Modern School: Citizen’s United Leads to Bumper Crop of Lobbying by Corporations and Unions

Modern School: Citizen’s United Leads to Bumper Crop of Lobbying by Corporations and Unions:

Citizen’s United Leads to Bumper Crop of Lobbying by Corporations and Unions

by Michael Dunn

Washington Lobbyist (Image from Flickr, by DonkeyHotey)

Over the past year, corporations and unions spent a record $286.6 million to influence politics in California, according to the L.A. Times—a 6.8% increase over the previous year. (You can see the Top 10 spenders on state lobbying here).

The Times, like other media and pundits, has tried to equate union lobbying with that of corporations, suggesting, for example, that campaign contributions won California teachers an important victory with a bill restricting the issuance of pink slips. Yet the California Teachers Association (CTA), which spent $6.5 million, has so far failed to win (or even ask for) anything