by David Pipkin

Created on: February 28, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

With all of this talk about the "monied corruption" charges Democrats enjoy hurling at the Republicans, I recently decided to perform a little research on where the big political donations come from, and where they go. With the new Democrat Congress and all the promises of ethics reform and house-cleaning, I thought it would be interesting to get an idea of what lies in front of them.

I used a resource available on the Internet - an organization called The Sunlight Foundation. This organization is dedicated to allowing regular citizens to use the technology of the Internet to keep track of their elected officials; tracking expenses, donations and the general role of money in our government. They claim to be bi-partisan, and I have actually seen no evidence to refute that.

I reviewed the page that lists the top campaign donors from 1989 to 2004, measured in US dollars. The donors on the list are first ranked according to the amount of donations. Next, each donor is given a designation that shows a breakdown of how the money was distributed. If the split is no greater than 59% to one party or the other, that donor is designated as being "on the fence." If the split is greater than 59%, but less than 69%, that donor is designated as "leaning" Democrat or Republican. If the split is greater than 90%, that donor is designated as "solidly" Democrat or Republican.

Of the top 50 companies and organizations in the list, 21 show at least "leaning" to the Democrats (at least 60% of overall political contributions). There are 15 of the top 50 who show no decisive leaning - shown as being "on the fence." That leaves only 14 of the top 50 "leaning" Republican.

Of the 21 that tilt to the Democrats, 15 are "solidly" Democrat( at least 90% of the overall contributions). Of the 14 donors that tilt Republican, none of the 14 reach beyond the 90% distribution rate.

Now, I can guess what you're thinking. You are probably thinking that many of those 14 donors reside in the top 10. That is what I thought, too. I was shocked to discover that of those 14 donors, none are in the top 10!

Of the top 10 donors on the list, 8 "lean" to the Democrats, with 6 of the 8 designated as "solidly" Democrat.

Number 1 on the list of all time donors is the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, with over $38M in donations, at least 90% of which go to the democrats. No wonder democrats like big government! Consider the irony of a union of government employees being the top-ranked donor

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