In 1997, the first session of the Republican-controlled 105th Congress went to astonishing lengths to reward the big corporations that bankrolled its election. Continuing its practice of allowing corporate lobbyists unprecedented input into the shape of major legislation, Congress pushed ahead with its campaign to “deregulate” many major industries. Environmental and consumer protections, individual rights, and fair trade policies were all jeopardized by a Congress that listens more to special interests than to its constituents.

This vote chart was prepared by Public Citizen’s Congress Watch in order to help the public hold their elected representatives individually accountable. The votes indexed in this table are designed to help voters evaluate whether their representatives in government addressed their concerns and the concerns of other citizens, or the narrow agenda of monied interests.

Campaign Finance Reform Once again, the single measure that might have done the most to protect consumers against corporate wrongdoers and to restore the public’s faith in its elected representatives faced an uphill struggle. Despite the fundraising scandals in both political parties, campaign finance reform was blocked from the House floor, and the bipartisan McCain-Feingold bill failed to obtain the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster in the Senate. Still, the debate over campaign finance legislation and the campaign fundraising hearings in the Senate brought to light many of the most sordid aspects of the current corrupt system, and debate on reforming our broken fundraising system will resume in 1998.

Health, Safety and the Environment The first session of the 105th Congress saw the passage of one of the most anti-consumer bills in recent memory. Over $30 million in corporate contributions from drug and medical device companies in recent elections greased the wheels for passage of an act that will hamstring the Food and Drug Administration’s ability to protect the public from unsafe and inadequately-tested drugs and medical devices. Amendments that would have kept consumer safeguards for high-risk medical devices, prevented medical device manufacturers from making false and misleading claims about their products, and made for-profit companies reviewing proposed new products subject to the same conflict of interest standards as FDA staff were unilaterally defeated by anti-consumer forces in the Senate. Meanwhile, business interests pushed hard for regulatory rollback legislation that would make it much more difficult for federal agencies to protect the public from unsafe food, dangerous workplaces, air and water pollution, and harmful products. This bill is still on the table as Congress heads into the 1998 session.

Corporate Welfare Once again in 1997, Congress pushed for reductions in programs that aid our families while it continued to serve up billions of dollars of taxpayer money in the form of corporate pork. In addition to voting to continue subsidies to the tobacco industry, the House killed two measures that would have curtailed taxpayer handouts to the high-polluting fossil fuel industry. Businesses and their allies in Congress also managed to continue funding for two corporate welfare programs that subsidize companies like McDonald’s, Sun-Maid, and Pillsbury to sell their products overseas. Rank hypocrisy allowed these handouts to wealthy corporations, which together would have saved hundreds of millions in public money, to be rejected by supposedly-frugal legislators.

Civil Justice Issues Across the nation, calls for the regulation of the tobacco industry rang out in 1997 as the industry’s decades of deception and suppression of evidence made the front page of every newspaper. Everywhere, that is, but in the U.S. Congress, where Big Tobacco’s free spending and legions of insider lobbyists have earned it some powerful and determined allies. Every attempt to impose new government standards or to reduce taxpayer subsidies to the tobacco industry was shot down by the tobacco industry’s friends. Tobacco allies even managed to slip a $50 billion tax break for the industry into the budget, before it was discovered and overwhelmingly rejected. Though not reflected on this vote chart, Public Citizen and consumers also blocked most of the corporate agenda that sought to take away people’s legal rights to hold wrongdoer’s accountable. For instance, anti-consumer legislation that would have limited the rights of railroad crash victims to sue the responsible railroad company were made much less harsh.

Safe and Clean Energy Under the watchful eye of the energy industry, the 105th Congress compiled an abysmal voting record on safe and renewable energy. Particularly egregious was the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. This legislation will require the greatest nuclear waste transportation project in human history, sending 95% of the nation's radioactive waste across 43 states, violating existing environmental, health and safety standards for disposing of deadly nuclear waste and overburdening the Environmental Protection Agency. Extensive efforts by Public Citizen and other environmental groups, however, assured that the bill failed to garner enough votes to override President Clinton’s promised veto. At the same time that it was bailing out the nuclear power industry, the House was busy sending taxpayer money to major polluters. Two measures that would have ended wasteful and environmentally degrading corporate subsidies were rejected by the House. Finally, the House also rejected a proposal to stop funding the pyroprocessing program, a dangerous and expensive radioactive waste debacle.

Trade and Economic Globalization Perhaps the biggest story of 1997 is the major trade initiative that never even came to a vote. President Clinton's push for "fast track" trade authority -- which forces trade agreements through Congress with no amendments and limited debate allowed -- stalled. Tired of treaties that lack adequate environmental, health and worker safety standards, consumers dealt a major blow to the forces of unrestricted globalization with this victory. The 1997 Congress compiled a mixed record on trade issues. On the plus side it provided funding for a program to study the impact of multilateral trade agreements on U.S. labot and environmental standards. It also refused to extend NAFTA-mandated relaxation of trade regulations to the Carribean region. On the other hand, pro-corporate forces in the House managed to extend Most Favored Nation status to China yet again, despite the Chinese government’s continued abuse of human rights and occupation of Tibet. Supporters of the GATT-WTO pushed a bill through Congress implementing a GATT ruling against the US Marine Mammal Protection Act which gutted U.S. dolphin protection law that requires dolphin safe tuna.

How to Use this Vote Chart An index of floor votes is never a perfect gauge of a Senator or Representative’s record. This vote chart covers only a small percentage of roll call votes in 1997 and does not attempt to distinguish in any way between members who simply voted one way or the other, and those who took a leadership role in promoting or opposing legislation. Nor does it address crucial issues that never came to a floor vote. For example, consumer advocates derailed a major industry drive to pass product liability legislation that would have made it harder for consumers to hold the manufacturers of defective and dangerous products that cause death or injury accountable for their wrongdoing. Despite these limitations, the votes included here -- Public Citizen’s top legislative priorities -- reflect the concerns of a broad-based citizens movement fighting for government and corporate accountability, and offer a useful gauge of a member’s commitment to the public interest.