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One of the more interesting things about Enron political donation pattern is not just its partisan tilt, but the way it became more partisan – ie, more Republican – over time. This chart from the Center for Responsive Politics website shows that back in the early 1990s Enron giving was more GOP than Dem, but only by a 60-40 margin.

After the 1994 cycle, the Republican percentage of the take rocketed to more than 80%, reflecting not only the GOP takeover of the House and Senate, but the fact that two Texans – Dick Armey and Tom DeLay – had become the number two and number three in the House leadership.

In the Senate, the leadership team of Trent Lott and Don Nickles contained no Texans. But both came from energy producing states.

The margin for Democrats bounced back a bit in the ’98 and ’00 cycles, but not by much. And in the 2002 cycle we’re currently in, Republicans were pulling in only slightly less than 90% of the take.

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