counsel to senator mack was a member of you guessed it, committee on agriculture. the members of the relative relative got their dues from these interests and in the election cycle leading up to the last farm bill then house agriculture chairman frank lucas received more than $744,000 in campaign contributions from the business sector. nearly half of all this donations. in the senate, then agriculture committee chairman debbie stepanov received more contributions from the crop production industry than any other senator. she brought in more than $280,000 in the election cycle for the last farm bill. one study found that during the three months that congress debated the legislation donations from big agriculture spiked by 40%. there s a very clear quote, take a look at the start. members of congress who voted to pass the last storm farmville
special interest swarm the bill like flies to a pile of done. more than 300 organizations spend money clobbering the last farm bill in 2015 and much of that was carried out by giant aggregate businesses like monsanto. in 2017 month info made nearly $8 billion in profit recently gave their ceo, hugh grant, no, not that hugh grant, but a 64% raise to $19.5 million a year. as the largest supplier of genetically engineered they spent a cool $36 million lobbying the federal government in the five years leading up to the 2014 farmville. they certainly knew were to spend it. one of their lobbyist was blamed lincoln, former democratic senator from arkansas and she also just happens to be a former chairwoman of the senate committee on agriculture. another of their lobbyist, brian formally served as chief trade
impropriety or conflict, that could call into question the integrity of the investigation and people are saying he should even republicans, top republicans are saying for the good of the investigation, he should recuse himself. ellen, thank you very much for joining us. i want to go to pick up that thread to kasie hunt. i want to pull up before we get to you some of the democrats calling for resignation, folks like elijah cummings, senator mack ca mccaskill. and others are calling for recusal. reporter: increasing calls from republicans who want jeff sessions to recuse himself from any investigation into russia and potential ties to the trump campaign during the election. that i think is going to be what
here to pepeka. no fatalities. nine people were injured there. one person critically injured. governor of kansas is declaring state of emergency there. let s get right to our meteorologist rob marciano who is tracking these storms for us. that same line that produced the tornadoes last night across parts of kansas and missouri moving into parts of kentucky and indiana and illinois. dangerous storm with a tornado dropped down to harrisburg, illinois, damage there and search and rescue actually under way. that s with this line and this cell moving just to the south of evansville, indiana, just to the north of hender son, kentucky. another storm just northeast of paducah. another one just southwest of that. these are strong storms moving quickly. 65 to 70 miles an hour. and in somepla places it s stil dark. tornado watch is up until noontime central for parts of kentucky and also it s kind of sliding back through just north of memphis. this storm is a big one. it stretches all
chairman connie mack just resigned as campaign chairman. senator mack s resignation on the same day the governor vetoed an education bill. mack wrote a letter to crist saying the veto undermines the state s educational system and the principles that he always believed in. senator mack says the veto is unsupportable. yes, it is tax day but not everyone is opening his wallet. 40% of americans will pay no federal income tax for 2009. is that fair? congressman price spoke at a tea party today and i should add is a doctor. you worked hard the viewers ought to know. i understand why the poor people aren t paying taxes. that 47% who are not paying does that include other people? the tax rate that we have is really very, very progressive. the folks at the top 1% pay