GOOD Magazine has a knack for taking political stories or data and turning them into to clever images. In this case, they’ve taken lobbying data from Open Secrets and turned it into something of a middle school bulletin board (this also may work as it’s own form of commentary in equating Congress with a middle school).

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The American News Project has a nice piece today on the revolving door problem in Congress, using as an example the recently announced retirement of defeated-in-the primaries Rep. Al Wynn.  There are literally thousands — if not tens of thousands –  of such stories buried here in the Center for Responsive Politics Revolving Door Database.

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The Center for Responsive Politics has a nice post that digs deeply into that treasure trove known as the Personal Financial Disclosure forms of members of Congress.

Forty-six husbands and wives of Congress members reported owning stock in 2006 in companies that have a vested interest in their spouses’ committees, worth a total of $27.3 million to $46.7 million, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has found. The list includes spouses who own stock in Lockheed Martin while the lawmaker sits on the House Armed Services Committee; or are invested in food giant SYSCO while the lawmaker is a member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry Committee; or own shares of Exxon Mobil while married to a member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee…

In 2006, the most recent year for which CRP has been able to analyze personal financial disclosure data, the spouses of Democratic lawmakers had more invested in companies related to their committees (worth at least $23.2 million) than the lawmakers themselves did (worth at least $5.5 million). The spouses of Republican lawmakers, by contrast, had less money invested in companies related to these committees (worth at least $4.1 million) than the lawmakers themselves (worth at least $39 million).

Overall, 304 congressional husbands and wives whose finances were reported on their spouses’ forms were worth between $698.8 million and $1.3 billion from their stocks, corporate bonds and other investments in 2006. (Assets and liabilities are disclosed in ranges on these forms, making it impossible to calculate net worth precisely.) The most popular spousal assets overall included General Electric, drugmaker Pfizer and Bank of America.

In at least 61 cases, the husbands and wives of Congress had investment portfolios worth significantly more than the lawmaker’s. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, for example, reported assets worth no more than $15,000, while her husband, Paul, an investor, had between $16.2 million and $57.8 million in assets. Spouses also bring with them their mortgages, school loans and other liabilities, however. For Paul Pelosi, this could mean up to $10.3 million in debt, more than any other lawmaker’s spouse.

Really interesting stuff.

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In Paul’s roundup this morning he mentions several of the reports that came from the release earlier this week of the PFDs  –  personal financial disclosure forms –  filed by House and Senate members that profile their personal financial interests — stocks, mutual funds, IRA assets and other holdings and liabilities.

Newspapers and other media outlets all across the country have dug into the reports and are highlighting nuggets they’ve found about the finances of their local congressional delegation. For instance, The Boston Globe found that “six of the 10 House members from Massachusetts are landlords who made thousands of dollars last year on rental properties.”  The Washington Post found a clue as to why former Rep. Al Wynn resigned his seat to take a position with a K Street lobbying firm whose “partners on average make slightly more than $1 million a year”…He needs the money.  And then there is Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who decided apparently that she does not need the money.  The Kansas City Star reports on her walking away from $1 million dollars, having past a deadline last week to pay off the loan she made to her 2004 gubernatorial campaign. As her report indicates, she is one of the more wealthy members of Congress, so much so that she won’t likely miss the fortune she’s walked away from.  And The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s Washington bureau chief, Stephen Koff, got especially creative in his review of the reports.  He was able to get independent professional financial advisers to look at and comment on the reports of each member of Northeast Ohio’s congressional delegation. The financial advisors have some interesting advice on what financial strategies the lawmakers have employed in managing their own money. Quite clever.

(more…)

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