Five Before Chaos

So, Peter Welch is going to be our next congressman. Have you ever asked yourself where his contributions come from? Well, you can find out at Open Secrets, by the Center for Responsive Politics. There’s a wealth of information here, including breakdowns of business, labor, PAC’s, etc. You can look up any U.S. Senator or Congressperson.

So who donated to Peter and, based on that, what can we expect? In political action committee (PAC) contribution breakdowns, Peter got 11.8% from business, 43.4% from labor, and 44.8% from ideological/single issue PAC’s. So it is a safe bet that Peter will be a friend to labor interests. Hopefully, he will support trade policies that will benefit the American worker, and will not support more NAFTA-like agreements. His top contributors were unions of different stripes; teachers, firemen, you name it.

Of the companies that were in the top, Burton snowboards and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters were ones I noticed. Better than Exxon-Mobil, no doubt. Nothing surprising about large Vermont businesses giving donations to political candidates.

I looked up a few of the PAC’s… ‘Forward Together PAC’ seems to be a PAC set up for the purpose of electing Democrats. I couldn’t find much info on it, but ‘Our Common Values PAC’ seems to be of the same kind. Committee for A Livable Future is another Dem PAC, but its purpose is ‘to help elect Democratic Members of Congress who support the policies and principles that will make the U.S. government a partner in building and maintaining livable communities that embody smart growth principles.’ That one sounds pretty good to me. Welch also recived $10,000 from the abortion rights group, NARAL.

To be honest, I didn’t see anything to disturbing or shocking. I was expecting something questionable to show up. His top industry contributor were lawyers and law firms ($107,650), no surprise, especially considering that Welch himself is a lawyer. He did receive $2000 from defense industry PACs. Not surprising either.. it’s small, and there are a few defense industries in the state (it would be nice if he didn’t take it, though).

You can even see expenditures there. He spent $34 at Dunkin’ Donuts… if that doesn’t send up a red flag, what will?

So, what does this all mean? Well, as I said before, Peter’s going to be a friend to labor. He’s solidly pro-choice. I think he’ll work to get contracts for the small defense industry (something Pat Leahy has done quite well), good or bad depending on where you stand on that. And he probably won’t support much in the way of tort reform or lawsuits that limit corporate liability (good). All in all, I think it’s a mixed bag, but definitely one that is more in support of our values than against. We’ll see what happens. Whatever the case, as I’ve said before, we need to be vigilant with the Democrats and if they don’t do the right thing, we’ll let them (and others) know about it. There is another whole issue underlying this as well… the very idea of how much money gets tossed around in campaigns and wondering what is expected in return. That’s also a big part of the problem.