It was a trifle embarrassing, but U.S. Senator from Connecticut
Chris Murphy was able adroitly to dodge the bullet.
“This week,” the Journal Inquirer reported “Murphy dodged questions about [receiving campaign] tainted money from Spitzer,
and instead focused on contributions from average people.”
Elliot Spitzer, a former New York Attorney General and Governor, resigned blushingly in 2008 to dodge impeachment following reports in
the New York Times, the JI reported, “that he had patronized prostitutes,
highlighting a meeting for two hours with a $1,000-per-hour prostitute…
“He is said to have spent as much as $80,000 on prostitutes
over several years while working as New York’s attorney general and later as
governor, according to various credible news sources. Following his resignation
from office, Spitzer became a political pundit, writing opinion pieces for The
Washington Post and making numerous television appearances on CNN and MSNBC.”
Last October, the JI pointed out, “Murphy said politicians
should not accept contributions from former Hollywood producer and accused
rapist Harvey Weinstein, who has since been arrested and charged with sex
assault.
“He said, ‘it probably makes sense’ for candidates to either
return or donate to charity their contributions because Weinstein is ‘a pretty
bad guy.’”
Murphy deflected the point of the parry: If Weinstein’s
political contributions should be returned, why not Spitzer’s?
And then he told what Mark Twain might have called “a
stretcher.”
The JI reported, “’I’m really proud of the way that we’ve
raised money,’ Murphy said. Most of his contributions, he said, have come from
tens of thousands of people with ‘very, very small’ average contributions.
“’We’ll continue to focus on these small-dollar
contributions as the means of powering our campaign,’ Murphy said, declining to
comment specifically on Spitzer’s contributions.”
Open Secrets provides the backdrop for Murphy’s campaign
contributions from 2013 – 2018. Murphy
serves on three important congressional committees: Appropriations, Foreign Relations, and Health, Education, Labor and
Pensions. Top contributors to his campaigns include lawyers and law firms, deep
pocket millionaires, Yale University, J Street, Sullivan & Cromwell, JPMorgan
Chase & Co, the education lobby, and Paul Weiss, who heads a muscular law
firm of 900 lawyers. Weiss has contributed $59,155 to Murphy’s campaigns.
In 2005, Weiss’
attorneys filed an emergency application on behalf of detainees at the Guantanamo
Bay detention camp in Cuba after some went on a hunger strike
to protest alleged “inhumane conditions" and prison employees responded by
force feeding the prisoners. In a subsequent ruling, the United States District Court for the
District of Columbia ordered the government to provide the detainees'
lawyers with 24 hours' notice before initiating a force-feeding, and to provide
lawyers with the detainees’ medical records a week before force-feeding.
Open Secrets breaks
down Murphy’s contributions as follows: 27.07% comes from small individual
contributors; 61.20% comes from large individual contributors; 11.65% comes
from PAC contributions, which includes contributions from the political PACs of
other politicians.
Much had been made lately
of the personal wealth of Connecticut politicians following a remark made by
Joe Ganim, the ex-felon and Mayor of Bridgeport now running for governor as a
Democrat, concerning the number of bathrooms in the residence of Democrat Party
nominee for governor Ned Lamont, who is a millionaire, as are U.S. Senator Dick
Blumenthal, the eighth wealthiest member in Congress, and Representative For
Life in Connecticut’s 3rd District Rosa DeLauro.
But the campaign
riches of incumbent politicians – wealth considerably more politically decisive
than personal wealth – is rarely mentioned by wealth averse progressive politicians
and some commentators – who should know better -- anxious to transport rich Republicans
in tumbrils to rhetorical guillotines.
It is by no means certain
that Connecticut’s Potemkin Village campaign reform laws prevent deep pocket state
contributors from greasing the palms of state politicians who are in a position
to do them favors. Such contributions may be routed to national party committees, laundered,
and then returned to the state politician who, to all appearances, will remain
untainted by filthy lucre.
By their campaign
kitties shall ye know them. By this measure, all the members of Connecticut’s all Democrat U.S.
Congressional Delegation are far wealthier than their Republican challengers. There
is no need to count the number of toilets in Murphy’s house. Murphy’s campaign
kitty of nearly $8 million is massive enough to intimidate both primary
challengers and political opponents. And the vast store of campaign wealth
heaped up by incumbents seriously undermines the spirit of Connecticut’s fair
campaign regulations – sold to the general public as a means of leveling the
playing field of campaign rich incumbents and their competitors.
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