Cash4Votes: Political donations v. NDAA roll call
Speaking Security Newsletter | Note n°230 | 21 December 2023
*As I mentioned last week, I’m looking to rebrand. Thanks to all those who submitted potential names for this newsletter so far (except for the person who suggested “Geoff”). Keep ‘em coming.
Situation
The House passed the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Friday, authorizing $886 billion in military spending for FY2024.1 As an authorization (policy) bill, it doesn’t fund the Pentagon like appropriations (spending) bills do, but the NDAA says which military programs can receive funding and how much. As far as the topline number goes, it looks like Congress plans on fully funding the thing.
Cash4Votes
For Responsible Statecraft, I wrote an article discussing what I found when I compared how members of the House and Senate voted on the NDAA (yes or no) with how much money each one had accepted from military contractors (in political donations) before voting on the bill. The methodology behind this study is simple.2
Please resist the urge to say “duh” after I reveal that there was a stark correlation between campaign cash and NDAA votes. For practical purposes, everyone knows money in politics is a problem. But injecting specific numbers into the “buying influence” trope makes it seem less cliché and more real and urgent to people. Maybe you’ve noticed the same thing. And if there’s anyone with the right to say duh it’s me — I’ve now done this same study for three straight years.
On average, House members who supported authorizing $886 billion for the Pentagon took four times more money from Pentagon contractors than members who opposed the NDAA. In the Senate, the correlation was slightly more pronounced: Senators who voted for the bill received five times more arms industry cash than the ones who voted against it.
The RS piece breaks it down by party and names the top recipients of arms industry contributions, too. Read the rest here.
^Alt text for screen readers: Lawmakers who voted for $886 billion Pentagon bill got four times more money from Pentagon contractors. This chart has two orange columns that represent arms industry political donations from January to November 2023. The taller one on the left shows $24,000, which is the average amount accepted by members who voted yes on the 2024 NDAA. The one on the right shows $5,000, which is the average amount accepted by members who voted no on the 2024 NDAA. Data comes from the House roll call votes on H.R. 2670 and Open Secrets. More at responsible statecraft dot org. Chart by Stephen Semler.
^Alt text for screen readers: Senators who supported $886 billion Pentagon bill got five times more cash from Pentagon contractors. This chart has two purple columns that represent arms industry political donations from January 2019 to November 2023. The taller one on the left shows $150,000, which is the average amount accepted by senators who voted yes on the 2024 NDAA. The one on the right shows $28,000, which is the average amount accepted by senators who voted no on the 2024 NDAA. Data comes from the Senate roll call votes on H.R. 2670 and Open Secrets. More at responsible statecraft dot org. Chart by Stephen Semler.
-Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org). Follow me on Bluesky.
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Any money for the Pentagon in the pending foreign aid will be added on top of that total.
And a giant pain in the ass. Because the data’s presented all neat and tidy, I think most people are under the impression that I have some quick-and-easy automated way to do this comparison. Wrong. This is all done manually. It’s a mechanical turk situation: A crisp, clean, machined appearance belies an abundance of (low-cost) manual labor that actually goes into it. Please pity me.