Don’t Follow the Money

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/opinion/19brooks.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=don't%20follow%20the%20money&st=cse

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 8:00 PM
Subject: re: Don’t Follow the Money
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

   Mr. Brooks' analysis would be apt if representative democracy ended at the ballot box; it does not. I am represented not when my man goes to Washington, but when he votes my positions on the bills that come before congress.  If he believes--rightly or wrongly--that he will need money from telecom corporations to get re-elected, he is likely to vote to immunize those corporations from civil suits, whether his constituents want him to or not. Likewise, if my president believes that he'll need money from telecom corporations for his re-election, he is unlikely to direct his Attorney General to prosecute violations of the FISA statute.

    Follow the money. Corporations are spending millions to get their way in our legislation and in our courts, whether they get to name the players or not.

Barry Levine