Special Interest Groups

President-elect Barack Obama says he does not want to use special interest money to pay for inaugural events, but the lobbyists are coming anyway. The calendar is chock-full of parties and receptions, brunches and breakfasts -- not to mention lunches, dinners and prayer services. Many, and perhaps most, are designed to bring those who need influence into contact with those who wield it.

Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who has won praise from consumer groups for taking on credit card providers over predatory lending practices, has collected thousands of dollars in donations from people affiliated with the so-called payday loan industry. The lawmaker raised more than $44,000 from pawnshop owners and other businesses that provide high-interest loans, often to people with bad credit ratings, according to campaign finance reports. The amount, a fraction of the $1.

Even though he has come under investigation for his ties to a lobbyist whose clients have benefited from millions of dollars in congressional earmarks, Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) was among the top lawmakers securing money for special projects in this year's spending bills, a watchdog group's analysis has found. Lewis, the senior Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, secured $137 million in earmarks on his own or working with other lawmakers.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who runs one of the largest state governments in the country, approached the leader of another giant organization recently to ask for some financial aid. In a telephone call from his Capitol office, Schwarzenegger secured agreement from General Electric's chairman and chief executive, Jeffrey Immelt, that the Fortune 500 company would co-host and help pay for the Border Governors Conference this August at Universal Studios in Hollywood, which the corporation owns.

Every two years, a handful of California's Superior Court seats open up without the governor appointing new judges to fill them. Lawyers who are impatient with the appointment process, or don't believe they have a chance with the governor, or tried it and failed, take the other available course -- they ask voters to elect them to the bench. But voters struggle with a dearth of information about the candidates.

Three years ago, campaign finance experts watched with alarm as one-fifth of the money raised on behalf of Los Angeles mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa came from "independent expenditures," special interests with no limits on how much they could collect and spend. The numbers were even more jaw-dropping for Villaraigosa's opponent, then-Mayor James K. Hahn. Although he lost his bid for a second term, Hahn saw one-third of his financial backing, or $2 million, come from such groups.

For years, progressive groups and their causes have been in the political wilderness. Now, with Barack Obama preparing to take the White House and Democrats tightening their hold on Congress, the party's liberal constituencies can see their way to a promised land. Their vision includes federal laws banning job discrimination against gays; expanded hate-crime laws; public land protections from logging and oil drilling; and easier union organizing of workers.

The war spending bill passed by the House on Friday is officially called the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Health and Iraq Accountability Act. But Republicans would say that it could also be called the Spinach Growers, Peanut Storage and Dairy Farmers Rescue Act. President Bush asked for $103 billion for expenses related to fighting the war on terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. He got that and more: not only a series of deadlines for withdrawing U.S.

In a direct challenge to Congress and the way it does business, the White House on Wednesday unveiled an online list of all the pet spending projects lawmakers tucked in the federal budget for the 2004-05 fiscal year.

Tensions between Republicans and Democrats over the controversial practice of earmarking funds for pet projects sparked a finger-pointing clash on the House floor earlier this month and an unusual attempt Tuesday to reprimand a powerful -- and sometimes volatile -- Democratic congressman. The conflict arises from the switch in control of Congress. In the fall campaign, Democrats used public distaste with earmarks to highlight Republican scandals and criticize a GOP "culture of corruption."