by Jiji Lee

It's no secret that Rep Sue W. Kelly of New York's 19^th district receives most of her campaign contributions from political action committees. In fact, grassroots blogs like Take 19 and the subtly named Sue Kelly Poop Sheet rebuke Kelly for accepting contributions from business behemoths.

According to the FEC's 2005-2006 candidate summary report, Kelly received a total of $1,431,202 in campaign donations and nearly 54 percent of these contributions came from PACs, with a majority in business sectors. Bank of America, Deloitte Touche, and Ernst and Young were a few of the top donors. But what motivates big businesses to donate to a congresswoman who calls herself a proponent of small business rights?

Granted, it would have been difficult to understand where each of your congressional representatives stood on raising their own pay a couple weeks back because ... ummm ... well ... apparently, so many of them simply didn't want you to bother with such minutia.

Gettin' All Procedural On Us.

In order to have an up or down vote on their salary increases, members would have first had to vote "no" on this Previous Question.  And with a defeat of the Previous Question, Utah Congressman Jim Matheson would have then been able to offer an amendment suspending Congress's automatic pay increases - an amendment, btw, that Congressman Matheson has introduced for the past six years.

In this land of the rich and famous (that being, New York's 19th Congressional) ... well ... there appear to be the outright rich, the famous (of the I'm not a millionaire, but do hang out with Bonnie Raitt variety), the richly educated and the not so famous (though probably still rich).

Congressional Quarterly rates the 19^th, which covers Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam and parts of Dutchess Counties, as Republican Favored; most likely because incumbent Sue Kelly has been at the helm since 1994.