How-to guide for the site
Maxine Waters
Now that I have hopefully intrigued you with tales of LegiStorm’s expert sleuthing abilities, it is time for you to learn to make the most of this trove of information.
The next few articles in this series will walk you through different parts of LegiStorm.com as a tutorial for how to use the site to find the information you want. Whether you want to read about a Senator’s personal loans or Agriculture Department salaries, it’s all there.
Home page
When you first log on to LegiStorm, the front page contains political news that shows how LegiStorm has been used recently. I recommend that you do not skip past this part, as it contains tidbits of entertaining, and sometimes infuriating, news about political figures looking like fools.
In hot water
For instance, the front page at LegiStorm.com today reveals that Rep. Maxine Waters owns stock in OneUnited Bank. Furthermore, her husband has been a director there. Based on this, it is not surprising that Waters has defended the company in many cases. Conflict of interest much?
Congressional pay scale
The first section of LegiStorm is dedicated to Congressional salaries. You can browse using the following categories: Staffer, Representative, Senator, Committee, Leadership Office, Admin Office and State. Once you pick a category you can search for names and titles. It lists current and former office holders.
Six figures
The base salary for a state senator right now is $174,000 per year. If you check out an individual it will also show to the total salary paid to that leader’s staff. If you click on a time period, you can find out the pay for everyone who works for that leader, from the scheduler who makes about $5,000 per year, to the legislative director who makes more than $120,000.
Next part of the journey
The next searchable database on the site details all of the trips taken on the government’s dime. Check out Part 5 for details.
I wish they had this thing up and running during the days of Enron and when people were paying attention to Haliburton. Cheney actually received almost $400,000 while he was vice president from them (deferred compensation, it was called) while they got contracts without having to compete for them with any other company. LegiStorm is great!