Of the top twenty senators with the highest percentage of votes in common with Sen. Snowe, eighteen are Democrats, most of which are commonly identified as the most moderate Democrats in the caucus. Snowe holds a 70%+ vote correlation with thirteen senators, two of which are Republicans. The top twenty senators with votes in common with Olympia Snowe are:

• Sen. Susan Collins, R-ME (86.92%)
• Sen. Ben Nelson, D-NE (78.46%)
• Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-AR (77.69%)
• Sen. Arlen Specter, D-PA (74.42%)
• Sen. Jon Tester, D-MT (74.03)
• Sen. Evan Bayh, D-IN (72.87%)
• Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN (72.66%)
• Sen. Mark Pryor, D-AR (71.81%)
• Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-ND (71.48%)
• Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-AK (71.15%)
• Sen. Max Baucus, D-MT (71.04%)
• Sen. Bill Nelson, D-FL (70.27%)
• Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-LA (70.16%)
• Sen. Herb Kohl, D-WI (69.62%)
• Sen. Mark Begich, D-AK (69.44%)
• Sen. Kent Conrad, D-ND (68.83%)
• Sen. Michael Bennet, D-CO (68.80%)
• Sen. Kay Hagan, D-NC (68.60%)
• Sen. Robert Byrd, D-WV (68.31%)
• Sen. Tim Johnson, D-SD (68.00%)

When we first published this analysis back in September, I wrote:

The Democrats with the highest voting agreement with Snowe are also seen as key votes in the health care reform push. Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Sen. Blanche Lincoln hold the two highest voting agreements with Snowe. Both are seen as key votes on any health reform bill and Nelson, in particular, has been a key player in all major legislation this year. Nelson was instrumental in passing the stimulus bill earlier this year and has recently echoed Snowe in her support for a public option trigger in the health care reform legislation. Lincoln is seen as one of the more conservative Democratic senators and faces a tough reelection campaign in one of the few states that trended away from the Democrats in the 2008 election. Her vote will be crucial to Democrats on health care reform and her high level of voting agreement with Snowe shows how crucial the Maine Republican’s support for a bill may be.

We found that Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee and author of the main health care reform bill now being debated in the Senate, was one of the biggest beneficiaries of this one-two punch from lobbyists and the interests they represent. Between January 2007 and July 2009 (the period we studied), Baucus collected contributions from 37 outside lobbyists representing PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s chief trade association, and from 36 lobbyists who listed drug maker Amgen Inc. among their clients.

In all, 11 major health and insurance firms had their contributions to Baucus boosted through extra donations from 10 or more of their outside lobbyists. (See our visualization and the full list from CRP.)

Nor was Baucus alone—other members also received contributions from the employees, their family members and political action committees of health care firms and from the outside lobbyists that represented them. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., collected lobbyist “bundles” from 14 major health care organizations. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., actually led the list, with 22 organizations—though much of that money was directed at his presidential campaign last year. (see the full list.)

PhRMA and Amgen were the organizations with the most outside lobbyists chipping in with extra contributions. Some 32 members of Congress got money from 10 or more PhRMA lobbyists over the last two-and-a-half years. Amgen’s lobbyists did the same for 24 members.

There is no indication that the extra giving by lobbyists was part of a planned effort by the health care firms to solidify their support among key members of Congress. But whether coordinated or not, the newly-found clusters of lobbyist giving clearly illustrate the intensity of the full-court press that the industry is currently waging on Capitol Hill.

The research into the lobbyist-and-client giving was conducted by combining campaign contribution records with reports filed by lobbyists that identified their clients (read more on how we did it; full methodology here). The Center for Responsive Politics has been collecting that data for years, but this was the first time the two databases were combined to identify all cases where outside lobbyists contributed to the same members of Congress as their clients.

Overall, the research found that about 90 percent of the lobbyist donations were given by the lobbyists themselves. Another 10 percent came from members of their immediate families, mainly spouses. Interestingly, about one-third of the contributions were given not to the members’ campaign committees, but to their leadership PACs—separate funds that members control—but that get far less media scrutiny than their reelection campaigns. The leadership PACs also have higher contribution limits, enabling lobbyists to give well beyond the nominal $2,400 limit that applies to campaign committees.

To see Sunlight’s previous visualizations of health care lobbying–which also relied on data from the Center for Responsive Politics–click here.

One of the biggest supporters of the public option is labor, a trusted ally of the Democrats. The public option has been opposed by many in the health sector. A comparison of voting behavior and campaign contributions may provide some more context to today’s committee votes.

The chart below shows Senate Finance Committee members, their contributions from the labor and health sectors from 2005-2010, the ratio of health contributions to labor contributions and their votes on the Rockefeller and Schumer public option amendments.

This data could tell us one of two things: (1) Democrats are far more likely to get money from Labor for ideological reasons; (2) The ratio of health to labor contributions effects the way senators will vote on the public option. It could also be both of these.

For senators voting on the Rockefeller amendment, 58% of those with a 10:1 or under ratio of health to labor contributions voted for the amendment. When that ratio is brought down to 3:1 and under, 67% of senators voted for the amendment.

On the Schumer amendment, 75% of those with a 10:1 or under ratio of health to labor contributions voted for the amendment. When that ratio is brought down to 3:1 and under, 89% of senators voted for the amendment.

There is perfect consistency for No votes for both amendments and in both ranges of 10:1 and over and 3:1 and over. Those senators with a 10:1 or over ratio of health to labor contributions voted against both amendments 91% of the time. Senators with a 3:1 or over ratio of health to labor contributions voted against both amendments 86% of the time.

I’d also like to flag this important comment by Karen Tumulty at Time’s Swampland blog:

One of the worst kept secrets on Capitol Hill is that “mark-ups”–the formal public sessions in which legislation is ostensibly drafted–are not where any real work gets done. Where the real deals get cut, and where the favors get traded back and forth, is in private. The mark-up itself is little more than theater, a chance for everyone to give speeches and then march toward a pre-ordained conclusion.

Whatever you’re watching has already been written and planned by the committee members. Lawmakers don’t like to take their messy discussions onto the television screens; sort of a side effect of putting video cameras into a room.

Just going to repost the Max Baucus Health Care Lobbyist Complex in light of this AP article:

The latest health overhaul plan circulating on Capitol Hill gives health insurers, drug makers and large employers reasons to heave sighs of relief, sparing them the higher costs and more burdensome rules included in other Democratic-written alternatives.

…

But health insurance stocks jumped Wednesday at the news of Baucus’ public option-free measure. And privately, industry lobbyists acknowledged that the plan is far more to their liking than any of the other measures currently under discussion, and expressed confidence that it would improve further as senators and Obama’s team continued to haggle over its details as it approaches a Senate vote.

Senators are not an island unto themselves. They have a network of staffers and lobbyists who help inform and craft their policies. Looking at Baucus’ network of former staffers turned health care lobbyists a few months ago raised serious questions about the ability of Baucus to be impartial in his bill making process. With their clients cheering, it’s hard not to think that the final product was written by these former staffers turned lobbyists (along with the former lobbyist turned staffer, Elizabeth Fowler). It looks like this was the real “Gang of Six.”

Former Abramoff lobbyist Kevin Ring is on trial in, perhaps, the most interesting corruption trial in Washington in quite some time. Neil Volz, another Abramoff crony and former staffer to Rep. Bob Ney, testified the other day and included tons of gory details:

Volz described his lobbying team’s practice of giving tickets, meals and drinks to public officials and staffers who were deemed valuable, as well as taking those individuals on trips.

“Really we just wanted to party,” Volz said about a trip he took to New Orleans with Ney, former Ney chief of staff Will Heaton, and other lobbyists. He said the group met a client and toured some homes, but those were not the main objectives of the trip, which he described as “part of the corrupt relationship” he had with Ney and his staffers.

…

Volz described a discussion he had with Ring about “getting the joke,” a term used for a lobbyist getting a staffer to prioritize an issue because the lobbyist is “taking care of them,” after the Abramoff scandal began to surface in 2004.

“We thought, ‘Boy, it would be pretty difficult to defend the idea of getting the joke,’” he said of his conversation with Ring.

Over the weekend, the New York Times posted this great visualization of Clean Water Act violations and the lack of enforcement in all 50 states. One of the primary reasons why government data needs to be online and in accessible formats is for news organizations, designers and coders to create visualizations or databases that can concisely explain an issue, or reveal a problem, to the public at large.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (subject of a voting agreement analysis here) is the only Republican in the “Gang of Six” with a substantial voting agreement with the Democrats involved. Snowe’s agreement with the three Democrats, Sens. Baucus, Jeff Bingaman and Kent Conrad, is above 60% for all three, but below 60% for the other two Republicans, Sens. Mike Enzi and Chuck Grassley. This continues to underline the key role that Snowe can play in the health care reform plan’s final structure.

Neither Grassley nor Enzi shares much in voting agreement with the Democrats in the “Gang”. They both have voting agreements of 35% or less with the three Democrats. The lowest voting agreement for both is with Sen. Bingaman (23.4% for Enzi, 25.8% for Grassley).

Recently, Democrats have focused on only attracting one or two Republicans, Snowe being the highest target, to vote for the bill rather than pursuing the strategy that Baucus sought with the “Gang of Six” talks. These voting agreement numbers show that, aside from Sen. Snowe, the “Gang of Six” is intensely polarized in their voting patterns. The likelihood of bipartisan compromise was unlikely from the start of this process.

The above graphic was created using the New York Times Congress API and based on Nodebox code from Juice Analytics.

We can probably deduce who some of those lobbyists are by viewing this graphic. Baucus has many former staffers working as lobbyists for the health industry. He also has two former health industry employees working on his committee staff. Baucus’ chief health aide Elizabeth Fowler is a former executive with Wellpoint, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies. Fowler is also the apparent author of Baucus’ health reform plan according to the properties of the .pdf file uploaded to his web site.

So, let me get this straight. A former lobbyist for a health insurance company writes a health reform plan, which is then leaked to lobbyists, some of whom were likely former Baucus staffers, and public disclosure is delayed by a couple of days — the plan was released to the media and lobbyists over the past few days but only posted to the Finance Committee web site today. To paraphrase the late, great Bill Hicks, it just doesn’t sound good when you walk it out.

It’s almost like they don’t want the public to really play a role here or know what’s going on. One can only hope that this won’t be the case with the actual legislation that Baucus’ committee comes up with.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Lincoln has received $325,350 in contributions from the health industry, as of June 30. The large amount in contributions underlies a constantly shifting position by the senator on health care reform.

One of Lincoln’s biggest contributors this cycle is the insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield. The company’s political action committee and employees have combined to give the senator $29,500 this year alone. Blue Cross Blue Shield and their parent company Wellpoint are vocal opponents of the inclusion of a public option plan in any health care reform bill. Blue Cross Blue Shield is the dominant insurer in Arkansas holding a 75 percent market share.

Blue Cross Blue Shield does not need to only rely on campaign contributions to reach Sen. Lincoln, as they retain Lincoln’s former top health care policy adviser as a lobbyist. Elizabeth Barnett worked for Lincoln from 2000 to 2007 before leaving to become the top Democratic lobbyist for Blue Cross Blue Shield. Earlier this year, Barnett left Blue Cross to work for Avenue Solutions, where she retains Blue Cross Blue Shield as a client. Avenue Solutions’ profile of Barnett notes that she “had primary responsibility for representing [Blue Cross Blue Shield] and its 39 member plans before the Senate Finance Committee, Senate Democratic Leadership, and other key Senate committees and offices.” Barnett also represents other health industry organizations including UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Bravo Health, Healthcare Leadership Council, Medco and the National Health Policy Group.

Barnett is not the only former Lincoln staffer working as a lobbyist for the health industry. Lincoln’s former chief of staff Kelly Bingel is a lobbyist specializing in health care at Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti Inc, the lobbying firm of Sen. Max Baucus’ former chief of staff David Castagnetti. Bingel represents a who’s who of the health care industry including America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and Pharmaceutical Researchers & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). AHIP and PhRMA have been largely supportive of health care reform this year. PhRMA, in particular, has supported the current legislation with positive advertising after receiving concessions from the White House and the Senate Finance Committee. Bingel also represents the Business Roundtable, a group that has voiced opposition to health care reform.

Throughout this year, Lincoln has benefited from countless fundraisers thrown by lobbyists. The Party Time database lists one fundraiser thrown by health care lobbyists for Lincoln. On July 24, Ernst & Young feted Lincoln with a fundraiser hosted by health care lobbyists Nick Giordano (formerly of Sen. Baucus’ staff), Dick Meltzer (since moved on to Speaker Pelosi’s staff), LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, Holly Bode, Francis Grab, Dave Koshgarian and Jeff Petrich. Contributions from this fundraiser will not be publicly available until the third quarter finance reports are filed.

update: post edited.