WHEN making donations to political campaigns, big tobacco companies get good value for their money. US Congressional voting records show that the more tobacco money politicians receive, the more likely they are to protect tobacco-company interests with their votes.
Douglas Luke and Melissa Krauss of Saint Louis University in Missouri collated the votes of US senators and representatives on 43 tobacco-related bills between 1997 and 2000. Then they compared these with election records showing how much campaign money each had received from tobacco companies between 1993 and 2000 – a total of nearly $7 million.
Republicans were more likely to vote…
