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The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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Baucus Skips Fundraiser for His Glacier PAC, A Popular Place for Health Industry Contributions
This past weekend Sen. Max Baucus’ political action committee (PAC) hosted a three-day retreat fundraising event at the Big Sky Resort with “fly-fishing in three nearby rivers, golfing on an Arnold Palmer-designed course, horseback riding and hiking, family fun and gorgeous scenery.” The entrance fee for the event was $2,500 per individual and $5,000 for a PAC. While the roster of interest groups, lobbyists and other individuals in attendance is unknown at this time, we do know who was a no-show: Max Baucus.
According to the National Journal’s Under the Influence blog, Sen. Baucus announced his intention to avoid the event before the fundraiser commenced to “tend to faltering bipartisan negotiations over health care reform legislation.” The senator will not only be missing those who want his ear on a variety of issues coming before his powerful committee — cap and trade and health care — he’ll also be missing a protest held by advocates for single payer health care.
Despite missing this fundraiser, the Montana senator’s Glacier PAC has already pulled in large sums of money from the health and insurance sector and lobbyists representing both sectors. Since January, Baucus’ Glacier PAC has raised $99,500 from health and insurance PACs and lobbyists representing health and insurance organizations. This represents one-third of all contributions to Glacier PAC this year.
Many of these contributions were filed with his committee in the days soon after other fundraising weekends in the mountains of Montana. Over the weekend of February 6, Baucus hosted his Eigth Annual Ski and Snow Mobile Weekend, a fundraising weekend get-away much like the July 31-Aug 2 event that Baucus skipped. Contributions that were filed on February 16 include four health care PACs and two lobbyists for health care companies. The PACs included National Emergency Medicine PAC, Sanofi-Pasteur, American College of Cardiology and American College of Radiology Association. Three out of these four PACs contributed the maximum $5,000 with Sanofi-Pasteur contributing $2,500. The lobbyists included Tracy Spicer (Aetna, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Bravo Health, Healthcare Leadership Council, Heritage Services, Medco, National Health Policy Group, Travelers Companies, UnitedHealth Group) and William Oldaker (Adventist Health Systems, Healthcare Quality Strategies, Intermountain Health Care, Iowa Foundation for Medical Care, IPRO, Lumetra, Mpro, Ohio KePRO, Parexel International, TMF Health Quality Institute, West Virginia Medical Institute).
Contributors to Sen. Baucus’ Glacier PAC also include some of his former staffers now lobbying for health care organizations. These include former chief of staff David Castagnetti ($3,000), Nick Giordano ($1,000) and Roger Blauwet ($2,500). Castagnetti represents a wide array of health care companies including America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), American College of Cardiologists, Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca, Proctor & Gamble and Merck. Blauwet represents Merck, Wyeth, Rx Benefits Coalition and the Association of Financial Guaranty Insurers. Giordano is listed in reports as representing Covidien, Health Care Service Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, McKesson Corporation, Milliman Care Guidelines and the National Association of Public Hospitals. Many of these organizations have also made PAC contributions to the senator’s Glacier PAC.
While Sen. Baucus has promised not to accept any more contributions from health care PACs, he is still willing to accept contributions from their lobbyists and executives. It will be interesting to see who showed up at the senator’s big summer weekend getaway, even if the senator didn’t make it there himself.
Full list of health and insurance PAC and lobbyist contributions below: (Continue reading…)
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Did Two June Parties Yield $44,700 From Health PACs For Sen. Grassley?
Yesterday, I posted about the mountain of health and insurance PAC money pouring into the 2010 reelection coffers of Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the ever-important Senate Finance Committee. That money came into his account like a flooding river, but the real torrent of funds comes in the waning days of June. Could this be because of these two fundraisers held for Sen. Grassley on June 22 and June 24?
From June 22 to the end of the month Sen. Grassley raised a total of $44,700. During this time he was the beneficiary of two fundraisers, one held by the lobbyist for an alternative health organization that has lampooned reform efforts, whose invites can be found at Sunlight’s Party Time web site. Back in June, Nancy Watzman, at the helm of the Party Time blog, wrote about the June 24 event hosted by Sam Brunelli, lobbyist for the Whitaker Health Freedom Foundation:
Sam Brunelli, who works for the Whitaker Health Freedom Foundation, the political arm of the Freedom of Health Foundation, and his wife, Robin Read, are feting Grassley at a breakfast on June 24 at the Capitol Hill Club. The Foundation, headed by Dr. Julian Whitaker of dietary supplement fame, states it opposes the government and the pharmaceutical industry whenever they “suppress the truth about alternative medical therapies and/or nutritional supplementation.” Read is president and CEO of the Foundation for Women Legislators, which includes Dr. Whitaker on its board. The Freedom of Health Foundation did not return a call inquiring about the event.
Brunelli is introduced as a lobbyist on the organization’s Web site, here; however there are no official records of his work at least as a federal lobbyist here, according to lobbyist disclosure reports. The most recent available tax forms filed by the Whitaker Health Freedom Foundation, the political arm, claim a budget of just $34,000 and make no mention of payments to staff. (See the organization’s 1998 990 form here.)
Brunelli formerly served as executive director of the conservative group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which works to advance conservative state legislators. He left the group in 1995 over charges of mismanagement and personal enrichment, according to a 1995 National Journal report.
The majority of the contributions coming in during this high water mark for Sen. Grassley’s PAC fundraising came from health professional organizations, all of whom paid equal to or above the amount required for PACs to gain entrance to the fundraising parties on June 22 and June 24.
The amount raised over the final eight days in June accounts for over one-quarter of the health and insurance PAC money raised by Sen. Grassley in the second quarter. The other three quarters came over the course of 83 days. Knowing this, it appears that the two fundraisers had the desired effect.
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Campaign ATM’s: The Political Donor Class
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.
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Pimping the Powers Behind the Thrones
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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New Ways to Look at the Money Behind the Presidentials
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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A Picture is Worth….
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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Good Thing They Tightened Ethics Rules
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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Suitably Flip Opens up Bundles of Hsu’s
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…
