A George Allen Top Donor visits me...

Should I consider it a compliment that George Allen's top donor--McGuire, Woods et al--may have someone in their office visiting my blog?

Since my blog tracker brought them to my attention I decided to check them out. McGuire Woods et al donated $69,775 to George Allen's re-election campaign. Well, I am doing what I can to send George riding off into the sunset. I want a Senator in Congress who is not accepting big money from the corporate elite. Then maybe that Senator will support legislation that is beneficial to me...such as Net Neutrality and national health insurance.

By the way, I don't want anyone to forget that the telecommunications industry sure got their money's worth from spending money to lobby George Allen. Remember George is number 8 on the top ten list for telecommunications mone. George killed Net Neutrality in committee. His vote could have sent the bill to the Senate floor for a vote by the entire Senate. Funny, George thinks Supreme Court nominees are entitled to a floor vote but not Net Neutrality. (But the wind has blown me off topic.)

I decided to visit open secrets to get some information on McGuire Woods et al. I found the following in the McGuire Woods client information section

Interesting to discover this--Center for Governmental Studies/UVA paid this lobbying firm $75,00. Is this what an esteemed Public University in VA has to do to "access" Senator George Allen?

I was shocked to discover that the cities of Hampton and Staunton VA also use this lobbying firm. Has it gotten so bad that our local governments don't get decent access without using our hard earned tax dollars?

If this is not evidence that we need campaign finance reform asap I don't know what is.

McGuire Woods et al is a legal lobbying firm that counts the following among their clients:
Anthem Inc (Anthem Insurance) $230,000
AP Moeller Maersk (Maersk Inc) 140.000
Center for Governmental Studies/UVA 75,000
City of Hampton, VA 20,000
City of Staunton, VA 44,000
Council of Americas First Freedom 65,000
Dominion Resources 60,000
Eastman Chemicals 64,000
Gannon International 40,000
National Basketball Association 300,000
National Star Route Mail Contractors Assn 82,000
Paulson & Company 30,000
Smithfield Foods 420,000
Virginia Military Institute Foundation 85,000

According to my calculator, McGuire Woods et al raked in $1,655,000 from their 14 top clients. The website gives the total as $1, 648,00. This is for the year 2005.

Hmmm...I wonder if George Allen will keep on boasting about all that money he has raised for his re-election campaign?

My sincere thanks to the Center for Responsive Politics for providing this information online for free.

Important Note: According to the opensecrets.org website, The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organization's PAC, its individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. In addition much of this data is from the 1999-2004 election cycle.