The Sunlight Foundation has revealed a pattern of secret, all-expenses-paid fundraising parties for members of Congress at the swanky Capitol Hill townhouse of credit-card and payday-lender lobbyist Tim Rupli. Over at That’s My Congress, we’ve tied representatives’ fundraising perqs to membership on the House Financial Services Committee and to patterns of support for H.R. 4300, a bill to cap credit card interest rates. Our findings:
* While just 5.3% of those we know got expense-free fundraisers at Tim Rupli’s townhouse are members of the House Education and Labor Committee, a full 36.8% of them just happen to be members of the House Financial Services Committee, the committee with jurisdiction over credit card and payday-lending bills introduced to the Congress.
* Those who got all-expenses-paid fundraisers at Tim Rupli’s townhouse and are members of the Financial Services Committee were more than twice as likely to be invited back for one or more additional fundraisers there.
* Of all the members of the House Financial Services Commitee that had fundraisers held to their benefit at Tim Rupli’s townhouse, not a single one has cosponsored H.R. 4300, the committee’s bill to cap credit card interest rates.
The American people deserve an explanation. Is your member of Congress on the list? Find out.
when all expenses are paid, none of the attendees ever had to slap down their credit cards and therefore never had to pay the unconscionable interest rates.
obviously another socailist plot to take money from the elite and give it back to the poor, isn’t that so ,tater? these socailist plots work so well!