All Bundlers are not the same under the law

[cali]

There are different rules for lobbyist bundlers (the Clinton campaign has a lot of those) than for non-lobbyist bundlers. But let's stipulate first that FEC rules are messy and confusing and that the FEC is notoriously weak on enforcement. In 2009 new rules that effected lobbyist bundlers were enacted.

Welcome to another edition of "Influence Analytics," a recurring series on trends in lobbying and regulations — on and off Capitol Hill — that Sunlight's Reporting Group spots using our data analysis tools.
This is the week that lobbyists had to file their first quarter reports on Capitol Hill, and while there's been lots of interesting analysis of what has been disclosed, we here at Sunlight got to thinking about what wasn't:

In the first three months of 2014, only 18 individuals and organizations were named by federal campaign committees as lobbyist "bundlers"--those credited with raising money from others and delivering it in one convenient (and large) package to a candidate or party committee, according to Sunlight's analysis of records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

While the FEC list includes high profile lobbyists (Tony Podesta and his estranged wife Heather Podesta are reported to have bundled $289,400 and $97,400, respectively, to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee), other names you'd expect to find aren't there.

Over at Sunlight's Party Time website, which tracks campaign fundraising parties, we count 513 people and organizations listed as hosts over the same time period. In other words, they are helping these candidates and party committees raise hard money by bringing together other donors. Sounds like bundling, no? Yet none of the Party Time hosts are reported as bundlers by campaign committees in the 2014 calendar year.

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https://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2014/04/24/influence-analytics-hard-to-follow-hard-money-bundling/

http://www.capdale.com/disclosure-rules-for-lobbyist-bundling-01-16-2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-bundlers-fossil-fuel_us_55a8335ee4b04740a3df86c5
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/hillary-clinton-fundraising-bundlers-lobbyists

[cali]

1. Lobbyist bundling is often about functionally raising corporate

dollars.