The CBC: Big Pimpin’ In DC

The New York Times has come out with a scathing article about the financial dealings of the Congressional Black Caucus that no one can ignore.

The Caucus describes its goals as “positively influencing the course of events pertinent to African-Americans and others of similar experience and situation,” and “achieving greater equity for persons of African descent in the design and content of domestic and international programs and services.”

The CBC encapsulates these goals in the following priorities: Closing the achievement and opportunity gaps in education, assuring quality health care for every American, focusing on employment and economic security, ensuring justice for all, retirement security for all Americans, increasing welfare funds and increasing equity in foreign policy.

According to the Times, the CBC is rolling in the dough like no other entity like it.  While the CBC is bound to fund raising limits imposed by law, it works around the system meant to impose caps and keep law makers honest.

From the Times:

It has a traditional political fund-raising arm subject to federal rules. But it also has a network of nonprofit groups and charities that allow it to collect unlimited amounts of money from corporations and labor unions.

From 2004 to 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus’s political and charitable wings took in at least $55 million in corporate and union contributions, according to an analysis by The New York Times, an impressive amount even by the standards of a Washington awash in cash. Only $1 million of that went to the caucus’s political action committee; the rest poured into the largely unregulated nonprofit network.

The caucus says its nonprofit groups are intended to help disadvantaged African-Americans by providing scholarships and internships to students, researching policy and holding seminars on topics like healthy living.

In 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation spent more on the caterer for its signature legislative dinner and conference — nearly $700,000 for an event one organizer called “Hollywood on the Potomac” — than it gave out in scholarships, federal tax records show.

Ruh Roh.  Anyone who works in the non-profit sector can tell you this is a red flag.  If you’re spending more money to tell celebrate your good works- than what you spend on the actual good works- someone has their priorities out of order.  There isn’t supposed to be profit in not-for-profit work.  Lavish events often become an avenue to blur the line.

But maybe we’re still getting ahead of ourselves.  Just because they have expensive parties and questionable donors doesn’t mean CBC members are in bed with lobbyists or businesses that are detrimental to the health and well being of African Americans…right?

At the galas, lobbyists and executives who give to caucus charities get to mingle with lawmakers. They also get seats on committees the caucus has set up to help members of Congress decide what positions to take on the issues of the day. Indeed, the nonprofit groups and the political wing are so deeply connected it is sometimes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

…These include cigarette companies, Internet poker operators, beer brewers and the rent-to-own industry, which has become a particular focus of consumer advocates for its practice of charging high monthly fees for appliances, televisions and computers.

For instance, Representative Danny K. Davis, Democrat of Illinois, once backed legislation that would have severely curtailed the rent-to-own industry, criticized in urban districts like his on the West Side of Chicago. But Mr. Davis last year co-sponsored legislation supported by the stores after they led a well-financed campaign to sway the caucus, including a promise to provide computers to a jobs program in Chicago named for him. He denies any connection between the industry’s generosity and his shift.

Riiiight…

I wonder if they have any wax statues lyin’ around.

Read the article