In these days of our turbulent international standing, you would think that our ambassadors around the world would be appointed based on credentials, but our ambassadors to many countries are big Bush donors. These people have donated as much as one million dollars to the Republican Party. They get placed in countries that we have good relationships with, like the Netherlands and Italy. This underscores the effect of large donors on our country's political system.

One of the biggest contributors, and the current ambassador to the Netherlands, is Roland Arnall who, according to opensecrets.org, has donated $1,136,141 to the Republican Party. He also raised $12.25 million dollars for the president in 2002 alone. According to his State Department biography, he has no diplomatic experience. I know that the Netherlands is not as important as say, Iraq, but shouldn't our envoys around the world have some experience in diplomacy? Other big donors who are also ambassadors include the ambassador to Italy, Ronald Spogli, and the ambassador to the European Union, C. Boyden Gray. Both have donated over $500,000 to the Republican Party.

Senator Joseph Bruno has just made headlines with a controversy revolving around the usage of taxpayer's money to fly to New York City from Albany. Documents show that he flew in a state helicopter to a New York City heliport and then had a state trooper escort him to the office building housing a major CEO who has donated to the state Republican Party.

This is unacceptable behavior for any public figure, including Bruno (or Governor Spitzer for that matter). To get approval for the helicopter, he had to sign a document saying that it was for legislative business, so he most likely has proof that he was doing more than fundraising. He also attacked Governor Spitzer's office for reporting him and even said of Governor Spitzer, "[he] does not understand that he is not a dictator." (As quoted in the New York Times article by Danny Hakim)

In Michael Moore's newest movie, Sicko, he attacks the American health care industry, with an emphasis on the insurance industry (HMOs). But in between telling us the stories of people whom the insurance agency has failed and taking 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba, he talks about the health care lobby's effect on campaign finance.

He starts out with the example of Hillary Clinton (D-NY) -- former First Lady, Senator from New York, and current presidential hopeful -- who made health care her priority when her husband was president. She attempted to get government run healthcare for all, but the bill failed in the Senate. One would think that someone so passionate about a specific topic would keep fighting for what they believed in, especially if given the opportunity to serve in the United States Senate. But according to Moore she is now the second largest recipient of campaign donations from the health care industry, and has stopped talking about universal health care, taking in $835,511 from the health care industry (opensecrets.org). I think that this has got to be more then a coincidence.

My name is David McCabe and I am a high school student interning at the New York office of Common Cause. I will blogging over the next few weeks on the topic money in politics, sometimes on a national scale but sometimes more local. My first topic is local, the current roundtables being held by the state senate on the topic of campaign finance.

Although Governor Spitzer highlighted it as a major priority, the issue of campaign finance wasn't ultimately addressed in the most recent legislative session. In many ways contributing to this problem are the roundtable discussions being held by the State Senate. Before the dramatic and ugly end, The NYS Senate tried to shift the pressure they were under by first calling for "public hearings" on campaign finance, then settling for closed, biased roundtable sessions. Senators Bruno and Griffo called these discussions to see if there was even a reason that the senate should debate campaign finance, strange, because they have been negotiating a campaign finance package for months, making these discussion more of a stalling tactic than anything else. Unfortunately, they chose to call these discussions at the end of the last legislative session, after they had already walked away from talks on the campaign finance package.