Good Thing We're Listening to These Folks

by: Matt Singer

Thu Mar 01, 2007 at 13:30:20 PM MST

The five main speakers at this Democratic Policy Conference have a decidedly pro-GOP giving history:

Cargill

2003-2004
Republicans: $154,385 (77%)
Democrats: $46,115 (23%)
Total: $200,500

2005-2006
Republicans: $174,590 (79%)
Democrats: $46,410 (21%)
Total: $221,000

Caterpillar

2003-2004
Republicans: $278,476.55 (89%)
Democrats: $34,418.45 (11%)

2005-2006
Republicans: $398,362.44 (84%)
Democrats: $75,878.56 (16%)
Total:  $474,241

Kodak

2003-2004
Republicans: $88,875 (75%)
Democrats: $29,625 (25%)
Total: $118,500

2005-2006
Republicans: $89,979.75 (63%)
Democrats: $52,845.25 (37%)
Total: $142,825

New York Life

2004-2005
Republicans: $257,040 (54%)
Democrats: $218,960 (46%)
Total: $476,000

2005-2006
Republicans: $517,951.75 (47%)
Democrats: $573,053 (52%)
Total:  $1,102,025

Wal-Mart

2003-2004
Republicans: $1,308,060 (78%)
Democrats: $368,940 (22%)

2005-2006
Republicans: $1,013,223.96 (71%)
Democrats: $413,852.04 (29%)

And while the Senator's staff tells me they're being responsive to their 'allies,' one of Berman's sources tells a different story:

A provision in the bill, reportedly slipped in by Grassley, that encourages employers to contract with staff leasing companies, making it harder to unionize temporary human resources employees, particularly angered the coalition of labor groups that supported the House version. "The Finance Committee operates like there's been no election," says one labor leader.

Taxes are not the only issue on which Baucus parts from the majority of his colleagues. In early January he wrote an editorial in the Wall Street Journal calling on Democrats to renew Bush's fast-track authority for international trade deals. Given that most Democrats elected in 2006 campaigned against agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA, the editorial was a provocative move. Byron Dorgan, chair of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, took the unusual step of rebuking Baucus in a letter to the Journal. "There is, indeed, a growing Democratic consensus on trade--but in the opposite direction," Dorgan wrote. The chairman of the taxation committee in the Montana Senate went further, passing almost unanimously a resolution urging Baucus to oppose fast-track authority.

In recent years Baucus has not been shy about reaching out to K Street for campaign contributions. In February 2005 he asked fifty lobbyists to raise $100,000 each for his 2008 re-election campaign. Two lobbyists who attended told CNN that they "have never gotten such an aggressive pitch from a senator."