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DeLay's Campaign Funding During the 2002 Election
- Like most Politicians, Tom DeLay receives the majority of his campaign funds from organizations who want him to represent their interests. DeLay received over $1,350,000 in campaign contributions in 2001-2002. The majority of these contributions, 63 percent to be exact, were from political action committees (PAC's). PAC's represent private interests and are an effort by these interests to influence representation in public offices. It is commonplace to assume that House and Senate representatives have a sense of obligation to, and cooperation with their largest campaign contributors and will use their power of office to generate greater "returns" for their "clients."
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- Based on DeLay's environmental track record, it comes as no surprise that his two largest PAC contributors are the Energy/Natural Resource Industry and the Transportation Industry. Simply put, the energy and natural resource industry favors rolling back clean air and clean water laws, deregulating corporate accountability, staying away from renewable and non-polluting energy and opening all public lands to resource exploration and extraction. Generally speaking, the transportation industry groans every time new mpg, emission or clean air standards are mentioned and has no immediate aspirations of putting non-polluting vehicles on the road in the near future. A breakdown of Tom DeLay's campaign contributions is provided below.
(the following numbers come from opensecrets.org)
- General:
- 2001-2002 Total Receipts: $1,350,115
- 2001-2002 Total Spent: $1,274,921
- Cash on Hand: $301,993
- Debts: $0
- Source of Funds:
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| Individual contributions |
$477,146 |
35.3% |
| PAC contributions |
$851,191 |
63.0% |
| Candidate self-financing |
$0 |
- |
| Other |
$21,778 |
1.6% |
- PAC Contribution Breakdown:
| Business |
$789,335 |
93.8% |
| Labor |
$22,000 |
2.6% |
| Ideological/Single Issue |
$30,413 |
3.6% |
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- 2001-2002 PAC Contributions: $846,748
- Based on data released by the FEC on Monday, June 09, 2003.
| Agribusiness |
$25,300 |
| Communic/Electronics |
$51,499 |
| Construction |
$47,500 |
| Defense |
$29,000 |
| Energy/Nat Resource |
$157,000 |
| Finance/Insur/RealEst |
$169,700 |
| Health |
$66,750 |
| Lawyers & Lobbyists |
$26,777 |
| Transportation |
$106,350 |
| Misc Business |
$111,959 |
| Labor |
$22,000 |
| Ideology/Single-Issue |
$27,913 |
| Unknown |
$5,000 |
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