A must watch film
Yanik Ruiz-Ramon
A short documentary by the American News Project on fundraising in DC. Entertaining and informative. 7min 20 sec.
And now, for some information on who is funding the campaigns of our very own Congressman for the 2nd District of Pennsylvania, Chaka Fattah.
- 25% of Fattah’s money comes from individual donations. In the 2007-2008 campaign season, he raised $69,700 from individuals.
- 75% ($204,157) of the money came from political action committees (PACs)
However, to put this into perspective, the average amount of money raised by a congressperson in 2007-2008 was $1.4 million. Fattah is in the bottom quintile in terms of fundraising, raking in 19.5% ($274,080) of that amount.
The data gets a bit interesting considering that Fattah spent close to $700,000 dollars in 2008, far more than he raised. He was able to do this because of the massive amount of money that he raised in ‘06. Fattah raised $1 million, but only spent $689,000 in 2006. The end of the ‘06 race left him with a war chest of $452,000 for re-election. This was smart considering that in 2008, all of the money was sucked out by the presidential race.
But did he really need to spend this massive amount of money? In 2008, Fattah’s Republican challenger, Adam Lang, only spent $4,729. Fattah outspent Lang by 14,569%. In 2006 Fattah spent $688,698 to defeat Michael Gessner. Gessner spent $0. Maybe it was to fend of Democratic challengers? Nope. In 2006 Fattah won the primary with 99.93% of the vote. He was the only one on the ballot. It seems a bit fishy…in any case Fattah won in 2008 and 2006 with 89% of the vote.
In 1998 Fattah’s biggest support came from the legal industry. Unions were nowhere in sight. They didn’t even rank among the top 20 donors. But in 2000, support jumped, and over five different unions gave him money, collectively becoming his biggest supporters. In 2008 unions were his biggest supporters, contributing $91,000 to his campaign. Over the life of his congressional career, they have donated $851,675 (these unions are separated into five categories: building trade, industrial, public sector, transportation, and miscellaneous). The legal industry is still a strong supporter and has given Fattah $504,488 since 1998. In 2006 they blew the competition away and far outraised every other industry/interest group with $223,779.
Interesting note: As of April 20, 2008 Chaka Fattah has missed 10.3% (193 votes) of all votes cast in the House of Representatives. The average amount of missed votes for a Congressperson is 4.7% (88 votes). Source: Washington Post Voting Database
In 2008, Fattah voted 98.5% (out of 1,683 votes he was present for) with Democrats.
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