There’s nothing really new in this new study, but it reconfirms what we’ve known (and updates the figures for Congressional candidates) about who provides the lion’s share of money for Congressional campaigns. (Some of the older studies on this topic were done by Public Campaign, and I even recall one funded by the Joyce Foundation that doesn’t appear to be available on the Web. (Too bad. That one was the first and it was a real eye-opener since it confirmed all suspicions about who gives the big money in politics: white, rich males.)

Lee Drutman, writing in the new Miller-McCune magazine, profiles a new analysis. University of Maryland political scientists researched and wrote “The Check Is in the Mail: Interdistrict Funding Flows in Congressional Elections,” which shows how money contributed to congressional elections is raised in ever increasing percentages from a small number of wealthy zip codes, places that Drutman termed “the political ATM’s of the campaign trail.” These locales, full of wealthy and politically engaged donors include Hollywood, Calif.; Manhattan’s Upper East Side; Greenwich, Conn.; and the suburbs of Washington, D.C. As I said, no great surprises.There just aren’t large numbers of people out there with either with disposable incomes or the inclination to make large campaign. Because of this, candidates are increasingly dependent on donors concentrated in those few wealthy urban centers. The report found that in the typical congressional race, less than one-third of individual donations to a candidate came  from people who could actually vote for the candidate and over two-thirds (70.2 percent to be exact) from nonresidents. As Drutman notes, this percentage is steadily increasing, up from 54.5 percent in 1996 and 63 percent in 2000. And as of 2004, in only one in five congressional districts residents provided a majority of funds raised for the campaigns of the candidates running to represent it. And in 18 percent of the districts, 90 percent or more of the funds came from non-residents.

(more…)

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In today’s edition, Roll Call profiles how members of Congress increasingly pimping their top aides as a way to raise campaign cash. The paper quoted one lobbyist as saying the main attractions were “the powers behind the throne.”

Twice over the past couple of months Democrats have used senior staffers as the draw for lobbyists to attend and write checks. In June, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee held a fundraiser featuring Senate chiefs of staff. Also in June, the DCCC held a $1,000 a head fundraiser featuring leadership staffers and committee staff as the draw. Chaired by Yelberton Watkins, chief of staff to Majority Whip James Clyburn, the event raised nearly $250,000, according to the paper. Republicans are “offering up staffers as fundraising bait,” too, according to Roll Call. They’ve held two fundraisers featuring chiefs of staff over the past year.

Roll Call quotes a lobbyist as saying the success of these events point to an irony in the lobbying reform laws Democrats enacted. “By restricting opportunities for lobbyists to mingle with staff, the law puts a premium on these types of fundraisers.”

Defenders of the practice note that chiefs of staff, at least, frequently carry a political portfolio on top of their policy duties. Top staffers for lawmakers of both parties are often on the campaign payroll and play an important year-round role helping their bosses fill their campaign coffers.

Others, including some lobbyists who attended last month’s DCCC fundraiser, said such events can put both solicitors and donors in an uncomfortable position. They ask professionals who are usually careful to keep their daytime conversations limited to legislative matters to engage over the give-and-take of campaign money.

“It did seem a little odd,” said one lobbyist who went to the DCCC event last month. Added another, “I have mixed feelings about it, but it works. It’s totally legal, but it probably pushes the envelope a little bit.”

A Republican lobbyist, who attended the NRSC event earlier this year, called the practice a “gray area.”

“It’s a little uncomfortable. Obviously there needs to be some separation between the money side of politics and the policy side of politics. That’s easy enough for Members of Congress because they’re also candidates. That dance gets a little more diffuse at the staff level,” he said. “But if both sides are doing it - it’s mutually assured destruction.”

This is how Washington works. Money gets you access to power. And real instantaneous disclosure would bring these practices to light more quickly and stop a lot of it.

Hat tip: Matt Stoller

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The Center for Responsive Politics (a Sunlight grantee) is displaying some cool new ways to view the role of money in the presidential election. Look here for the "Money Web." This shows you the links between candidates and donors, including the five top contributors and industries (including ties) to each of the candidates. Click on a bubble to start making connections among candidates, their top-giving industries and top contributors.

Here’s a cool map that illustrates how much money is going to Republican and Democratic candidates from each state and which presidential candidate got the most.

If you want to see how a candidate’s fundraising stacks up against another’s week by week, or month by month, look here. On this map click on a state to see contributions from that state to each candidate, as well as money isolated by metropolitan area and top ZIP codes. (Note that the Web site is geteting some heavy traffic this afternoon. If you have trouble loading anything, try back later.)

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Here’s a great story about Washington lobbyist lawmaker connections and a fabulous graphic. One picture is worth a 1,000 words.

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Ken Dilanian reports in USAToday that lobbyists are making use of their Capitol Hill-area offices and homes to get cozier than ever with members of Congress:

Despite a strict new ban on gifts to lawmakers, lobbyists routinely use these prime locations to legally wine and dine members of Congress while helping them to raise money, campaign records show. The lawmakers get a venue that is often free or low-cost, a short jaunt from the Capitol. The lobbyists get precious uninterrupted moments with lawmakers — the sort of money-fueled proximity the new lobbying law was designed to curtail. The public seldom learns what happens there because the law doesn’t always require fundraising details to be reported.

USAToday includes this nifty map, showing the prime locations.

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Running names identified by the media as being part of Norman Hsu’s network of donors through federal, state and even municipal campaign finance records, Suitably Flip offers the most comprehensive road map to following the money.

Sadly, there’s no way to be certain which of these contributions were truly bundled by Hsu, and which might have been independently. While the recently enacted Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 requires campaigns to identify bundled contributions totaling more than $15,000 from registered lobbyists, there’s no provision requiring the same sort of disclosure about bundles from convicted felons, or anyone else for that matter.

Among non-presidential candidate members of Congress, the top recipients of contributions of those identified as members of Hsu’s network are Sen. Tom Harkin ($59,800) and Sen. Ted Kennedy ($47,000), according to Suitably Flip. (Sen. Hillary Clinton is first overall with $850,000 in contributions that her campaign disclosed–Suitably Flip can find only $237,00 worth of them, because there are many donors in Hsu’s network that remain undisclosed. Sen. Barack Obama places fourth, just ahead of Harkin with $66,600. The Clinton and Obama figures include contributions to both their Senate and presidential campaigns.)

Via InstaPundit, who observes, “I’m surprised to see this kind of data-crunching on a blog rather than a big-media outlet.” Hey, maybe they can’t crunch the numbers because they’re too busy doing old-fashioned Hsu-leather reporting…

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