Ridiculous to lump all union giving into one column, while devoting individual columns to "airline industry", "restaurant industry", etc.

Well done!!! Thank you for the non-skewed analysis!

Note that "teachers unions" and "labor unions" are presented as separate categories. Most "labor unions" are national organizations (the "package delivery" unions are affiliated with larger national labor organizations.) So I don't think it's deceptive to combine all those labor unions together (though would be useful to list the individual unions within that gave money & how much. I bet most of the money comes from just a few big ones like AFL-CIO and SEIU, which are really more like campaign organizations than unions anyway.)

Furthermore, labor unions are a unified political lobby that represents "labor." The insurance industry represents "the insurance industry", etc. I would imagine the lobbying focus of unions in different industries are pretty similar (wages, safety, pensions, etc.) and don't have a lot to do with the industries themselves.

This graph is stunning. It should be on the front page of every newspaper in Wisconsin (and other states trying to reform union campaign regulations.)

I don't understand the concerns about a further breakdown this by industry. What additional information will such a level of granularity render? It is not possible for the donations in a single industry to change the picture that the aggregate shows. Unions are propping up the Democrat party and that's why the Democrats are so beholden to them. Asking about the food service industry's unions sheds no additional light, provides no additional information.

What this also shows is that the unions and the Democrats are firmly convinced that massive amounts of campaign money can sway elections. Otherwise why bother giving the money the extract from their members to politicians.

I've often wondered why liberals, with such a small percentage of the overall population tend to do so well in advancing their agenda. Well this certainly has to be part of any explanation. They've got an enormous amount of money at their disposal.

These unions must be the "special interests" that McCain and Feingold told us were buying elections.

This information is highly misleading. The top 100 donors only accounted for 17% of campaign donations in 2007-2008, the top 1000 account for 36%, and the top 10,000 account for only 54%*. Obviously there are many, many smaller donors who provide the bulk of campaign spending, and we don't know anything about their political leanings.

*www.opensecrets.org, the source for Prof. Davies' data.

The graph isn't misleading, but there are two ways of looking at the numbers (both of which are found at opensecrets). One is to look at total spending by sector. The other is to look at sectors represented by the top spenders. The latter (which is what this graph shows) is more indicative of private influence over government. For example, if 100 corporations from industry A donate a combined $1 million while 2 corporations from industry B donate a combined $500,000, a single corporation from industry B will command the politicians' attentions more readily than will a single corporation from industry A. There is a reasonable counterargument that total money matters also, but the strength of that argument rests on the assumption that the 100 corporations share the same objectives.

This graph does not reflect its supposed source. The graph states that the third-largest contributor, after unions and the "investment industry" from 1989-2009 is the telecommunications industry, which gave approximately $100 million over that time.

But if you look at the cited source, opensecrets.org, of the top ten donors from only 2007-8, approximately $150 million was given by Indian gaming interests (External Link ). So one of the largest sources of revenue from opensecrets.org in two years eclipsed almost all other spending on the graph supposedly spanning twenty years yet is somehow not included. I'm not picking on Indian gaming, this just jumps out after a cursory investigation and pointing out that the blogger seems to be lying.

The actual data from the source they cite give a more accurate picture (External Link ). In the 2007-8 election cycle, $1.9998 billion was given by "business," $0.4086 billion by "other," $0.1687 by "ideological" - whatever that means - and $0.0749 billion by "labor." This gives a new meaning to the title of the original posting on special interests.