are more likely to help those politicians reap the benefits of campaign contributions. Simply put, certain committees are more lucrative. How much more lucrative you might ask? Well, thanks to the Sunlight Foundation we have two very helpful tables at our disposal.Table 1 shows the estimated “bonus” in itemized contributions as well as “bonus” PAC fundraising totals. Relationships that are statistically significant are in bold.

http://daily.represent.us/party-dues-committee-spots/


http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/04/02/housecommittees/