There is a conflict of interest issue when companies funded almost entirely by government contracts uses money in this manner. The government could easily specify as a term in their contracts that are not allowed to do this. Considering the amount of funds involved, I think this is more than reasonable.
Conservative, pro-security candidates get more donations from the defense industry: news at 11.<p>In other news: befuddled HN poster can't believe that Wired ran an entire articled based on confusing correlation with causation.
from the article, Daniel Newman sums it up nicely: “How can we trust legislators to vote in the public interest when they are dependent on industry campaign funding to get elected? Our broken money and politics system forces lawmakers into a conflict of interest between lawmakers’ voters and their donors”
Correlation does not imply causation. An alternative hypothesis is that legislators have fixed ideologies that are not influenced by who their donors are, but receive money from donors who have similar ideologies. After all, donors don't want to waste their money--they'll contribute to those legislators who already think like they do. Birds of a feather flock together, etc. Unfortunately it's impossible to conduct a controlled experiment, and donor influence probably varies by legislator and by donor.
I've always wondered on the psychology of these voting decisions. Investigative journalists outside looking in can can easily see the forest for the trees, but I am curious as to whether or not the politicians themselves are acutely aware of these conflicts of interest or if it is subconscious.