It's no secret that lobbyists hold major fundraisers and direct bags of moolah to both candidates and elected officials. What is a secret is just how much cash is collected by lobbyists.
The Washington Post recently editorialized about Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-N.Y.) one-million-dollar ask of supporters for her presidential bid. This dwarfs the $200,000 that Bush asked prospective Rangers to raise. Every four years, the bar for presidential fundraising shoots skywards - and 2008 will surely take us to new stomach-turning heights.
The Federal Election Commission sets contribution limits at $2,300 per person for the primary, and allows another $2,300 per person for the general election. Well-heeled contributors get around these limits by driving truckloads of cash through a loophole known as bundling. It allows people (especially those of the lobbyist variety) to keep funneling money well beyond an individuals contribution limits.
If running for president means asking supporters to gather this obscene amount of money, the public deserves to know the details. Both Bush and Kerry chose to tell the public this information in the 2004 election, but their disclosure of bundling was entirely voluntary. It should be mandatory. The Senate's recently passed ethics bill requires disclosure of bundled money by lobbyists. Members of the House of Representatives are reportedly waffling on whether they will include the disclosure of lobbyist fundraising in the House bill.
Some in the House are getting it right. Reps. Van Hollen and Meehan introduced H.R. 633, a bill that matches the Senates bundling disclosure provision. Their bill should be included in the comprehensive lobbying reform bill being drafted in the House. But Congress should not stop there.
After the ethics and lobbying reform bill is enacted, Congress should also require candidates and party committees to be completely transparent about bundling. The details of money bundled for a campaign should be disclosed: showing who's bundling whose money - and how much bundled cash is finding its way to a candidate.
The incoming leaders of the 110th Congress pledged to change the culture of corruption in Washington. A bundling disclosure provision is vital for the publics access to information about pay-to-play politics. The House must keep their pledge by closing the lobbyist loophole.
Laura MacCleery is the director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch.
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