Greenhouse Gives Us Easy Access to a Politician’s Motivation

We should never take a politician for their word until we see who is financing them. Now, there is an app for that. Well, it’s a plug-in actually.

16-year-old Nick Rubin created a plug-in, Greenhouse, that tracks a politician’s campaign donations. The beauty of the plug-in is that it identifies a politician’s name within an article you are reading, highlights the name and lets you click on it. From there, within the article, you can read who has been donating to that politician. Nick was recently interviewed by Vice, where he talked about the genesis of his extension and why he created it.

Let’s have a little fun. I’m going to run through a few Politico articles where specific politicians make claims or push for legislation and see how their political donations matchup to their beliefs.

From the Politico article “Why liberals are abandoning the Obamacare employer mandate.” Maine Senator Susan Collins, who’s been trying to repeal the Obamacare employer mandate, gets the majority of her funding from the retired and health care professionals:

From “Coal fires up West Virginia House race” we find that Nick Rahall, a representative from West Virginia, denounced the Environmental Protection Agency as “callous.” Although West Virginia is one of the biggest coal producers in the country, I also found Rahall’s contributions, specifically from the railroad industry, to be interesting:

In “GOP plays Tom Steyer card against Democrats,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell attacks Democrats for their association with pro-environment billionaire Tom Steyer. Now, let’s look at McConnell’s 5th largest campaign contributor:

In “Elizabeth Warren student loan bill stalls,” we find that Warren, senator of Massachusetts, gets a ton of financial support from education:

In “For advocates, anti-soda failures still have pop,” Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro pushes for the first-ever federal bill to tax soda. Is there a coincidence that her biggest backing is from health professionals?

Finally, from “Base closings play into campaigns,” we see that one of Mississippi Republican Senator Thad Cochran’s key messages in his re-election campaign is that he will keep military bases in the state, including Keesler Air Force Base, from being shutdown. Sure enough, “defense aerospace” shows up on the list of Cochran’s campaign contributions:

Now, politicians supporting causes due to financial motivations is nothing new. Lobbying has been around forever. I’m sure you’re not surprised to find Candidate X supporting Cause Y because Firm Z gave him or her a sizable campaign contribution. It’s just nice to see it while reading a specific article. Greenhouse provides just a little bit more perspective and transparency in political journalism.

That can’t be a bad thing.