Mr. Reid may be interested to know the following:
-The top campaign donor of the last 25 years is ActBlue, an online political-action committee dedicated to raising funds for Democrats. ActBlue’s political contributions, which total close to $100 million, are even more impressive when one realizes that it was only launched in 2004. That’s $100 million in ten years.
-Fourteen labor unions were among the top 25 political campaign contributors.
-Three public-sector unions were among the 14 labor groups: the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees; the National Education Association; and the American Federation of Teachers. Their combined contributions amount to $150 million, or 15 percent of the top 25’s approximately $1 billion in donations since 1989. …
Unlike Mr. Reid, my interest in campaign contributions isn’t simply focused on picking out people I disagree with politically — rather, it’s because donating to political campaigns is one way that private or public interests try to win alliances of government authorities and later obtain government favors, whether loan guarantees, bailouts, a promise to block charter schools, or whatever.
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