Congress
By Aaron Mehta and Bob Biersack
On her website, Rep. Diane Black asks constituents to join advisory panels in her Tennessee district. “I believe the best ideas to solve our nation’s problems will come from people like you,” Black writes, “not Washington bureaucrats and special interest groups.”
Black is one of the new Republicans who rode a wave of anti-Washington sentiment into town in 2011, a self-identified member of the tea party wing that has been cast as a new kind of conservative— fiery, unwilling to compromise and determined to downsize the government. But while many say Black and her companions have created a split in the Republican Party, it is not visible among the companies and interest groups that are donating to members of Congress.
A joint analysis by iWatch News and the Center for Responsive Politics has found that the 15 freshmen members of the Tea Party Caucus have embraced many of the same special interests that have supported Republicans for years. The fifteen combined have received over $3,450,000 during the first three quarters of this year from almost 700 different PACs.
It’s an impressive haul for a group of newly elected House members. But it shouldn’t be surprising that these fresh faces found new friends in Washington.
“Business as usual,” says Mary Boyle of good-government group Common Cause. “The lobbyists and other traditional Washington powers know that the newbies will learn fast that they need them, and their rolodexes.”
It may well be, but some of the freshmen appear to have their eyes wide open.
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