Special interests are trying to `get right’ with Roger Marshall

The campaigns are over. So why are campaign donations still flowing to members of Congress?

Here’s one theory:

Special interest groups are trying to “get right” with candidates that maybe they didn’t support during the campaign.

“Giving after the election clearly shows the donation is not given to support the election of a specific candidate based on shared ideology or to see robust democracy, but to endear themselves to the particular candidate,” Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen, told the Center for Responsive Politics.

The center looked at incoming freshmen who beat out veteran incumbents. Those lawmakers might be expected to pick up “get right” money since the election.

Sure enough. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, paced the 18-member field with more than $24,000 in donations.

Right behind him in second place: incoming Kansas freshman Roger Marshall, a Republican from western Kansas who knocked off fellow Republican Tim Huelskamp in the August primary.

Marshall had already picked up $14,000 as of Dec. 9.

Among the post-election givers to Marshall:

▪ The American Hospital Association Political Action Committee, $1,000.

▪ The American Society of Anesthesiologists Political Action Committee, $1,000.

▪ Conservative Opportunities for a New America Political Action Committee, $1,000.

▪ National Shooting Sports Foundation Inc. Political Action Committee, $1,000.