By the time Will Guzzardi, a state legislator in Illinois, called a vote on his controversial drug pricing reform bill, the crowd in the Springfield hearing room had suspiciously thinned. Three committee Democrats were suddenly missing, and, as a result, his bill failed by three votes.
In Guzzardi’s view, it wasn’t a coincidence that the three no-shows accepted more campaign contributions from the drug industry than most other state lawmakers nationwide: Between $6,000 and $15,000 dollars each, a pittance when it comes to campaign contributions at the federal level, but enough to have a significant impact on a smaller, cheaper, and less scrutinized state election.
“They were conveniently absent at the moment of the vote,” Guzzardi, a fellow Democrat, said in an interview.
The trio’s brazen March 2020 disappearance stands out, but the willingness to take pharma cash does not. Well over one-quarter of all state lawmakers nationwide have accepted money from the pharmaceutical industry since the beginning of 2019, according to a new STAT examination.
In several states, taking drug industry cash was more the norm than the exception: In Illinois, more than 79% of the state’s 177 elected lawmakers have cashed such a check. In California, over 85% of lawmakers have taken pharma money. The data reveals the drug industry has poured over $5 million into state legislators’ campaigns in the past two years alone.
STAT’s analysis, conducted in partnership with the National Institute on Money in Politics, provides a first-of-its-kind study of the drug industry’s influence in state capitols. It follows a companion analysis of drug industry spending at the federal level, which revealed $11 million in industry giving as of July.
