How do we pretend this is NOT bribery?

NM lobbyists kick in campaign money and gifts | ABQJournal Online

SANTA FE (AP) — New state reports show that lobbyists and their clients handed out about $400,000 in campaign contributions to legislators, Gov. Susana Martinez and others in the months leading up to this year’s legislative session.

The contributions are in addition to about $660,000 spent by lobbyists last year for food, drinks, gifts and entertainment for lawmakers and other state officials.

The oil and gas industry accounted for not quite half of the lobbyist campaign contributions from late April through the end of last year, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of disclosures filed by lobbyists with the secretary of state’s office.

A top lobbyist donor was J.D. Bullington, who reported about $81,000 in contributions on behalf of himself and his clients. Nearly $29,000 went to the governor.

NM lobbyists kick in campaign money and gifts | ABQJournal Online

Dana Milbank: Business interests again on upswing in GOP – The Washington Post

Arguably, corporations never really lost their hold on the Republican Party (and a somewhat looser grip on the Democrats). The wealthy exploited the grass-roots anger of the tea party all along — such as when Glenn Beck, the movement’s de facto leader, urged his followers in 2010 to donate to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

But corporate interests were displeased that the brinkmanship practiced by tea party lawmakers sometimes turned out to be bad for business. After the government shutdown in the fall, the chamber announced that it would spend $50 million in the 2014 GOP primaries to help “pro-business” Republicans beat tea party candidates. …

[A special election in Florida was won by David Jolly, a corporate lobbyist with a history of giving to Democratic candidates as well as Republicans. His] good showing is a happy event for the influence industry — and Democrats are equally exultant. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has just begun running a TV ad showing a video clip of Jolly in which he says, “I have been a registered lobbyist and I’m proud of the work that I’ve done.”

Federal records show that Jolly, once an aide to Young, built a healthy business as a lobbyist for defense contractors and others seeking a larger piece of the federal pie: corporations, local governments, universities, hospitals, broadcasters and a group that favored expanded oil drilling.

Dana Milbank: Business interests again on upswing in GOP – The Washington Post

They took time out from voting to erase everyone’s memory of Obamacare to hand out money to campaign contributors.

Dana Milbank: D.C. returns to business as usual – The Washington Post

A very different Republican Party rushed a massive spending bill through the House on Wednesday, just 44 hours after it was posted. The bill was 1,582 pages and accompanying explanatory statements added 1,278 more, which means lawmakers had less than a minute to read each page, even if they didn’t sleep.

This was an ugly and gargantuan spending bill, cutting vital programs while sending goodies to well-connected industries. And yet there was some good news in the swift and easy passage through the House, followed quickly by the Senate. It means business as usual is returning to the Capitol.

There’s nothing to love about Washington’s business as usual, in which lawmakers on both sides do the bidding of the powerful. Yet even this is better than the endless crises and constant brinkmanship of the last three years. The spending bill also offers another sign that the tea party activists and affiliated organizations are losing their hold on Republicans. …

? It awards the Pentagon $666 million to study illnesses and afflictions that include Lou Gehrig’s disease and breast cancer — activities not closely related to war-fighting.

? It gives the oil and nuclear industries a bonanza: $154 million more than the Energy Department requested for nuclear energy, and $141 million more than requested for fossil-fuel development, despite enormous oil profits.

?Skirting a ban on earmarks, the bill provides more than $44 million for the Army Corps of Engineers that the administration had not requested. And lawmakers have been issuing news releases bragging about pet projects that are earmarks in everything but name.

Now it’s Democrats’ turn to howl about reading the bill. “My colleagues are being asked to vote on this, over 1,500 pages that nobody has read,” Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts protested during the debate. “I am willing to bet that in a week or so we are going to read an article about something that was in here that nobody even knew about.”

Dana Milbank: D.C. returns to business as usual – The Washington Post