IBM Workers And Cancer

    This is a scary report. Maybe I lasered in on it because my late father worked for IBM years ago. This comes to us from the hardworking folks at Alliance@IBM CWA Local 1701.

A study by Dr. Richard Clapp an epidemiologist at Boston University School of Public health, and published in Environmental Health Journal has raised alarms with IBM employees and retirees.

The study, called “Mortality among US employees of a large computer company: 1969-2001”, specifically details cancers and mortality rates among IBM employees.  The study confirmed that overall and cancer related mortality is considerably higher among workers engaged in manufacturing computers and component parts when compared with the general population.

While this was generally known, this study includes data from the largest database so far—IBM’s own “Corporate Mortality File”. This data comes from 31,941 records about the deaths of people who had worked at IBM’s plants for at least 5 years.

Earl Mongeon, Alliance@IBM Vice President and a manufacturing worker at the IBM Burlington Vermont site, said “This study confirms to those of us working in IBM manufacturing processes that the rumors and talk about high levels of cancers and other health problems from working with toxic substances wasn’t just idle shop floor talk.”

The Alliance@IBM, the advocate group for IBM employees, is calling on IBM and Local, State and Federal officials to take the following actions in response to this study:

* Health surveillance of all who worked at IBM by the company and appropriate Health agencies.
* Increase the use of non-toxic substances in all processes and reduce the use of harmful substances.    
* Employee exposure levels of toxic substances within IBM facilities be reduced significantly.    
* States and municipalities with computer manufacturing plants to compile cancer maps of areas around the facilities and areas where employees are likely to reside.  Results to be made public.    
* The setting up of a fund to help alleviate the medical costs of affected IBM employees and their families.

Winning--And Then Losing

    I’m dedicated to winning back Congress for the Democrats. So, dedicated that I just dragged another team of former campaign volunteers to spend another weekend day canvassing for John Hall in the 19th New York Congressional district—he wouldn’t even be my representative but he could win a seat from a Bush Republican. BUT…

    I hate to rain on our parade but I’m going to come back to the subject that must be repeated: the Democratic Party is getting the wrong message—again. If we don’t hear the cry of the people—people who I encountered while canvassing and the larger echo out there—we will end up in the minority again, or, at least, have very little ability to move the country towards a sane and sustainable future.

    And the mainstream media is quickly rising to the task. Today, The New York Times informs us that, if the Democrats retake the House, it will because of anti-abortion, anti-gun control candidates who “are far out of step with the prevailing views of the Democrats who control the party.” And the election of more “moderates” will stop Democrats from the “drift back in their liberal identity.” All this will stop the Democrats from “running over the left cliff,” says Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a co-chairperson of the self-described “centrist” New Democratic Coalition. This misses the point. Across the party, no matter ideology, there is a far bigger danger than the divergence on social issues.

    I’ve pointed out recently here, here and here how our party is already being manacled by the very powerful interests that are hurting our country. Our party leadership is already pledging that there won’t be any “business bashing” in a Democratic majority. Now, this is not new—I and others have written that the system has been broken for many years because both parties belly up to the corporate money machine (and my friends in the labor movement support this foolish political system…but that’s a topic for another time). It’s just being taken to a new level, at the very time that it seems clear to me that people are not going to support a party that simply replaces one machine sucking up to corporate power with another machine gobbling up corporate cash.

    On this issue, the political spectrum of “liberal,” “moderate,” or “conservative” or “centrist” versus the rest is entirely irrelevant. If you are a voter in New York, Missouri or North Carolina, you are more likely than not to be deeply in debt, without proper health care, facing stagnating wage levels and living in a community straining to provide basic services because of a lack of resources—all of which you can ascribe directly to a corrupt political system that is handing over democratic decision-making to the big corporate interests who are bankrolling the two parties.

    This isn’t even smart politics. I recently described how 22 Democrats might end up costing us the House because, by voting for the so-called “free trade” agreement with Oman, they gave endangered Republicans in marginal districts a chance to vote against the agreement, a vote that could have been used by Democratic challengers to hammer them as enabling multi-national corporations to ship good-paying jobs abroad. So, if Republicans like Charlie Taylor, Robin Hayes, and Jim Gerlach squeak by, you can thank a Democratic leadership that still quavers when the pollsters and inside-the-Beltway pundits utter the magic word “pro-business centrist.”

    Let me quote one of my favorite clear thinkers, Molly Ivins: “The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush’s tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes. The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do ‘whatever it takes’ to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?”

     Some would argue that we should all just keep quiet and wait to have this fight until after the election. With all respect, the way to win back Congress—and be able to govern—is to make sure that we stand for the interests of the people, not the very corporate interests who are trying to hold on to their power, no matter who voters choose on November 7th.

Child Labor in Africa

    This piece just broke my heart.

Africa’s World of Forced Labor, in a 6-Year-Old’s Eyes By SHARON LaFRANIERE
KETE KRACHI, Ghana —
Just before 5 a.m., with the sky still dark over Lake Volta, Mark Kwadwo was rousted from his spot on the damp dirt floor. It was time for work.

Shivering in the predawn chill, he helped paddle a canoe a mile out from shore. For five more hours, as his coworkers yanked up a fishing net, inch by inch, Mark bailed water to keep the canoe from swamping.

He last ate the day before. His broken wooden paddle was so heavy he could barely lift it. But he raptly followed each command from Kwadwo Takyi, the powerfully built 31-year-old in the back of the canoe who freely deals out beatings.

“I don’t like it here,” he whispered, out of Mr. Takyi’s earshot.

Mark Kwadwo is 6 years old. About 30 pounds, dressed in a pair of blue and red underpants and a Little Mermaid T-shirt, he looks more like an oversized toddler than a boat hand. He is too little to understand why he has wound up in this fishing village, a two-day trek from his home.

But the three older boys who work with him know why. Like Mark, they are indentured servants, leased by their parents to Mr. Takyi for as little as $20 a year.

Until their servitude ends in three or four years, they are as trapped as the fish in their nets, forced to work up to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, in a trade that even adult fishermen here call punishing and, at times, dangerous.

Mr. Takyi’s boys — conscripts in a miniature labor camp, deprived of schooling, basic necessities and freedom — are part of a vast traffic in children that supports West and Central African fisheries, quarries, cocoa and rice plantations and street markets. The girls are domestic servants, bread bakers, prostitutes. The boys are field workers, cart pushers, scavengers in abandoned gem and gold mines.

By no means is the child trafficking trade uniquely African. Children are forced to race camels in the Middle East, weave carpets in India and fill brothels all over the developing world.

The International Labor Organization, a United Nations agency, estimates that 1.2 million are sold into servitude every year in an illicit trade that generates as much as $10 billion annually.

Studies show they are most vulnerable in Asia, Latin America and Africa. ppp Africa’s children, the world’s poorest, account for roughly one-sixth of the trade, according to the labor organization. Data is notoriously scarce, but it suggests victimization of African children on a huge scale.

    After you read the rest of this story, you wonder what madness we live in--a global system that allows this to happen.

The Cozying Up Continues

    It's considered heresy right now to say anything about problems inside "the family"--in this case, those of us who are still Democrats (or recovering Democrats). For the past few weeks, I've pointed out, on this blog and other places, the worrisome--and, let's be honest, entirely predictable--expanding ties between corporate America and the Democratic Party.

    Actually, it's been pretty mainstream publications that have pointed this out, from The Hotline to Business Week. I don't think there needs to be a contradiction between working to dethrone the Repugs (and yours truly has been out walking the streets for a number of candidates, especially John Hall in the 19th Congressional district in NY) and making sure that we send a very strong signal that there needs to be a "not for sale" sign on the Democratic Party. Yes, I know--the party is already deeply entrenched in the corporate money game. Even more reason to sound the alert.

    The New York Times today adds more reasons to be vigilant and loud. In a lead article on the front-page, the paper of record reports: Democrats Get Late Donations From Business. Here is the upshot:

Corporate America is already thinking beyond Election Day, increasing its share of last-minute donations to Democratic candidates and quietly devising strategies for how to work with Democrats if they win control of Congress.

The shift in political giving, for the first 18 days of October, has not been this pronounced in the final stages of a campaign since 1994, when Republicans swept control of the House for the first time in four decades.

Though Democratic control of either chamber of Congress is far from certain, the prospect of a power shift is leading interest groups to begin rethinking well-established relationships, with business lobbyists going as far as finding potential Democratic allies in the freshman class — even if they are still trying to defeat them on the campaign trail — and preparing to extend an olive branch the morning after the election.

Lobbyists, some of whom had fallen out of the habit of attending Democratic events, are even talking about making their way to the Sonnenalp Resort in Vail, Colo., where Representative Nancy Pelosi of California is holding a Speaker’s Club ski getaway on Jan. 3. It is an annual affair, but the gathering’s title could be especially apt for Ms. Pelosi, the House minority leader, who will be on hand to accept $15,000 checks, and could, if everything breaks her way, become the first woman to be House speaker.

“Attendance will be high,” said Steve Elmendorf, a former Democratic Congressional aide who has a long list of business lobbying clients. “All Democratic events will see a big increase next year, no question.”

While business groups contained their Democratic contributions to only a handful of candidates throughout the year, a shifting political climate and an expanding field of competitive Congressional races has drawn increased donations from corporate political action committees.

    This is why the majority of people think the political system is broken. No matter who runs the government, the corruption of corporate money taints both parties. Assuming the Democrats win, if the party is unwilling to break with the corporate pay-to-play system, the party's majority won't last.

Houston Janitors Walking The Talk

    So, maybe it's because I was born in Houston that I have a particular interest in the janitors who are trying to kick some serious ass down in Texas. It's the typical story: poor people working their tails off for $20 a day. Last December, more than five thousand janitors in Houston won the right to form a union. Since then, it's been a typical struggle to get a contract: they’ve gone to the bargaining table with the five largest cleaning companies for more hours, health care and better wages--and, yet, there is still no contract. They've been threatened and attacked. So, they finally walked out.

    The union is featuring a number of workers' stories, including that of Ercilia Sandoval who has two daughters and makes about $5.25 an hour. She was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year. The cancer is now in the advanced stages. Ercilia has no health insurance and her employer refuses to offer it to her and the other janitors. There's a video here about her story.

    What particularly caught my eye is the attempt to pressure huge corporations who use the buildings that are cleaned by the janitors. In particular, the campaign is focused on Chevron, which owns buildings or are tenants of buildings where the janitors clean; the company, according to the union, controls more real estate in Houston than any other company.  There is a fascinating chart on what it would cost to treat the workers well compared to the profits of Chevron (for example, it would take Chevron just one second to make 70 times more than the entire annual earnings of all 5,300 Houston janitors).

    Yesterday, Exxon/Mobil reported that it earned $10.5 billion in profits last quarter--the second-highest quarterly profit EVER for a publicly-traded company. I'm holding my breathe today to see what Chevron rings up in profits. I know there are some people who are trying to boycott Citgo to protest the Venezuelan company's home boy 'Hugo Chavez. Maybe we should not buy Chevron products until it steps up in Houston?

UPDATE: This in from the Associated Press:

SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) -- Chevron Corp.'s quarterly profit surpassed $5 billion for the first time in its 127-year history, driven by higher oil prices and more productive refineries.

The results, released early Friday, marked the third time in the past year that Chevron's quarterly earnings have hit a new high. The third-quarter earnings were also far above analyst estimates, lifting Chevron shares by 45 cents to $67.95 during early trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

 

How Democrats Help Republicans

    Follow me here on a bit of a twisting tale which leads to the following conclusion, albeit, arguable: if the Democrats don't take back the House and say miss by a seat or two, they can blame themselves for not holding the line against so-called "free trade." Here's how I see it.

    In today's New York Times, there is a piece entitled, "In Old Textile District, the Free-Trade Issue Dominates." The piece profiles the race between Republican incumbent Robin Hayes and Democratic challenger Larry Kissell:

It has been three years since the old brick textile mill here shut down, throwing 4,800 people out of work. Yet the mill, which once made pillowcases and closed in part because of competition from imports, casts a shadow over the heated race for Congress in this once booming industrial enclave of North Carolina.

As if by chance, though probably not, both candidates are linked to the old mill. Charles Cannon, legendary founder of the Cannon textile empire and grandfather of Representative Robin Hayes, the Republican incumbent, built it in the 1920’s, and Mr. Hayes worked summers there as a youth.

Larry Kissell, his Democratic opponent, worked there for 27 years before becoming a high school teacher in 2001, when, he says, he saw “the handwriting on the wall” about its future. Now his campaign is organized around the threat of foreign competition and Mr. Hayes’s tiebreaking vote last year for a trade accord with Central America.

“The No. 1 issue voters care about this year is jobs,” Mr. Kissell said Monday as he campaigned door to door in a neighborhood near the rubble-strewn field where the Kannapolis mill once stood. “We have lost 10,000 jobs in the textile industry here in the last several years. Free trade has not been good for this district.”

By most accounts, Mr. Kissell has an uphill battle in trying to unseat Mr. Hayes, who has withstood challenges on the trade issue in the past. In 2001, he was put on the defensive for casting another tiebreaking vote for a trade measure, after a last-minute reversal accompanied by his weeping on the House floor.

But Mr. Kissell is one of a dozen Democratic candidates for the House, and a few for the Senate, who are making at least some headway in tapping voter anxiety about trade.

    That's all fine and good. But, what the reporter fails to do in this piece is describe how Hayes got a pass during the more recent vote on the Oman Free Trade Agreement (OFTA). Here's how our friends from Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch described the situation, comparing the vote on OFTA to the vote on CAFTA. :

Yet, remarkably, 11 Democrats who opposed CAFTA flipped to support OFTA. Interestingly, most of these representatives stood by the sidelines as the vote clock ran out and only voted “yea” after the nearly party-line GOP vote in favor of OFTA – with 13 GOP CAFTA opponents flipping to support OFTA – put the agreement over the top. The Democrats’ votes in favor of the agreement allowed 13 GOP such as, Mike Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.), Charlie Taylor (R-N.C.)1 and Robin Hayes (R-N.C.), who had been forced by their leadership to walk the plank to provide CAFTA’s one-vote margin – many now facing serious CAFTA-backlash in their election bids – to vote “no” on the less important OFTA.

    By letting 22 Democrats vote "yes" on OFTA, the Democratic leadership let Hayes get a pass and vote "no" on OFTA. Forcing these Republicans to vote "yes" on OFTA would have given Democratic challengers another club to hammer the Republican incumbents--and Gerlach and Fitzpatrick are also in very tight races. You may say that's a small thing but, in very close races, that could matter a whole lot, particularly in terms of intensity from union voters who may be on the fence.

Corruption Comes in Many Forms

    Ah, I love the smell of the influence money has on elections...regardless of party. Over in Pennsylvania, the truly repugnant Rick Santorum is trailing in his race for re-election--and, while Democract Bob Casey gives new meaning to unimpressive/unimaginative, it will be a great election night to watch Santorum's concession speech. BUT, the drug companies aren't giving up yet, as The Wall Street Journal reports in its story today entitled, "Fearing a Democratic Victory, Drug Makers Fund Key Races." Here's a bit from the subscription only story:

HERSHEY, Pa. -- Few businesses have more at stake in next month's congressional elections than pharmaceutical makers. Assailed by Democrats, drug companies are pouring millions of dollars into close races, giving some Republicans a financial edge. In the process, the industry is becoming not just a campaign backer, but also a campaign issue.

Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum is a big beneficiary of the industry's push. He was a leading proponent of the 2003 law that gave seniors Medicare coverage for prescription drugs, and helped shape the law in ways that benefited the industry. Battling to keep his seat in a crucial Senate race, Mr. Santorum's campaign has received almost $500,000 from pharmaceutical interests and their employees, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group. The industry has also helped fund television advertisements and aided get-out-the-vote efforts.

Mr. Santorum's opponent, state treasurer Bob Casey Jr., regularly attacks the Medicare program as "a giveaway to Big Pharma," in part because it bars the government from negotiating prices. He and many fellow Democrats say they will overhaul the benefit if they win control of Congress on Nov. 7. Not surprisingly, Mr. Casey counts just $11,850 in contributions from pharmaceutical interests.

Companies and business groups have long thrown money at candidates to further their interests. But with a Democratic victory increasingly likely, few recent elections have been so critical, particularly for the drug industry. On the campaign trail, Democrats frequently lump "Big Pharma" with "Big Oil" in attacking Republican ties to industry. Within the first 100 hours of taking over the House, promises House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrats will rewrite the prescription-drug benefit to take away most of the advantages it handed to pharmaceutical companies.

    On the Democratic side, The New York Times, perhaps following the L.A. Times story from yesterday, has its own take on the troubles of Democrat "Dollar Bill" Jefferson. I just find it truly remarkable that people want to pretend like having stashed $90,000 in your freezer isn't cause for a little bit of concern:

Angrily dismissing the cash in the freezer, a woman at the Guste Home housing project said, “If I want to carry them in a sock, that’s my business.”

Helen Lang, an activist who introduced Mr. Jefferson to a friendly audience at the project, said: “Let’s not get bogged down in all this foolishness. I’ve been bumping in politics a long time. He’s not one who’s abused us.”

    Well, that "foolishness" may strike others as a bit suspicious. But, whatever--Jefferson will lose the run-off that he is almost certain to find himself in after Nov. 7th.

 

It's Official: Dollar Bill Will Lose

    I'm betting that "Dollar Bill" Jefferson will lose his seat in Congress--not on November 7th but in the run-off that he is almost certain to find himself in. He's got 12 challengers running against him for his congressional seat in Louisiana. If no one gets a majority, under state law, there is a run-off on Dec. 9th.

    As readers know, we've been following "Dollar Bill" for a long time, even since he became one of the CAFTA 15. Unfortunately, it's probably not going to be his CAFTA vote that sends him into retirement but the $90,000 he had stashed in his freezer as part of an alleged corruption scheme involving some pretty unsavory business deals.

    As The Los Angeles Times reports today, "Dollar Bill" is in trouble. He's more than likely to be forced into a run-off against Karen Carter, a state representative, and that's a race he seems likely to lose:

The eight-term congressman's campaign outings are punctuated with expressions like these, which he calls "uplift" after a year that found him surrounded by scandal and ousted from the Ways and Means Committee. The FBI raided his home and office, and said it had a videotape of him taking a $100,000 bribe and that it had found $90,000 wrapped in foil in the freezer of his Washington home.

Jefferson has been implicated in a developing federal probe — the FBI has accused him of offering to bribe a Nigerian official and of accepting kickbacks to help a U.S. telecommunications company land deals in Africa.

    There's no question that Jefferson still has supporters. But, the fact that he has to broadcast a t.v. ad claiming that he has never been charged with a crime does not bode well for him:

Although many of Jefferson's supporters say he has never let them down, others say they won't vote for him this time around.

"I think this is yet another example of a politician betraying the trust," said photographer David G. Spielman, 56, who lives in the Uptown neighborhood where Jefferson also has a home. He has voted for the congressman but said he would "absolutely not" cast a ballot for him Nov. 7. "We need new blood, Spielman said. "We need somebody with a clean set of hands."

    I'm not sold on Carter, frankly. But, it's pretty clear that she has tapped into a strong sentiment that, while Jefferson is innocent until proven guilty, too many people will find the unexplained 90 grand in a freezer a bit much to forget.

 

Stop Sign for The Beast

    The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that the Beast from Bentonville (aka Wal-Mart) is running into stiff opposition to its attempt to get into the banking business. The article (subscription required) describes a potent anti-Wal-Mart coalition that has risen up against the proposal. An excerpt:

When Wal-Mart Stores Inc. applied 15 months ago to get a banking license, it looked like a slam dunk.

The retailing giant applied for an industrial-bank charter in Utah -- the same type of permit the state had already given to many companies including Volkswagen AG, Pitney Bowes Inc. and even another big retailer, Target Corp. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which insures deposits at banks, had blessed similar applications with nary a protest letter. To allay fears that it would compete with small banks, Wal-Mart promised not to open retail branches, saying it would use its bank to process card transactions.

Today, Wal-Mart's banking bid is on life support. The FDIC in July issued an unprecedented six-month moratorium on all applications for these specialized banks, freezing Wal-Mart's effort. Utah, which also must approve the application, has stayed mum. Powerful members of Congress are lining up to pass laws that would block Wal-Mart, or any nonfinancial company, from getting into the U.S. banking business.

That's bad news for the world's biggest retailer, which is already facing slowing growth in the U.S. and has stumbled in several overseas forays. It also affects 11 other companies that have applied for the type of permit Wal-Mart is seeking, including Home Depot Inc., DaimlerChrysler AG and Ford Motor Credit, part of Ford Motor Co.

Wal-Mart's effort to open a bank has galvanized a broad coalition of opponents: large banks, small banks, the Federal Reserve, unions, grocers, real-estate agents and congressmen of both parties. Some in the coalition are mainly interested in dealing a blow to Wal-Mart. Others are worried about the trend of allowing commercial companies into banking, which they fear could undermine the soundness of the financial system. That argument has been around for years, but it generated little political heat until Wal-Mart came along -- illustrating the power of the company's name to transform stalemated policy debates.

    Some days to bring good news!

We Win...But Who Has Access?

    It's ironic, to say the least, that the polls show that the majority of the people believe that the political system is broken (according to a new CNN poll) and the polls also show the Democrats on the verge of taking over the House BUT, BUT, BUT, read this from The Hotline:

K Street Veering Left

For all the Republican effort in the last decade to append Washington's corporate lobbying community to the GOP coalition, K Street's main project, as it were, is, was, and always will be to deliver for clients and companies. To ensure favorable legislation -- or to block unhelpful measures -- these lobbyists need to be able to access the influential. That is done, among other ways, through campaign contributions. While the business community is more inclined to support Republicans on both philosophical and personal grounds, their professional motivation trumps all.

This is why, as a review of their latest campaign finance filings reveals, House Min Leader Nancy Pelosi and Min Whip Steny Hoyer will both break their all-time fundraising records this cycle, and will do so thanks in no small part to PAC contributions. Both Pelosi and Hoyer have already raised more PAC dollars through the end of September than they did for the entire campaign in 2004, when both held the same leadership positions they do now.

According to PoliticalMoneyLine, nearly $940K of Pelosi's $1.46M raised so far this cycle comes from PAC contributions. Of the $940K, over half comes from business interests or law firms and lobbying shops. While a third is from organized labor, Pelosi's corporate contributions have spiked compared to 2004. Just in the third quarter of this year, her donors included such GOP-friendly groups as the American Bankers Assoc, the American Hospital Assoc, Credit Suisse, the Financial Services Roundtable, the Mortgage Bankers Assoc, Honeywell Corp, Accenture, Genworth, Lockheed Martin and even the Nat'l Beer Wholesalers.

Some of these heavyweights gave to Pelosi in 2004, but with a full month of contributions yet accounted for, many have already exceeded their past donations. The Bankers gave Pelosi $6K in '04; they've already given $7.5K. The Financial Services Roundtable? They donated $2K for the whole '04 cycle, but had given $5K through last month. The Mortgage Bankers offered a token $1K in January of 2003. Last month, they maxed out to $10K. And how about the Beer Wholesalers, perennially one of the most loyal GOP allies? Maxed out to Pelosi -- in July.

Hoyer, the chief K St liaision for House Democrats, has already raised nearly $2.1M so far this cycle, the most ever in his 24 years in Congress. Of that, almost $1.5M comes from PACs. Though widely viewed as more friendly to business interests than his rival from California, Hoyer has also has seen his corporate contributions soar from Republican-leaning sources. The National Retail Federation, Capital One, Sallie Mae, and Occidental Petroleum have all stepped up their giving from 2004 to the man who could be the next Maj Leader of the House.

In short, bets are being hedged. Groups that could be impacted by the Democrats' top priorities in January want to be sure they can get their calls returned. Whether it be the minimum wage (the Retail Federation), student loan interest rates (Sallie Mae) or lobbying reform (all of the above), Pelosi has made clear that her caucus would waste no time pushing through their agenda. And when that happens, these interests want to have the chance to make their case to somebody in leadership.

Asked about the influx of K St dollars to the would-be leaders of a Democratic-controlled House, Pelosi spokesman Brendan Daly said it indicated "support for our agenda and the political reality that we have a chance to win." Pointing to their "6 for '06" plan released before the summer recess, Daly said such donors "understand our agenda" and that is the agenda they can expect should Democrats take the majority.