Who Owns Dina Titus (D-NV 3)?

In a breakfast roundtable with reporters, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called union voters “the firewall for candidates that support working families.” Trumka said that as of Oct. 1, the AFL-CIO is active in 100 House races, 18 Senate races and 14 gubernatorial races in 26 states. One of those House Districts is Nevada’s 3rd Congressional district. And the candidate he is pushing is Democrat, Dina Titus.

It makes sense for Trumka to try and protect Dina Tutus. Union leadership invested much cash in Ms. Titus’ election efforts over the past few years. Unfortunately union leadership is dedicated to protecting its self, and its progressive goals as they are in protecting its members. For example AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is supporting a global tax that will take money out of the pockets of his rank and file and send it overseas.



From January-August of 2010 Dina Titus received $1.4 million dollars in campaign dollars from various industries, the largest chunks came from Progressive PACs, Big Labor, and Lawyers/Lobbyists. Many of those Progressives PACs such as Solidarity and Bridge PAC, themselves get their money from Unions and other Special interests. More important is the fact that the money comes from outside of the congressional district.



Titus is on the list of the top 20 House candidates that receive the most contributions from leadership PACs and campaign committee since January 2009, the start of their two-year election cycle. Remember since that money comes from outside of the district it means the incumbent Dina Titus “owes” those groups, and their loyalty like their money is directed to causes outside of NV-3.

Another interesting fact about Dina Titus is the volume of donations she gets from industries related to the committees she sits on.

Titus sits on the Education and Labor, Homeland Security, and the Transportation and Infrastructure committees, we already discussed her donations from big labor, but the chart above shows she also gets funds from transportation sources, as well as from companies related to her Homeland Security responsibilities, including defense industries, communications and energy.
None of this is meant to imply that Dina Titus is somehow corrupt or “on the take.” Titus is however, a perfect example of what is wrong with American Politics, she is beholden to special interests many of whom come from outside her district. There may be no hanky-panky coming from her donations from the very industries she is meant to oversea, based on her committee assignments, but some day they will need a favor.

Overall it seems that Titus’ financial loyalties are outside of NV-3 and that cannot be good for her constituents.