Happy birthday

Daily Press editorial

Follow the money, if you want to really know what's going on.

Follow the money, and politics - local, state, national - makes a lot more sense. And if it doesn't make good sense, viewing it through lenses of green can provide some insight as to why things shake out the way they do. Often, it's because of money.

For 10 years, following the money has been a lot easier in Virginia thanks to VPAP, the Virginia Public Access Project. It's a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that grew out of an effort by Virginia newspapers, including the Daily Press, to create a database of political donations in the 1997 statewide elections.

Since then, VPAP has grown to include information about contributions to candidates, about how they spend money and about gifts they receive. It covers all candidates for statewide offices (governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general) and the General Assembly, and it's starting to assemble information on local offices.

The result is so useful it's hard to imagine political life without it. Before VPAP built a database of political contributions you can search every which way to Sunday, the only way to follow the money was to do like Hansel and Gretel and pick up crumbs. You had to go to Richmond, plow through paper reports filed by individual candidates for specific periods and try to figure out the big picture.

Now, thanks to VPAP's database, the answers are at your fingertips. And they can be revealing.

From VPAP you learn that developers and real estate interests stuff more money into state politicians' pockets than any other industry -- $14.9 million in 2005 and 2006.

Lawyers, banks, insurance and health care are other big-time donors.

And they don't give money because they're seized with philanthropic spirit. They hope to acquire access, without which influence is difficult if not impossible. They hope to get politicians' ears, so that those politicians will push legislation that advances the donors' interests and defeat legislation that doesn't.

Following the money illuminates. Following the money informs. Following the money can help a citizen figure out what his representatives are up to and why.

Consider these examples among many possibilities:

Del. Phillip Hamilton of Newport News pushed, successfully, a bill requiring girls entering the sixth grade to be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted and cancer-causing virus HPV (unless parents opt out). Virginia is the only state with such a requirement. From VPAP we learn that Merck, the only maker of the vaccine, has given Hamilton $10,000. Whether or not you think the contributions influenced the outcome, having the information is important.

Sen. Thomas Norment of James City County is the chief architect of legislation governing electrical utilities. As citizens mull over his ideas, it's useful to consider this from VPAP: Electrical utilities have given Norment $66,351, part of the more than $140,000 he has received from energy-related concerns. Again, having the information is an important part of the political equation.

Legislators' refusal to rein in payday lending, a predatory industry that victimizes Virginians, makes more sense, if not good sense, when you know this, thanks to VPAP: Consumer credit and lending groups, which include payday lenders, gave House and Senate members $239,976 in 2006 and 2007. That kind of puts it in perspective.

Which is what we get from knowing where the money comes from and where it goes: a better informed perspective on what our representatives are up to.

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Happy birthday

10 years of shedding light on money's role in politics