List of every member of congress who supports SOPA, sortable by donations

http://www.sopaopera.org

by sgaither • 15 years ago

430 121 15 years ago

sopaopera.org

CWIZO2• 15 years ago

I was surprised there are more democrats for SOPA than there are republicans.

jsundquist5• 15 years ago

CWIZO,

Unfortunately many democrats live in areas where the Movie, recording industry is located...therefore they get lots of $$ from them. Thus the widespread support from both dems and republicans.

This depresses me even more:

http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/indus.php?cid=N00009638

Obama got almost $9 million from the Movie industry. I would suspect he would not veto it.

kmfrk2• 15 years ago

Makes you wonder how much worse things are going to get with the introduction of SuperPACs.

sgaither4• 15 years ago

Much of Hollywood/traditional media leans left. Most of the Dems against it are in the Silicon Valley.

thetrendycyborg2• 15 years ago

California's Dems are co-sponsors.

taf2• 15 years ago

News flash - party lines are meaningless .

wyclif4• 15 years ago

Why would that surprise you? Hollywood nearly owns the Democratic Party.

CWIZO2• 15 years ago

I'm not from the USA and my knowledge of your political system is mostly based on the daily show (& colbert report), so it always seemed to me, that SOPA is something that the republicans would be crazy about.

botker3• 15 years ago

Democrats tend to favor government regulations of any kind, while Republicans are somewhat more likely to oppose them in general. So it doesn't surprise me at all.

drewblaisdell• 15 years ago

This may have been true twenty years ago, but it is certainly not true today. Neither party is in favor of limiting government these days.

cjoh2• 15 years ago

Except for regulations regarding who you can and cannot sleep with, what religions you may belong to, and whom you may marry.

jsundquist5• 15 years ago

Very depressing. Almost without any exception (I admit there are a couple) every single for or against can be determined by how much money they get from the computer industry(Against) or from the Music / Movie industry (For).

All of this happens across party lines...

GHFigs4• 15 years ago

I'm having trouble reconciling this assertion with the fact that I can open the submission, sort by "online/internet" and it seems that those in the supporters column receive substantially larger amounts of money from "online/internet" than do those opposed.

adamtaylor• 15 years ago

I agree. TV/Movie money seems like a pretty good predictor of vote, but online/internet money much less so. But I'd still like to see an x-y plot with each congressperson a point, and TV/Movie money on one axis, online/internet money on the other, with each point colored by their vote. Then you could really see how separable the two populations are.

danso2• 15 years ago

For one thing, these are donations in the 2010 cycle. Secondly, all of the top-receiving lawmakers in the "for" category are some of the most senior members of the Senate...and/or represent California, which will have high numbers of constituents from both entertainment and online industries.

tzs• 15 years ago

Why is that depressing? If your company were going to make a political contribution, wouldn't you pick politicians whose record indicates they agree with your positions?

tptacek• 15 years ago

Sorry, I meant to upvote you, but misclicked and now you're greyed out. You're making the post-hoc-ergo-propter-hoc point here, right?

sfaruque• 15 years ago

It's sad to see that for almost ever 1 SOPA opposing member on the list, there are about 4 supporting members.

jmonegro• 15 years ago

Yeah. After seeing this, I'm pretty sure SOPA will pass...

incomethax• 15 years ago

IMO the only way to prevent SOPA passing would be Google/Facebook/Wikipedia going the "nuclear option" and putting up a click through page - short of that I doubt something this widely supported would get stopped.

GHFigs4• 15 years ago

The site does not list every member of Congress.

sgaither4• 15 years ago

"...every congressmember who supports..."

There's listings by state and by bill...so everyone in the House is at: http://sopaopera.org/sopa/

fecklessyouth• 15 years ago

Biggest surprise among supporters: Al "Net Neutrality is the 1st Amendment issue of our time" Franken.

Among opponents: Bachmann.

jsundquist5• 15 years ago

Sadly the support for it is directly connected to where they get their money from (For democrats and republicans).

Here is Bachmann's top sources of donations:

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N0002...

Notice no Movie/Music Industry in the top 5

Then here is Franken's:

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N0002...

Time Warner is his number one supporter. I would imagine that they are for it.

jsundquist5• 15 years ago

Just checked, and Time Warner is on the list of supporters of SOPA:

http://theoriesofconspiracy.com/2011/11/list-of-major-compan...

GHFigs4• 15 years ago

Time Warner is his number one supporter

OpenSecrets:"The organizations themselves did not donate, rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families."

The first clause is in red and bold.

(Edit:I apologize to the reader(s) who felt that directly quoting the links cited by the parent comment was objectionable.)

Gormo• 15 years ago

> Sadly the support for it is directly connected to where they get their money from (For democrats and republicans).

Chicken or egg?

wyclif4• 15 years ago

Al Franken is totally owned by Hollywood and the music industry. The RIAA loves Al Franken. He's a complete hypocrite. Mr. "Net Neutrality" my ass.

windexh8er• 15 years ago

Al Franken is a joke. Initially I thought he had good intent, but then I realized he's just another shit "actor" turned "politician". Unfortunately those words are more interchangeable than ever and reflects the current state of dismal affairs that is the United States government as a whole.

fl3tch• 15 years ago

Yeah, Bachmann stood out to me, too. Really shows that even a broken clock is right sometimes.

fauldsh2• 15 years ago

Wish there was a way to view who funded them more, basically ($TV|Movie) - ($Online|Internet)

padraigk• 15 years ago

I wish the table of underlying data was available so that a logistic regression could be run to see whether variables like campaign contributions do indeed predict support for SOPA after age and number of years served have been partialled out.

tst• 15 years ago

The data is pretty easily accessible as JSON - however, here's the data I used: http://pastebin.com/nRYv40U8

Firstly, a boxplot with the quotient of entertainment contributions to entertainment & internet contributions.

http://i.imgur.com/FWQWy.png

You can see quite easily that there's a difference which is also significant (95%, t = -4.73).

I've also done a logistic regression correcting with age, party (is_democrat), seniority and quota of contributions (quota_ent).

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       support |      Coef.   Std. Err.      z    P>|z|     [95% Conf. Interval]  
  -------------+----------------------------------------------------------------
           age |   .0258551   .0358136     0.72   0.470    -.0443382    .0960485
   is_democrat |  -1.252883   .6243361    -2.01   0.045    -2.476559   -.0292067
     seniority |  -.0262688   .0381962    -0.69   0.492     -.101132    .0485943
     quota_ent |   5.839435   1.447732     4.03   0.000     3.001933    8.676938
         _cons |  -1.968467    2.01512    -0.98   0.329    -5.918029    1.981096
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The AUC is 0.8089 which is quite okay. Furthermore, it would be interesting to test whether location is a significant factor.

Edit: @adamtaylor: Here's a scatter plot with each contribution, transformed with log(1 + x) for readability: http://i.imgur.com/MRciL.png

Groxx• 15 years ago

Isn't that what the "$ Difference" sort shows? Or did they just add that?

fauldsh2• 15 years ago

Just added

EDIT: This shows as a ratio (+$ from internet : no difference : +$ from movie).

For - 23 : 3 : 55 0.28 : 0.04 : 0.67

Against - 15 : 0 : 6 0.71 : 0 : 0.28

So ~70% of people who received more funding from one party support the bill accordingly.

steplow• 15 years ago

No surprise about any of the Dems really: Piracy, copyright, and related issues have been issues for them for a long time, primarily due to their connections with the entertainment industry. It's too bad that they don't understand that hurting the consumer is going to kill the industries that fund them.

ctingom• 15 years ago

I contacted my senators.

veyron• 15 years ago

I would like to see the congresspeople who haven't openly supported or opposed SOPA. Those people represent opportunities for education.

sgaither4• 15 years ago

http://sopaopera.org/sopa/#roll_call

http://sopaopera.org/protect-ip/#roll_call

rhettg• 15 years ago

Can someone use this data to figure out how much it would cost to make SOPA go away and then setup a kick starter project?

jadoint• 15 years ago

Is there a site that lists all of the candidates running against pro-SOPA/PIPA representatives? Better yet, a site that allows me to give money to their opponents for the next election cycle (provided they're not pro-SOPA either)?

martco• 15 years ago

republicans are more stridently in support of this measure

gitarr• 15 years ago

This might be a stupid question, but as a European not all too familiar with US political laws I have to ask:

How is it not corruption when senators and congressmens votes can be bought by companies or whole industries?

asdfasdghasdf2• 15 years ago

When they say "Time Warner gave $50,0000 to Senator So-and-So," that actually means "People who work for Time Warner gave a total of $50,000 to Senator So-and-So's campaign in donations of no more than $5000 each." It's illegal for a company to donate to a candidate. I think many Americans don't understand that either.

Also, surveys have shown that all those donors are giving because they already agree with the senators' views, not because they think they can influence them.

gdubs• 15 years ago

Right, except that Citizens United ruling by the supreme court allows corporations to spend unlimited funds on 'electioneering communications' (which was previously illegal under the McCain–Feingold Act). Steven Colbert has a 'super pac' which satirizes this state of affairs.

To answer the question, there is a grey area between bribery and lobbying. As long as the lobbyist does not violate the law by giving more money than is allowed to a member of congress, and by not explicitly saying that the money is for a vote (one way or another on a particular piece of legislation), it is not considered bribery.

Lobbyists will often take legislators on really fancy vacations that are called 'fact finding missions', where everyone stays at a really nice golf resort or something and the lobbyist hasn't actually given the legislator any money, so no laws have been broken. At the end of the day, the legislator can decide to vote however he/she wants, so again, they don't consider it bribery.

So, what is bribery of a legislator in the U.S.? You'd probably need someone on tape saying, "I'll vote yes if you give me 200 grand in this swiss bank account". (Or, more simply, see: Rod Blagojevich.)

noahc2• 15 years ago

In order to understand this you have to understand that in American corporations are persons. When Mitt Romney said, "Corporations are people too" at the Iowa State Fair he wasn't sharing his own personal beliefs. Instead he was telling the truth. See Corporate Personhood[1] for more.

From this it follows that Corporations have the right to free speech. This is where the supreme court ruled[2] that it is unconstitutional to deny corporations the right to political speech.

The legal requirements are disclosures and that's why you hear "paid for by Americans for a better tomorrow" or something like that. Corporations don't directly give to campaign coffers, but through a series of transactions often via PACs (political action committees) it eventually gets to where it's going. It is illegal for PAC's to coordinate with the campaign, but this does happen in subtle and less than subtle ways.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec...

asdfasdghasdf2• 15 years ago

While this has been true for the past year, the linked page gets its data from OpenSecrets which tracks only hard money donations to campaigns. It's tracking almost entirely donations from people who work in the given industries, so I think it's misleading to bring up corporate personhood here.

Aaronontheweb• 15 years ago

Uhh, campaign donations from corporations to politicans have been around for way longer than Citizen's United dude. That case is not the central issue here.

danso2• 15 years ago

As others have noted, the money isn't directly coming from companies, but from people who state those companies as their employers. So what's going on here may just be the "correlation does not equal causation" phenomenon.

greenyoda• 15 years ago

It's certainly corruption, but it's corruption that's legal under our laws. There have been some attempts over the years to reform U.S. campaign finance laws, but they've failed (the people who make the laws like the system the way it is).

How are political campaigns funded in Europe? And don't large businesses have influence over politicians there too?

toyg2• 15 years ago

In some countries, the State funds political parties in proportion to their votes or some other parameter. Obviously this is never enough, so large businesses do have an influence over here as well. "Revolving doors" are a bit less common than in the US, but that's changing.

Note that corruption is not necessarily linked to the source of "original" funds. Italian politicians are the best paid in Europe... I rest my case.

mahyarm• 15 years ago

What I don't understand is why these donation amounts are so low. Do these reps really only get around $25k an industry on average? Do they use these donations personally like it's extra pay or for campaign expenses? Is there a lot more money that we don't see?

Jach2• 15 years ago

Something we don't necessarily see is what sort of after-retirement deals they have lined up that may be in the millions. I'm sure there are other sources as well. But in general, politicians are pretty cheap.

beernutz• 15 years ago

Exactly!

Like Chris Dodd becoming CEO of the MPAA who is reportedly being paid $1.5 million a year as his base salary.

bcrawl• 15 years ago

Reddit site has started implementing their protest. It is redirecting.

cjoh2• 15 years ago

To me, this is proof positive that campaign contributions are correlative but not causal.

gammarator• 15 years ago

Both California Senators (Boxer and Feinstein) are supporters (and co-sponsors!) of Protect-IP. Silicon Valley needs to make its voice heard, and soon.

gfaremil• 15 years ago

And they both live in San Francisco - which shows that it is all about $$ and not about their political views or principles.

So this is one of the problems I can see with politics today: politicians have no views or principles you can count on. Everything is depended on how much money they get (of course they all stick and talk about wedge issues such as guns, gays, and god which are really stupid).

That is one of main reason people like Ron Paul: you know what you get.

botker3• 15 years ago

It's interesting to me in part because I tend to think of the SOPA battle as being rooted in the age-old war between North and South -- Silicon Valley vs. Hollywood. Attempting to cripple our industry is just a standard war practice. But to consider that the Senators are both SF residents makes me doubt the premise.

eleusive• 15 years ago

What if a coalition of California-based companies sent emails to their employees informing them of the potential harm this bill could do to their company (and thus each employee's livelihood) with an appeal to send a snail-mail or phone up their senators/representatives?

I think especially if the giants (Google, Facebook, etc) got significant amounts of employees to do it then our Congresspeople would take notice. Even if not I think there's enough influence on hackernews to maybe make a difference.

Of course this has potential in any state, but the concentration of software companies in California makes it particular interesting IMO.

ma2rten• 15 years ago

Hollywood also lays in California...

wyclif4• 15 years ago

Note that Rep. Ron Paul is the only current Presidential candidate that opposes SOPA.

josh33• 15 years ago

Yes, but many are not members of congress currently - Romney and Gingrich being 2 specifically.

wyclif4• 15 years ago

Opposing SOPA with a vote in Congress isn't the only way for real leaders to register dissent. There's no excuse for Romney or any other candidate to avoid informing the American public that as President, they would veto any future SOPA-like legislation restricting Internet freedom.

miked• 15 years ago

Also, former Senator Christopher Dodd is now CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/201...

darkheartfelt• 15 years ago

also thinks AIDS is the sufferer's fault :( In the end his internet might not be much better.

nhangen2• 15 years ago

has nothing to do with SOPA

zachcb• 15 years ago

Buddy Roemer opposes it :)

nyellin6• 15 years ago

Are you sure about that? Gary Johnson's website implies that he is firmly against not only SOPA, but internet regulation of any sort.

http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/issues/internet-and-technolog...

daniel-cussen2• 15 years ago

Implies? So what?

kazoolist• 15 years ago

Inaccurate. Romney opposes SOPA (http://merrimack.patch.com/articles/video-mitt-romney-slams-...). Others may too.

pawn• 15 years ago

I have a question for my fellow HNers. Is SOPA a big enough deal for you that if Obama actually signs SOPA into law and the Republican nominee is someone who voices opposition to it, you'll vote Republican (for those who typically vote Democrat)?

sankalpk• 15 years ago

This is good advice if you choose to contact someone in congress about this issue.

http://www.quora.com/How-do-I-have-a-conversation-with-my-Se...

DustinCalim• 15 years ago

Alternate title: List of congressmen who have some idea of how the internet works

callmeed• 15 years ago

How the hell are both of California's senators FOR this bill?

toyg2• 15 years ago

Los Angeles, CA. Kinda big in the media sector.

nextparadigms• 15 years ago

Google, Facebook and whoever else is going on a blackout before the vote, please link to the politicians who support SOPA, too.

The people deserve to know it, and they need to be put against the wall for it, not only so they can't be re-elected again because of this, but also so others don't try to support it, too, fearing the backlash.

rhizome2• 15 years ago

I'd like to see this combined with the SOPA UPC scanner to further cross reference the manufacturer's (and their parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, employees, and...) political donations.

RyanMcGreal• 15 years ago

You know the world has gone mad when Al Franken supports SOPA and Michelle Bachman opposes it.

thetrendycyborg2• 15 years ago

Other possibility: your understanding of the world was flawed and needs to be adjusted. You were mad.

fauigerzigerk3• 15 years ago

Donations of any sort to people running for office should be banned outright without exceptions. It should be worth something to tax payers that politicians cannot be bought.

brazzy• 15 years ago

Result: instead of donating to their preferred candidate's campaign, donors will now run their own campaign promoting that candidate. Try banning that without running into the First Amendement...

fauigerzigerk3• 15 years ago

I think banning direct donations would at least make it more difficult for those politicians that are motivated by financial gain. Money can buy all kinds of things, not just campaign ads.

Also, running an effective campaign for someone else without central coordination of the message is a lot more difficult than what's going on now. Such campaigns can easily backfire.

That's why I think the extent of political corruption could be reduced by banning donations.

tehwalrus• 15 years ago

A law stating/clarifying that only individuals, not companies, have first amendment rights would sort much of it out, coupled with caps on political donations per individual, including donations in kind (like sympathetic campaigns.) (I'm from UK, by the way, so I'm no expert on the US constitution, but we have similar issues here. Just trying to be logical - which always works in politics...)

jberryman• 15 years ago

People should check out Lawrence Lessig's recent appearance on the Daily Show:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-13-2011/exclu...

He really does a good job characterizing the effects of money on politics, and outlines some cool ideas for sort of "shims" on the way to more complete campaign finance reform (which would take action from congress, and I guess a constitutional amendment or two).

But the thing that struck me the most was his point that fixing the corrupting influence of money on politics isn't like trying to do something like reverse a culture of racism: it's much easier. We just have to change the incentives.

Steve_Baker• 15 years ago

Politicians already make a lot of their wealth from insider information. Even if you somehow stopped all donations, corporations would just trade more knowledge for favors.

Politicians should be prohibited from direct investment, both during and sometime after serving. Doesn't stop someone from enriching some partners who agree to pay him back at some later date. There probably is no end to the corruption.

I think that letting foreign companies shape our legislation is such a manner ought to considered at best a stones throw from treason.

List of every member of congress who supports SOPA, sortable by donations

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