Since Jeff had already blogged about Charlie Dent, who is also my congressman, I decided to look into Congressman Cartwright, who is just about as close as it gets. If you look at a detailed district map of Pennsylvania, you can see that the 17th district slices into an area that is mostly the 15th district, and that slice is very close to where I actually live. Govtrack.us places Cartwright as fairly liberal in the voting track, as he is much further left on the spectrum than many of his Democratic colleagues in Congress.
Congressman Cartwright has only been serving as a congressman since 2013, so there isn't a ton of information regarding his voting record or his campaign contributors, but Open Secrets shows that his top 5 contributors since being elected and during his campaigns have been the Boeing Corporation, with $15,000, Levin, Fishbein et al, with $10,798, Border Health with $10,000, the Law Office of Phil Walsh with $8,100, and Fay Kaplan Law, with $6,400. Overall, many of his contributions came from individuals, and not from corporations (With the exception of Boeing, or Border Health, and others). A total of $85,648 came from Lawyers or Law Firms' individual contributions, and Open Secrets also revealed that Cartwright raised a significant amount less for his campaign than the average of most Congress members. Perhaps Cartwright is a prime example of what many Americans like to see in Congress, someone who doesn't vote based on his contributors, but based on the beliefs he has discussed with his constituents.
Looking into Cartwright's voting record, You can see that he is able to vote on key acts and issues without being pressed by lobbying groups. Acts such as H.R. 3720 or H.R. 1904 have nothing to do with any of his contributing parties, and it is clear Cartwright chose to sponsor them based on his own political beliefs, and NOT based on the idea that he may gain or lose campaign funds based on his votes. I had to dig deeper though to see if there was any correlation behind his votes and his contributions from a corporation such as Boeing, or such as the Border Health PAC. On Border Health's Website, it claims they support any candidate who wishes to further "the mission, goals, and objectives of the medical health profession." According to Votesmart, Cartwright voted against almost any sort of provisional act against the Affordable Care Act since his time in office, but cosponsored and voted for acts such as the Kids First Research Act of 2013, which would require " the Director of the National Institute of Health to allocate funds from the 10-Year Pediatric Research Initiative Fund to national research institutes and centers that make grants for pediatric research." An act such as that could certainly be seen as something that would further the mission, goals, or objectives of the medical health profession. When it comes to the Boeing Corporation, there hasn't been a lot of aviation related acts that Cartwright has been asked to vote on, but he was one of the Representatives that signed a letter to President Obama regarding a lawsuit against United Airways and American Airlines (who certainly have a lot of correlation with the Boeing Corporation) which you can read here . The letter urges the administration not to pursue the lawsuit, as it could hurt the economy and jobs of the companies and it's workers (who again, would have some level of accordance with the Boeing Corporation, considering almost any plane these airlines use is most likely manufactured by Boeing.)
Cartwright is tricky to evaluate based on votes, and whether or not his contributions had anything to do with it. His biggest contribution of $15,000 came from Boeing, so it is very possible that Cartwright supported a letter to urge the administration not to pursue a lawsuit against two companies that use Boeing products for that very reason. However, seeing as though most of Cartwright's contributions are small and come from individual based donations, I don't think it would be fair to claim that almost any of Cartwright's votes were based on his contributions. Border Health very well may have made their contribution to Cartwright as a result of his advocation of the progress of the medical field, and it may not have been something that Cartwright did because he was worried about not getting more money from them. Cartwright was obviously elected without the large amount of money that some congress members receive from lobbying groups and corporations, so perhaps he is a key example of how pandering to lobby groups and corporations may not be the best, or right way to go about voting, and advocating for constituents.
https://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00034128&cycle=2016#cont
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/matthew_cartwright/412571
http://votesmart.org/bill/17421/46368/136236/matt-cartwright-voted-yea-passage-hr-2019-kids-first-research-act-of-2013#46368
1 comment:
First, I love the punny title of this post. More importantly, your analysis of Cartwright's funding and voting is very interesting. I wonder if his relative newcomer status in the House affects his fundraising in a way that makes it different from members who have been in office longer. Perhaps he will receive more support from businesses, and thus more pressure to vote in a certain way on particular issues, as he spends more time in Congress. Or, perhaps, his district and ideology impact his lack of corporation-backed funding. You describe him as "much further left" than other nearby Democrats, which could lead to him being less dependent on businesses and corporations to finance his campagin, as often such entities are pro-GOP. Additionally, it is possible that PA-17, which contains a lot of rural area, has less going for it in the way of big industries. I am thinking of this in relation to PA-15, which includes Allentown and much of Bethlehem, housing the hubs of numerous healthcare and energy businesses. Charlie Dent, as a Republican and Representative of this industry-heavy district, seems to vote in a way that helps out his corporate sponsors (see my post from this week); on the flipside, as you note, Cartwright does not seem to face such pressure, so perhaps ideology/party and location have some impact.
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