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Wednesday
Today I'm following the money, starting with www.opensecrets.org, the on-line source for data on money in politics. I enter the name of my congressman, Edward J. Markey, into a box on the site's Congressional Campaign Finance Profiles area. Now I'm looking at a page that analyzes the sources of Markey's sizable 1997- 1998 campaign war chest from a variety of angles: geography, industry, individual, PAC, and personal.
The individual contributions chart isn't too revealing: a numbing list of 565 contributors, the vast majority in the garden-variety $500 and $1,000 range. Sorted by sector, however, the list gets more interesting. By far, most of Markey's money comes from three industry sectors: lawyers and lobbyists, communications and electronics, and finance/insurance/real estate. Markey holds key subcommitte positions in the last two sectors. The personal finance link takes me to Markey's 1997 personal financial disclosure form. Eight pages of scanned photocopies give me a pretty good view of Markey's stock and bond fund portfolios, but nothing too revealing or significant. I'm not really expecting much, of course. Exploring opensecrets.org is like participating in a game of cat and mouse. Will the technologically enabled, database-powered watchdogs (watchcats?) be able to catch the wily lobbyists and politicians? I'm rooting for the watchcats but cynically expecting the politicians and lobbyists will find (or invent) an escape hatch.
So how's Markey voting? A search of his name at www.boston.com turns up his most recent statements opposing a new runway at Logan Airport. A trip to www.cnn.com/allpolitics/cq/resources/votewatch/ takes me further back. The CNN/Congressional Quarterly site also provides a ''Rate Your Rep'' feature, where I discover, to my surprise, that I agree with Markey only about 30 percent of the time. What am I going to do about it? A trip back to opensecrets.org doesn't hold out much hope. In the most recent election, Markey raised a total of $447,433. His opponent, Patricia Long, raised $6,140.
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