{"id":61,"date":"2004-10-07T06:58:30","date_gmt":"2004-10-07T06:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/69.195.124.246\/~wisecon1\/blog\/?p=61"},"modified":"2004-10-07T06:58:30","modified_gmt":"2004-10-07T06:58:30","slug":"center_for_resp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/?p=61","title":{"rendered":"Center for Responsive Politics Links Contributions to Contracts"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to the Center for Responsive Politics<\/a>, Bechtel Inc, the engineering firm selected<\/a> by the US Agency for International Development to rebuild the infrastructure in Iraq, gave $1.3 million in political contributions to Democrats and Republicans between 1999 and 2002 . Not a bad investment considering the contract is immediately worth $34.6 million and could cost over $680 million over 18 months. \n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\nIn its own words, the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP); \u201cis a non-partisan, non-profit research group based in Washington, D.C. that tracks money in politics, and its effect on elections and public policy.\u201d Its computer-based research on campaign finance issues, published on opesecrets.org, provides timely information for the news media, academics, activists, and the public.<\/p>\n

Like Woodward and Berstein, CRP heed Deep Throat\u2019s advice and follow the money but CRP goes further. Opensecrets.org<\/a> also reveals how well candidates comply with federal election laws. The site won a Webby award in 2002 for best political web site for the politics category. <\/p>\n

The web site is organized into different segments to appeal to different audiences; the news media, academia, activists and the public at large. Jane Q. Public’s visit to the website might consist of going to the “Get Local” section and entering her zip code, once there, she learns how the dollar amount of contributions made in the area for the current year as well as for past election cycles, and the top contributors and to whom they’ve contributed. <\/p>\n

\u201cWho\u2019s giving\u201d provides details on contributions from an entire industry or economic sector. \u201cRebuilding Iraq\u2014the Contractors,\u201d a report issued on rebuilding Iraq chronicles how the contractors invited by USAID to bid on Iraqi reconstruction contributed a combined $3.6 million in individual, PAC and soft money contributions between 1999 and 2002. <\/p>\n

Opensecrets.org allows users to define queries to access more specific information– users can look up individual donors. The site also provides basic contextual information on federal election law and information about how to contact elected representatives. <\/p>\n

CRP\u2019s Tracking the Payback<\/a> plucks action on legislation from the headlines, analyzes what special interests want, which industries stand to benefit, which congressional committees have jurisdiction and who\u2019s giving contributions to committee members. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Bechtel Inc, the engineering firm selected by the US Agency for International Development to rebuild the infrastructure in Iraq, gave $1.3 million in political contributions to Democrats and Republicans between 1999 and 2002 . Not a bad investment considering the contract is immediately worth $34.6 million and could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wisecontradictions.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}