Opponents of the Green New Deal have on average received 24 times more campaign cash from big oil and gas interests than sponsors of the proposal, which aims to slow the American contribution to climate change by remaking the domestic economy and launching an enormous federal public works effort.
An analysis for Fast Company by MapLight, which researches the consequences of the current campaign finance system, found the 90 Democratic sponsors of a non-binding House measure sketching out the idea have received just $37,175 in campaign donations – an average of $413 each – from the 10 largest publicly traded U.S. oil and gas companies since 2017. Meanwhile, the 344 other members cumulatively received 91 times more money. Those 197 Republicans and 145 Democrats took almost $3.4 million from the energy companies, an average of $9,876 per lawmaker.
News. Community. Debate. Levers for better democracy.
Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter.
Congress
RepresentUs
RepresentUs acquired 8,000 signatures on a petition asking Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez to keep working on a "revolving door" bill. Paula Barkan, Austin chapter leader of RepresentUs, handed the petition to Brandon Simon, Cruz's Central Texas regional director, on July 31.
Remember that tweet exchange in May between Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the one where they discussed bipartisan legislation to ban former members of Congress from becoming lobbyists?
To recap: Ocasio-Cortez tweeted her support for legislation banning the practice in light of a report by the watchdog group Public Citizen, which found that nearly 60 percent of lawmakers who recently left Congress had found jobs with lobbying firms. Cruz tweeted back, extending an invitation to work on such a bill. Ocasio-Cortez responded, "Let's make a deal."
The news cycle being what it is, it's easy to forget how the media jumped on the idea of the Texas Republican and the New York Democrat finding common ground on a government ethics proposal. Since then, we've collectively moved on — but not everyone forgot.
The government reform group RepresentUs recently drafted a petition asking Cruz and Ocasio-Cortez to follow through on their idea, gathering more than 8,000 signatures.
Sixty percent of young adults in the United States believe other people "can't be trusted," according to a recent Pew Research survey, which found that younger Americans were far more likely than older adults to distrust both institutions and other people. But adults of all ages did agree on one thing: They all lack confidence in elected leaders.
While united in a lack of confidence, the cohorts disagreed on whether that's a major problem. The study found that young adults (ages 18-29) were less likely than older Americans to believe that poor confidence in the federal government, the inability of Democrats and Republicans to work together, and the influence of lobbyists and special interest groups were "very big problems."
