Posted November 30, 2007 by Paul S. Ryan

CLC Files Comments in Lobbyist Bundling Disclosure Rulemaking

Today the Campaign Legal Center, together with Democracy 21, Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and U.S. PIRG, filed comments in response to the Federal Election Commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM 2007-23) on “Reporting Contributions Bundled by Lobbyists, Registrants and the PACs of Lobbyists and Registrants.”

This FEC rulemaking was necessitated by Congress’ passage earlier this year of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007—the important new ethics and lobbying reform law.  The principle behind the new lobbyist disclosure provisions is simple: to shed light on a growing campaign finance practice whereby lobbyists organize and provide large sums of money to federal candidates in an effort to gain access and influence over decisions made by federal officeholders.  Through the practice of bundling, lobbyists get credit for delivering contributions far in excess of the limits imposed on the contributions they can make in their own name.  And with that credit comes the opportunity to influence government decisions on behalf of their clients.

Our comments filed today address several issues raised in the NPRM and urge the Commission to interpret the new statute in such a way as to provide the public with the “broadest possible disclosure”—a phrase used by Congress in the statute itself—of lobbyist bundling activities.  Specifically, our comments address three alternative proposals for defining the statutory term “covered period” and advocate the adoption of a rule requiring reporting of aggregate totals of bundled contributions within the “covered period” and the calendar year.

Our comments also address the definition of the statutory term “bundled contribution,” urging the Commission to include within the scope of the new rules contributions bundled by employees of lobbying organizations, to deem each lobbyist co-host of a fundraising event to have bundled the total amount of funds raised at the event, and to include within the new regulations all forms of “crediting” bundlers with contributions they have raised, informal as well as formal, unwritten as well as written—any circumstance where the recipient candidate or committee knows that the contributions have been raised by the lobbyist.

Finally, we urge the Commission to enact the regulatory language proposed in the NPRM regarding the information that a recipient candidate or committee is required to disclose about the bundled contributions it receives.

The Commission has not yet announced the date of its hearing in this rulemaking proceeding, but the Legal Center has requested the opportunity to testify at the hearing.