Tag Archives: congress

Hoping to get to the Super Bowl? Have your connections ready

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Abita beer isn’t the only thing brewing for the Super Bowl. Every year, the NFL allows public officials and corporations to buy set-aside tickets for the biggest sporting event of year – but who gets to tag along is a question of connections, donations, and the nature of the perk. WNYC and ProPublica are asking for your help in figuring out who gets what:

Comments are already flowing in on the site, both for and against the perk system.

AQ from Manhattan writes: “A lot of times the perks are actually given to important members of the staff who in turn team up with the congressman in giving the corps priority and preferential treatment.”

Fluke Fisherman from New York isn’t so sure about the validity of perks: “A large number of law enforcement agencies under the guise of “security” go to the Superbowl on government perdiem.”

Contribute to the project by calling your congressional representative and getting the scoop before the big game on February 7. All the info is you need to help is here.

While most of us won’t be able to get to the game, seeing the competing cities get geared up is half the fun. WWOZ has a great list of Saints fight songs and WFYI in Indianapolis has the untold history of how the Colts came to Indianapolis.

How to watch the State of the Union

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It’s hard to believe that it’s been just over a year since President Obama took office. Tonight he addresses Congress and the country in his first State of the Union address, which will focus on the economy, health care, and the outlook for 2010.

In the age of digital technology, we’d be remiss not to share with you some cool ways to follow along with the President’s speech, and share your thoughts, and respond during tonight’s event.

NewsHour is streaming the State of the Union live, and you can submit your reactions via YouTube to share them with Jim Lehrer and the NewsHour staff.

You can also share your ending to the sentence “The State of our union is ___” by posting it on WNYC’s site looking at the state of the presidency. In past years, “strong” has been a pretty popular choice.

What happens at a State of the Union? This behind the scenes look from Benjamin Shaw at WFUV in 2007 shows the pomp and circumstance of how a president prepares for the event. There’s also a new teacher’s guide from the NewsHour to help students understand how the State of the Union works and its significance in presidential history.

The State of the Union may also give some clues as to how the Democrats will fair in the 2010 midterm elections. Patchwork Nation’s Dante Chinni provides pre-speech analysis from communities around the country.

Mr. Obama’s approval ratings have slipped in nearly all 12 of Patchwork Nation’s community types in recent months. But, more important to the 2010 elections, there is also a disconnect between how people feel about Obama and how they feel about the Democratic Party, according a recent poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. As it turns out, Obama numbers look OK compared with some numbers for the Democratic Party.

For more video features on the Obama presidency, check out this PBS video collection, which includes clips from the past year about the president’s work and the challenges he’s faced so far.

Campaign finance, then and now

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Today’s Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance reform will allow corporations to give as much money as they want to support candidates, overturning a ruling that had been in effect for the past 20 years. But what was the scenario before 1990?

NPR takes a look at campaign finance through the years in a timeline of legislation from 1900 to the present. The timeline include events such as the 1907 ban on corporate contributions to Congressional and Presidential campaigns, the start of Political Action Committees in 1943, and the start of modern campaign finance in 1971.

Watchdog organizations like Open Secrets and the Sunlight Foundation will clearly play a larger role as this decision takes effect. The Obama campaign was defined by the numerous smaller donations from individuals – will the new rules take away the importance these types of donors play in elections? The non-partisan Campaign Finance Institute provides reports on campaign finance in the 2008 election.

Not surprisingly, President Obama was not satisfied with the court’s ruling. Two notes on the President’s Twitter feed discussed the issue this afternoon:

@BarackObama: Today’s Supreme Court ruling gives special interests more power, and undermines the influence of average Americans. http://bit.ly/7-a

The @WhiteHouse will work immediately w/ bipartisan Congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision http://bit.ly/-I

Public Media Texas gives an overview of NPR’s coverage of today’s proceeds and what their effects may be.
Political Junkie reported:

Today’s decision overturns a 20-year ruling — Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce — that prohibited corporations or labor unions from paying for campaign ads. The decision removes spending limits for independent expenditure groups. It threatens to remove spending limits already established in 24 states. And it struck down part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that bars issue ads paid for by corporations or unions in the closing days of a campaign.

Questions about campaign finance and what the ruling means? Ask Congressman Steve Scalise (R-La.) on this week’s Ask Your Lawmaker podcast, or submit a question to any Congressperson on Ask Your Lawmaker.

After Mass

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Special Election in Mass./Credit: Flickr user Rob Weir

Special Election in Mass./Credit: Flickr user Rob Weir

The special election victory by Republican Scott Brown over Democrat Martha Coakley to fill late Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts yesterday left a torrent of speculation and accusation in its wake.

Will the healthcare bill be put in jeopardy? What does this mean for the Democrats in 2010 and even 2012? Does the public trust the president to lead the country out of recession?

Patchwork Nation looks at what fueled Brown’s win, in economic terms:

Compared with candidate Obama, Coakley did worst in the six counties where unemployment rose by more than 3 percentage points in the last year. In each of those counties, she got 16 percentage points less than Obama did in 2008.

That suggests that Tuesday’s vote was a “change” vote motivated perhaps by disgruntlement. Voters may be punishing Coakley for what they perceive as a lack of focus on jobs and the economy on Obama and the Democrats’ part and overemphasis on healthcare reform.

Coakley lost votes in every county in the state compared with Obama in 2008. Unemployment is up in every county as well. That can’t be a comfort to the Democrats.

For 2010, some signs of recovery need to be apparent before voters retain their support for or swing towards the Democrats. Patchwork Nation’s Dante Chinni writes “Right now the state of the national economy is fragile. What we hear repeatedly from people we talk to in different Patchwork Nation communities around the country is: ‘We have not seen a recovery here, yet.’”

WBUR in Boston took an in-depth analysis of the election results from Tuesday night and took into account who was voting, compared with previous races.

Even in many communities where Obama had a narrow victory over McCain, Brown blew Coakley away. In Weymouth, for example, Obama got 53 percent of the vote in 2008. On Tuesday, Weymouth went red, giving Brown 61 percent to Coakley’s 38 percent.

EconomyBeat pulls from blogs around the web, on both the left and right, to assess response to the special election. Reader comments from beyond Massachusetts on sites including The New York Times and FiveThirtyEight brought out opinions on the democratic party, health care, and spending.