Duval County Lawyers Donated More to Democratic Presidential Candidates than to the GOP Candidates in 2007

2007 was a banner year for political fundraising. Records were broken as millions of dollars poured in from all walks of life giving to every presidential candidate, even if that candidate had no business running in the first place (think Mike Gravel and Alan Keyes).

So it got me thinking. How did Duval County fair in this drive? And, more importantly, how did our local bar do when it came to giving? Words can't even begin to describe the joy of my discovery and the warmth I felt when I saw the numbers. First, and perhaps most shocking, is that The Duval Dems raised $470,522.00 to the GOPers $406,859.00 (note double * in paragraph below). Yes, folks, that's roughly $64,000.00 more going to the Democratic presidential candidates from this bastion of First Coast Conservatism.

So, that got me going. Now, what about my fellow bar members? Well, as you can expect, the list was full of the usual players. I actually formatted the entire list, including recipient and amount donated with the intention of posting it here. I couldn't do it. The list was way to long. If you ask nicely, I'll email it to you. Instead, I'm going to have to provide highlights, then refer you to The Huffington Post for more details. **Note that this list does not account for donations less than $200.00 (sorry Deb and Brian).

Yes, Wayne Hogan, Eddie Farah, Bill Harrell, Howard Coker, etc., were all on the list. That's to be expected. What made my liberal bleeding heart skip a beat were all of the other, what I would call varied, names I saw. James Waters gave $2,300.00 to Obama. Warren Anderson gave $350.00 to Edwards. William Kent gave $500.00 to Mike Gravel. Christine Clark gave $2,300.00 to Obama. Really, you should check out the list.

So, fine, now tell me that, duh, of course the entire plaintiff's bar is going to be giving to the Democrats. No, you're not going to find me complaining about that. But the last surprise I took from the list was how few Republican lawyer contributions there were. Yeah, Hans Tanzler gave to McCain. And there were a few other folks giving to Thompson (really?) and Romney, even Brownback. But the point is that the Republican bar gave, if at all, at such a lower count than the Democrats.

The Democrat lawyers contributed at a rate of about ten to one to their counterparts. That's huge. I can only hope that we keep up the pace in 2008, not just here in Duval County, but across the state and country.