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Posted on 05/27/2025 7:06:41 AM PDT by george76
A majority of U.S. senators and representatives receive campaign funding from pharmaceutical companies — an important part of the expanding national conversation about navigating conflicts of interest.
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Open Secrets (formerly the Center for Responsive Politics) is a nonpartisan nonprofit focused on providing trustworthy data about money in U.S. politics. And STAT is a media company started by Boston Globe Media. These two organizations aggregate and publish some of the most reliable numbers to help answer these questions.
Congressional payments...
A 2020 STAT analysis found more than two-thirds of Congress receiving a check from pharmaceutical companies that year. More recent data from Open Secrets likewise confirms that a large majority of leaders serving in the U.S. Congress and Senate receive significant contributions from pharmaceutical or health products companies, averaging $45,000 and $47,000 for Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives, respectively — and $50,000 and $69,000 for Republicans and Democrats in the Senate.
That totals $26.4 million to Democrats and $16.1 million to Republicans in 2023-2024 from pharmaceutical and health product companies, with Democrats receiving noticeably more. (Although Big Pharma has supported more Republicans historically, that favorability reversed in 2020, with former Vice President Kamala Harris receiving nearly six times more funding support from pharmaceutical companies this election, compared to President Donald Trump.)
Breaking down the numbers individually, at least 72 of the 100 sitting U.S. senators last year received at least $10,000 from employees or PACs associated with pharmaceutical/health product companies in the 2024 election cycle, with 12 senators receiving more than $100,000 — including seven Democrats and five Republicans. That includes former Democratic Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., $520,776; Jon Tester D-Mont., $401,885, and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, $372,314 — along with current Sens. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., $266,422; Tim Kaine, D-Va., $200,824; Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., $181,965, and Gary Peters, D-Mich., $130,265.
Although not among top recipients in the 2024 cycle, Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was one of the larger recipients of contributions from pharmaceuticals/health products in 2019-2020, the year she ran for president — second to Bernie Sanders (I-VT). The Massachusetts Senator was among those questioning Kennedy hardest seeking commitments against potential lucrative opportunities following government service.
Top Republican recipients of contributions from employees or PACS associated with the pharmaceutical/health products industries in 2023-2024 include Sens. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., $316,656, Bill Cassidy, R-La., $290,375, John Barrasso, R-Wyo., $204,761, Thom Tillis, R-N.C., $131,955, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, $101,621.
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When contributions to the successful campaigns of new senators are taken into account, six more names are added to the list of those receiving at least $100,000 from the employees or PACs affiliated with the pharmaceutical/health products industry in the 2023-2024 election cycle, including one Republican, Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, $233,566, and five Democrats, Sens. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., $320,793; Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., $244,135; Adam Schiff, D-Calif., $196,635; Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., $187,096; and Andy Kim, D-N.J., $106,778.
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Between 1990 and 2024, Mitt Romney ($3,378,614) and Orrin Hatch ($2,878,132) were the top Republican recipients — behind only Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.
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During the span of this same 34-year period, Open Secrets data on contributions from employees or PACs of pharmaceutical/health products companies confirms that Rep. Jim Matheson received $668,238, then Rep. John Curtis received $616,347, Rep. and Sen. Mike Lee received $406,783, Sen. Bob Bennet received $352,496, Rep. Jason Chaffetz received $336,459, Rep Mia Love received $237,894, Rep. Blake Moore received $203,650, Rep. Chris Cannon received $200,933, Rep. Ben McAdams received $155,753, Rep. Chris Stewart received $145,372, Rep. Burgess Owens received $87,992, and Rob Bishop received $61,600.
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These contributions come from across the health industry, including health advocacy organizations and dietary supplements companies
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These contributions to federal officials from the health sector, then, go well beyond pharmaceutical companies. Even so, a cumulative analysis of where most of the lobbying money comes from in the health sector does show that the great majority comes from pharmaceutical companies. The Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America was also the top individual lobbying spender in the health sector in 2022, according to this same analysis, spending $29.2 million for its lobbyists to have opportunities to engage with legislators.
“Of the 20 senators and 20 representatives who received the most contributions,” observed Olivier J. Wouters, assistant professor of health policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, in a 2020 historical analysis, “39 belonged to committees with jurisdiction over health-related legislative matters, 24 of them in senior positions.”
Comparison with lobbying from other industries..
How does lobbying from pharmaceutical companies and health products in Congress compare to lobbying from other industries?
In 2022, Open Secrets found that pharmaceutical and health product companies invested “a record $372 million into lobbying Congress and federal agencies” — more than any other industry, and “making up over half of all health sector lobbying efforts.”
In its $293,701,614 lobbying investment in 2024, pharmaceutical companies also far outspent other industries that lobby Congress, with the next closest sectors being electronics manufacturing and equipment ($189,273,644), insurance ($117,305,895) and real estate ($111,736,315).
The British researcher Wouters also found that from 1999 to 2018, the pharmaceutical and health product industry had an average of $233 million per year in lobbying expenditures at the federal level, which he pointed out in JAMA Internal Medicine was “more than any other industry.”
Lobbying trends over time While pharmaceutical companies have been the “top lobbying spender for more than 20 years,” according to Open Secrets, this investment has also measurably increased over time. “Each year for the past decade,” this analysis notes, there has been an increase in federal lobbying expenditures from the previous year, “an overall increase of 36% since 2013.”
By way of illustration, there were approximately 1,600 pieces of legislation lobbied in a six-year period — and 1,274 lobbyists registered in the year 2005.
A 2017 analysis by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found the number of companies and organizations lobbying with a focus on “drug pricing” had quadrupled over the previous five years.
Politico’s Megan R. Wilson also found in 2024 that 17 of the 29 pharmaceutical companies and groups that spent $500,000 or more in the first quarter of 2024 increased their lobbying investment that year.
Should Americans be concerned about this?
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For generations, the pharmaceutical industry has convinced legislators to define policy problems in ways that protect its profit margin,” wrote Paul D Jorgensen in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics in 2013. The industry “reinforces this framework by selectively providing information and by targeting campaign contributions to influential legislators and allies. In this way, the industry displaces the public’s voice in developing pharmaceutical policy.”
“Money can buy favors and determine policies that are often counter to the public interest and can even lead to failure to protect the health of the public,” wrote attorneys Whitney and Gabriel North Seymour in Reviews on Environmental Health.
“Unless citizens mobilize to confront the political power of pharmaceutical firms,” Jorgensen went on to suggest, “objectionable industry practices and public policy will not change.”
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Answer should be zero.
We need a constitutional amendment to only permit campaign contributions from those who can vote for the candidate.
That’s why I call it Congre$$
The short answer is probably ALL of them…
And monitor it very carefully. Limit contributions. Limit their coffers. Rallies have become too over the top. All that money could be going to more useful causes.
“Although not among top recipients in the 2024 cycle, Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) was one of the larger recipients of contributions from pharmaceuticals/health products in 2019-2020, the year she ran for president — second to Bernie Sanders (I-VT). The Massachusetts Senator was among those questioning Kennedy hardest seeking commitments against potential lucrative opportunities following government service.”
This was forced murder of Americans,
and those who planned it, or did profit from it,
should be tried and punished for accountability.
All of them.
How many don’t?
“We need a constitutional amendment to only permit campaign contributions from those who can vote for the candidate.”
I like the idea. Unfortunately it would need to be passed by the very same political entities that are benefiting.
between 1990 and 2024, Senator Michael Bennet received approximately $1.5 million from pharmaceutical and health product companies, with specific donors including Gilead Sciences, Celgene, AbbVie, Genentech, Sanofi U.S., Bayer, Biogen, Merck, Pfizer, and the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO).
There ought to be a law...
THE FRAUD & SCAMS IN “CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS” IS MASSIVE.
PEOPLE’S NAMES ARE BEING USED WHO NEVER DONATED A PENNY
My proposal is that members of Congress (while on the job) should be required to have clothes on with “flair” that is the logos of their ten largest contributors.
IOW, they’re ALL a bunch of crooks; even the “good” ones.
An American citizen should be permitted to donate to any candidate or party in any amount he chooses; that's FREEDOM.
But ALL political donations should be ANONYMOUS. You can't sell influence if you don't know who's buying. Voters would donate to the candidate(s) most likely to support the policies that benefit them. That forces the candidates to take stands on many topics upon which they would otherwise remain silent.
Reveal and publish the list.
Only living human citizens who are going to be represented by a candidate if elected should be allowed to donate to a candidate’s political campaign. No PACs, no companies, no out of district or out of state donations. Make our legislators dependent on those they claim to represent.
Too many, just like too many have investments in the military industrial complex, and profit from war.
The proposed amendment would prevent such ads as campaign contributions not by someone who can vote for the candidate, i.e. PACs can’t vote.
The amendment would supercede the first amendment for campaigns.
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