The banking industry threw $271,029 in campaign contributions to House of Representative legislators within two weeks of the House’s vote on H.R. 627, the Credit Cardholders’ Bill of Rights Act of 2009. I found this out from a fabulous new transparency tool on the web that all voters should check out called “Money Near Votes.”

Offered by on MAPLight. org, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research org- anization that shows the connection between money and politics, it essentially reveals who is trying to buy your Congress person’s vote.

This public, web-accessible data mashup combines information on campaign finance and congressional votes. Anyone can easily track campaign contributions from special-interest groups given within a month, a week, or a day of each vote in Congress. This new level of transparency hones in on the role special interests play in shaping public policy.

MAPLight.org’s Money Near Votes tool uses campaign contribution data from the Center for Responsive Politics. The Money Near Votes tool shows each legislator along with their campaign contributions and votes. For example, Rep. Addison Wilson (R-SC) voted ‘No’ on the Credit Card bill on April 30, 2009. He received $2,000 from the American Bankers Association on April 27, three days earlier, and $5,000 from the Credit Union National Association on April 29, the day before the vote. Both groups opposed the Credit Card bill.

In another example, last year the Senate failed to pass an energy bill that would have revoked $17 billion in tax breaks to oil producers and placed a 25 percent windfall profits tax on companies that did not invest in new energy sources. MAPLight.org’s Money Near Votes tool shows that Mary Landrieu (D-LA) voted ‘No’ on passage of the bill on June 10, 2008. She received $5,000 from Chesapeake Energy three days later, on June 13. Chesapeake Energy was among the firms potentially subject to the proposed windfall profits tax.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Senator Landrieu has received $711,644 from oil and gas interests since 1989.

New Year’s resolutions are synonymous with the month of January — named for Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and endings. Legend suggests Janus may have been worshipped on the first of every month, which makes sense to me, because as a parent of school-aged kids, September feels a lot like January. (I can use all the divine intervention I can get.)

One of our family’s new-school-year resolutions is to get at least an hour of exercise a day. School administrators have been shifting time away from recess and other non-core subjects in response to the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires schools to ensure performance at grade level for reading and math by 2014. My younger daughters, for instance, attend a school where they get about 20 minutes of recess a day, and my middle-schooler spent most recess periods indoors last year (at the teacher’s discretion).

But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends 60 minutes of aerobic exercise a day for kids. Beyond the physical benefits, a five-year study of children who did 20 to 40 minutes of aerobic exercise a day found they performed better on tests and showed increased brain function. MRIs conducted on some participants found increased activity in the brain’s frontal lobe – similar to what occurs when children are mentally engaged in solving a task.

“Children assigned to an exercise (program) not only perform (better) on tests but show changes in brain function that suggest the brain is functioning more efficiently,” says Phil Tomporowski, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Georgia, and co-author of a forthcoming paper on the study with Katherine Davis of the Medical College of Georgia.

“Chronic exercise training seems to have positive impact on paying attention, not being impulsive, thinking things through,” Tomporowski says. “Parents should petition the schools to put more activity in the school day.”

From the parental side, exercise can greatly impact your pocketbook. It can improve your performance at work by boosting cognitive skills and productivity, and reducing stress and absenteeism. Regular physical activity lowers the risk of a multitude of ailments, from heart disease to diabetes to certain kinds of cancer — which are obviously expensive to treat, even for people who have health insurance. A Harvard study found medical bills are behind 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies, and more than 75 percent of bankrupt families had health insurance at the onset of the illness.

Another resolution? Get more sleep. Kids age 6 to 9 years old need at least 10 hours of sleep; older kids, at least nine hours. Adults need at least eight. The CDC says insufficient sleep is associated with a number of chronic diseases and conditions—such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and depression. See my Yahoo!Finance column on Thursday, August 20, for more tips to usher in a successful school year.

My apologies for the lack of recent posts; I was on vacation with the family in Vermont and Chicago/Wisconsin. Speaking of Vermont, a story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today looks at why that state has the lowest foreclosure rates in the country. It’s because Vermont has some of the most rigorous mortgage lending laws, requiring mortgage brokers, for example, to have a fiduciary duty toward borrowers, that puts them partly on the hook if a client defaults.

The Journal story seems to imply that the regulations came at a cost to economic growth, but then later states that growth “evened out” over the decade, with Vermont’s 60% growth rate in the ten years ending 2008 coming in just behind the national growth rate of 63% in the same period.

The Journal article also says the restrictions came at a cost to certain Vermonters, who were shut out of the housing market until they improved their credit scores, could verify their income and took homeownership classes. And yet both of the people interviewed say they would have been in trouble if they’d been approved for a mortgage early on.

One woman’s husband subsequently passed away; she says:  “With my husband gone, I really think I would not have been able to keep the house” under earlier loans they had considered.

The other, a former landscaper who became a teacher, says, “Five years ago, if I had gotten the loan, Iwould have been in over my head now. ” And both of these responses were at the very end of the piece! Sounds to me like the Journal buried the lead, and Vermont’s program, or at least elements of it, offers a model for national mortgage regulations.

NPR’s “Marketplace” recently ran a story about a cool new service that allows people to send financial help to friends anonymously. We’ve all known family and friends who’ve run into money troubles but refuse help, feeling embarrassed by charitable efforts. Lionel and Misha Thompson needed help once, and a neighbor gave them $1,000 to pay the rent. They vowed that once they were stable financially, they’d find a way to facilitate friends helping friends without the awkward face-to-face exchange.

Their new website, Giving Anonymously, allows donors to enter the contact information of the person they want to help, how much they want to give, and  their credit card information. Giving Anonymously cuts a check and sends it to the recipient, asking them to leave a voicemail to verify the money was received. The Thompsons run the site on a volunteer basis. To read touching stories about some of the folks the site has helped, click here.