(robinia rocks again - promoted by lipris)
I have been looking at how the Member Item database that we fought to gain access to reveals patterns of power and influence in Shelly's house. While I totally agree with recent posts by AM that the debt entered into by state Authorities is the real "big pig," the member item system is a part of how the current power structure is organized and kept disciplined.
Unlike the Senate, better than half of the more than 190 million in member items (looking at the three fiscal years we have available) is doled out to groups of Members. There are 169 different groupings! We can, however, look a little closer at the amounts each member has for his/her own discretionary use in the district. There are a lot of members, so, this pie graph from the Excel spreadsheet I have made is mostly conceptual:
Guess whose piece is that big blue chunk?
That represents over 22-and-a-half million bucks! |
| Obviously, the razor-thin pieces of pie for minority Members are almost invisible. But, who are those few Members whose pie-pieces make up the third below Shelly's piece? Interestingly, some of Those Who Would Be Comptroller are there.... Together, they have another 31, almost 32 million dollars for their districts to divy up between the 26 of them-- here is a picture of their slices of that pie.
The rest of the 25-million-and-change that went to just one member is split unequally between 147 other Member names-- a few were not in office the entire time, so, some duplication of districts is included there.
And then, of course, there is the other half of the MI money that the Assembly Members go in on in groups... Many of the same Members who are in the Group of 26 whose slices are pictured above seem to be the convenors of the groups.... AND, they are sometimes supporting things related to committee assignments (several are committee chairs).
And Shelly's group collaborations? He is clearly very interested in economic development. Me, too. Power and influence, interesting, no? Tell me, what do you see? |
