Follow the Money Some More, Part Two

Time to get to work on our gigantic dataset of Montgomery County political contributions!

Here is the distribution by category of all contributions and loans received by 107 MoCo politicians since 1999.


Individual contributions dominate the database. They account for 78.7% of all contributions and 50.0% of all money. Business entities follow, accounting for 25.9% of all money, but that is misleading. Many individual contributors are business owners, and they are not above using their children, spouses and employees as channels for their money. Even so, business donated about five times the money that labor contributed (5.2%). Self-funding totaled over $3 million and had the highest average contribution/loan level ($3,865). That reflects the fact that candidates are allowed to donate unlimited amounts to their own campaign funds, and some do!

Maryland-based entities accounted for 83.4% of contributions and 79.8% of all money, with entities in D.C. (7.1%) and Virginia (4.4%) running far behind. But many politicians collect far larger sums from out of state, and we will be identifying them.

Here are the leaders in total receipts and receipts from individuals from 1999 through January 2010.

Total Receipts (Including Loans)

1. Steve Silverman, County Council/Executive Challenger: $3,143,083
2. Ike Leggett, County Executive: $1,704,625
3. Rob Garagiola, Senator (D-15): $938,834
4. Duchy Trachtenberg, County Council: $743,267
5. George Leventhal, County Council: $677,530
6. Howard Denis, County Council: $649,938
7. Brian Frosh, Senator (D-16): $574,539
8. Nancy Floreen, County Council: $572,676
9. Herman Taylor, Delegate (D-14): $483,255
10. Mike Lenett, Senator (D-19): $460,867

Total Receipts from Individuals (Not Including Self or Family Financing)

1. Steve Silverman, County Council/Executive Challenger: $1,610,767
2. Ike Leggett, County Executive: $1,091,559
3. Duchy Trachtenberg, County Council: $596,567
4. Brian Frosh, Senator (D-16): $445,904
5. Nancy Floreen, County Council: $364,600
6. George Leventhal, County Council: $347,822
7. Jamie Raskin, Senator (D-20): $343,880
8. Howard Denis, County Council: $292,486
9. Heather Mizeur, Delegate (D-20): $253,500
10. Roger Berliner, County Council: $235,764

Percentage of Total Receipts from Individuals (Not Including Self or Family Financing)

1. Phil Andrews, County Council: 98.9%
2. Leon Billings, Delegate (D-18): 91.8%
3. Shirley Brandman, School Board: 89.7%
4. Pat O’Neill, School Board: 88.8%
5. Jane de Winter, County Council Challenger: 86.1%
6. Bill Frick, Delegate (D-16): 85.7%
7. Jamie Raskin, Senator (D-20): 82.7%
8. Saqib Ali, Delegate (D-39): 81.9%
9. Duchy Trachtenberg, County Council: 80.3%
10. Bill Bronrott, Delegate (D-16): 78.5%

107. Steve Kanstoroom, County Council Challenger: 1.8%
106. Ben Kramer, Delegate/County Council Challenger: 3.7%
105. Robin Ficker, County Executive/County Council Challenger: 5.2%
104. Tod Sher, Delegate (D-14): 7.8%
103. Mike Lenett, Senator (D-19): 9.6%
102. Sam Statland, Delegate Challenger (D-18): 9.9%
101. Steve Abrams, School Board/County Council Challenger: 12.9%
100. Luiz Simmons, Delegate (D-17): 16.3%
99. Dan Fox, State’s Attorney Challenger: 16.8%
98. Rona Kramer, Senator (D-14): 20.2%

Phil Andrews is the distant leader in individual receipt percentage because he has always turned away developer and PAC contributions. Some of the candidates who received the lowest percentages from individuals benefitted from self-funding. We’ll find out who they are later in the series.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at business and labor.