STATE OF AFFAIRS: Opioid Lobby Threw Out Cash To Presidential Campaigns
(January 5, 2017) – Over a year ago, Vertava Health took to the streets to bring you the most up-to-the-minute, detailed accounts of our nation’s drug epidemic state by state. We spoke with the nation’s top leaders in addiction, recovery, law enforcement and state government to keep readers informed on each state’s progress in battling an epidemic that is killing over 129 people a day in the United States.
A recent report by The Associated Press and the Center for Public Integrity found opioid proponents to be a big part of American politics, with a scathing amount of donations from groups that comprise the Pain Care Forum – made up of pharmaceutical companies and their alleged allies. This week, while sifting through data recovered from these news agencies and cross-referenced with ethics watchdogs Followthemoney.org, we discovered the opioid lobby spent a surprising amount of money not just on Congressional campaigns, but they also had an interest in contributing to Presidential races.
The investigation comes as the number of overdose deaths from prescription painkillers has soared, claiming the lives of 165,000 people in the U.S. since 2000. Reports analyzed campaign finance and lobbying data from 2006-2015, reviewed hundreds of documents and conducted more than 150 interviews. The AP and Center for Public Integrity found that drugmakers and allied groups employed an annual average of 1350 lobbyists in state capitals around the country and contributed to a total of 7,100 candidates for state-level office.
Drugmakers and their allies spent more than $880 million on campaign contributions and lobbying over the last decade nationwide as they worked to influence state and federal policies. The groups have an array of political interests that include opioid advocacy, and their spending was 8 times that of the gun lobby during the same period. By comparison, groups advocating for limits on opioid prescribing only spent about $4 million.
Members of the Pain Care Forum contributed to more than 8,500 different candidates for state and federal office from 2006-2015, with contributions to an average of more than 3,300 candidates per even-year election cycle. From 2013-2015, more than 800 state bills about opioids were introduced across the country, according to Quorum, a legislative tracking service. Of those bills, at least 207 were approved.
From 2006-2014, more than 356,000 people died of drug overdoses in the U.S. Prescription painkillers and heroin account for the majority of the deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of overdoses increased by 37% in that period, with more than 47,000 people dying of overdoses in 2014. In 2015, more than 227 million opioid prescriptions were written, enough to provide a prescription to 9 out of 10 U.S. adults.
In the study, the membership of the Pain Care Forum was determined by looking at membership directories for the organization from 2006-2013, obtained by the Center for Public Integrity. The Center for Public Integrity and Associated Press then searched for contributions and lobbying data attributed to members of the Pain Care Forum. The analysis is based on federal campaign finance data from the Center for Responsive Politics and Federal Election Commission, plus federal lobbying data from the U.S. House of Representatives Office of the Clerk and IRS data from about 527 groups (national political groups such as the Republican Governors Association, regulated by the IRS) collected by the Center for Public Integrity.
Federal totals include contributions to candidates, their leadership committees, federal parties and political action committees. All the organizations included in this analysis are involved in a number of issues beyond opioids and it’s impossible to say how much of their spending was directly related to influencing opioid laws. The data doesn’t include independent expenditures. The data doesn’t include contributions to politically active nonprofit organizations, that typically don’t disclose their donors.
The numbers may not include all relevant contributions received by candidates. Specifically, data for these candidates may not include all leadership PAC donations. Candidate totals represent a minimum, according to the study. The 2016 Presidential campaign data is not complete and reflects contributions from 2015. The data for Presidential campaign contributions made in the year 2016 do not apply. This particular blog is based on a minimum amount of Presidential campaign contributions leading up to 2016.
This blog is not an endorsement nor an attack of any Candidate, political party or group, and is not an accusation of any wrongdoing or unethical practices on the part of any Candidate. It is a study and observation of data collected on who the opioid lobby is spending its money on. Vertava Health holds no political position and is simply reporting research we conducted of the data released by the Associated Press and Center for Public Integrity.
Here are the Presidential Candidates, who, according to the report, received the most money from the opioid lobby, ranked from most to least:
Barack Obama 2012
$1,201,617
Barack Obama 2008
$1,075,001
Mitt Romney 2012
$952,054
John McCain 2008
$341,039
Hillary Clinton
$222,922
Hillary Clinton 2016
$118,345
Rudolph W. Giuliani 2008
$63,905
Jeb Bush 2016
$44,000
Mitt Romney 2008
$37,725
Chris Christie 2016
$29,700
Ron Paul 2012
$22,126
Rick Perry 2012
$17,750
Fred Thompson 2008
$17,700
Marco Rubio 2016
$14,800
Bernie Sanders 2016
$12,830
Newt Gingrich 2012
$9700
Ted Cruz 2016
$8722
John Edwards 2008
$8550
Tim Pawlenty 2012
$8000
Mike Huckabee 2008
$7650
Ben Carson, M.D. 2016
$7000
Tommy Thompson 2008
$6100
Scott Walker 2016
$5601
Rand Paul 2016
$5279
Rick Santorum 2012
$5050
Jon Huntsman 2012
$4750
Gary Johnson 2012
$2750
Carly Fiorina 2016
$2750
Bill Richardson 2008
$2700
Lindsey Graham 2016
$2700
John Kasich 2016
$2700
William Kreml 2016
$2500
Herman Cain 2012
$2250
Thomas Vilsack 2008
$2100
Martin Joseph O’Malley 2016
$1500
Mike Huckabee 2016
$1300
Tom Tancredo 2008
$900
Ralph Nader 2008
$700
Donald J. Trump 2016
$510
Bob Barr 2008
$500
Alan L. Keyes 2008
$500
Rick Santorum 2016
$500
Jared Blankenship 2012
$250
Lawrence Lessig 2016
$250
Rick Perry 2016
$250
