Public Citizen Slams Kerry on "Big Money Bundlers"

[stickdog]

This is a press release.

http://www.publiccitizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1630

Elite Fundraisers Deliver "Bundles" of Donations to Democratic Candidates Who Abandoned the Public Financing System

Official totals won’t be filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) until the end of January, but the Dean campaign has reported raising $41 million in 2003. The Kerry campaign brought in nearly $29 million last year, including $6.4 million the senator loaned to his campaign after taking out a mortgage on his home. A candidate who accepts public financing can raise and spend no more than $45 million before next summer’s Democratic Convention in Boston.

Although Dean has raised $12 million more than Kerry, the Massachusetts senator has relied on four times the number of bundlers, those financial backers who collect contributions up to the limit of $2,000 from others. So far, the Dean campaign has released the names of 14 individuals who have raised at least $100,000; another 18 individuals have bundled at least $50,000 for the Vermont governor. The Kerry campaign has identified 32 fundraisers who have brought in at least $100,000; another 87 rainmakers have collected at least $50,000.

Kerry’s $50,000 Hollywood supporters include actor Dennis Hopper, director William Friedkin, Viacom Entertainment Chairman Jonathan Dolgen, Paramount Studios chief Sherry Lansing, CBS Entertainment head Nancy Tellem and three top executives at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Kerry’s Massachusetts fundraisers include longtime backers Alan Solomont, the former finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC); Jonathan Lavine, managing director of Bain Capital; and the senator’s brother Cameron Kerry, an attorney at Mintz Levin – the firm that ranks as Kerry’s all-time biggest donor.

Kerry also has roped in three former ambassadors, at least 15 trial lawyers and at least a dozen influence-peddlers from such high-powered lobbying firms as Skadden Arps (Kerry’s biggest supporter in 2003), Piper Rudnick and Quinn Gillespie, as well as a pair of lobbyists from the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association.

Kerry garnered support from major Clinton supporters, including former Small Business Administration head Fred Hochberg and several participants in the notorious "White House coffees," including Vance Opperman, former president of West Publishing and Hassan Nemazee, whose nomination to be U.S. ambassador to Argentina was withdrawn in 1999 after Forbes deemed him "a slick-talking investor with a spotty record."


All the would be President's Lobbyists:

http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/demfundraising/bundler_search.cfm

Ben Barnes, TX, Founder & Principal, Entrecorp, Lobbyists
Matthew "Mac" Bernstein, DC, Lobbyist, Piper Rudnick
James Blanchard, MI, Lobbyist, Piper Rudnick
Robert Crowe, MA, Lobbyist, Perkins Smith & Cohen
Robert Farmer, FL, Treasurer John Kerry for President Campaign, Lobbyists
Dennis Kanin, MA, Attorney, Foley Hoag, Lobbyists
David Leiter, DC, Lobbyist, ML Strategies
John Merrigan, DC, Lobbyist, Piper Rudnick
Manuel Ortiz, DC, Lobbyist, Quinn Gillespie
Ivan Schlager, DC, Lobbyist, Skadden Arps
William Titleman, PA, Lobbyist

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. And now for an update from PUBLIC CITIZEN

Feb. 3, 2004

Kerry Ranks Near Bottom in Senate on Money From PACs and Lobbyists


Statement from Nick Nyhart, Executive Director of Public Campaign Action Fund; Chellie Pingree, President of Common Cause; and Joan Claybrook, President of Public Citizen

According to a Jan. 31 Washington Post story, presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is beholden to the very special interests he says he will dismiss from the White House if elected. The Post based its erroneous conclusion on an analysis of the money Kerry has raised from lobbyists while he was a senator.

But the Post paints an inaccurate picture using an arbitrary statistic. A more accurate indicator of whether a candidate has ties to special interests is whether that candidate receives political action committee (PAC) as well as lobbyist money, and if so, how much. An analysis of PAC and lobbying contributions combined shows Kerry is near the bottom in receiving such funds when PAC money is averaged from 1993 through the present and lobbyist money is averaged from 1990 through present. Further, the lobbyist money that Kerry has taken in the presidential campaign is less than 1 percent of his total money raised.

Not only has Kerry historically refused to take PAC money, but his record shows that he been a leader for more than a decade in full reform of campaign financing, advocating for clean public money not only for presidential but also congressional campaigns.

Kerry was the lead sponsor with the late Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) on a measure that would have authorized clean money in all federal congressional elections and was a leader in pressing for congressional public financing in the 1992 and 1993 campaign finance reform bills. Although those bills passed, they were not enacted.

Other Democratic presidential candidates such as former Gov. Howard Dean and Sen. John Edwards also have endorsed campaign finance reform. Dean has endorsed public financing and reform of the presidential public funding system. Edwards played a leadership role in the effort to pass the McCain-Feingold bill and has endorsed reform of the presidential public funding system. President Bush has not endorsed either.

###

http://www.publiccitizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1639

[AP]

12. I think the point is, who needs PACs and Lobbyist $ when you have bundlers

like that?

[Nicholas_J]

14. Yes

Dean has had significant bundled funds that are set up to fall just below that arbitary 50,000 limit, like IBM with 25,000, and several other large contributors who fell in the same range. SAme thing With Time Warner, who donated 60,000 to Dean. The have subsidiaries donate smaller sums, in the 20-30,000 range, but have dozens of subsidiaries do it. THis is the way Dean garnered much support from Hydro Quebec, by having donations made fron its various subsidiaries in Vermont. William Gilbert, a prime source of bundled contributions for Dena works for one company, Robert Proctor, another source works for another Hydro Quebec subsidiary. They both raised in the 20,000 range for Dean. Let Dean lower the limit to 1 dollar, and then we wil get a good look at how the campaign bundling is being handled in all campaigns.

[HFishbine]

17. You should alert the FEC

Accpepting contributions from corporations and foreign citizens are crimes. If your claims are true, I'm sure the FEC would want to know.

[AP]

22. FEC doesn't regulate VT election law.

VT might allow non-citizens to donate.

[HFishbine]

20. Expect the Bushies to use this one

Over $50,000 rasied for Kerry by Iranian Susan Akbarpour, publisher of Iran Today. That'll frighten the Amerikuns.

[displacedtexan]

2. Old news

From your link:

Jan. 16, 2004

Elite Fundraisers Deliver "Bundles" of Donations to Democratic Candidates Who Abandoned the Public Financing System
*************

OOOOOhhhhhh... Big Bad Dennis Hopper!
This is how campaigns work: Meet Ups with more dollars.

[absyntheNsugar]

3. Whaaaaa????

are these conflicting stories supposed to confuse us into voting for Nader?

I would like to know the real story on Kerry's contributions - not that it matters as much since all Senators require some kind of support.

I am much more interested in who as opposed to what.

[CWebster]

4. Tsk tsk

Why I am simply shocked! Not...three top executives at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, huh...

[blm]

5. Yes. You only want FOX execs who donate to Dean, eh?

Gee...can we all stop getting breathless that 1000 and 2000 dollar donations are being made this year just as in EVERY election year?

These are NOT corporate pacs or special interest pacs.

The day we PASS the Kerry-Wellstone public financing campaign bill is the day we can stop accepting individual donations.

[stickdog]

7. These are folks who bundled together over $100,000.

Dean is people powered.

Kerry's Power Rangers are Murdoch-powered. Don't you find that the least bit strange?

[Feanorcurufinwe]

6. Dean

Dean poached three bundlers from Kerry’s backyard, including former DNC chief Steve Grossman. Dean names just two rainmakers from his home state, Vermont philanthropists and film producers Bill and Jane Stetson. Other Dean devotees include U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, the only member of Congress on either list (press reports estimate she has raised at least $250,000 for Dean); ex-Rhode Island Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse; director Rob Reiner (who racked up $100,000 for Dean); former Virginia Lt. Gov. Don Beyer; and Diane Straus Tucker, a New York newspaper publisher who is Monica Lewinsky’s stepsister.
http://www.publiccitizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1630

[stickdog]

8. Please feel free to compare for yourselves

http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/demfundraising/bundler_search.cfm

[JaneQPublic]

11. Kerry receives cash from 4 times as many "Bundlers" as Dean

http://www.publiccitizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1630

"Although Dean has raised $12 million more than Kerry, the Massachusetts senator has relied on four times the number of bundlers, those financial backers who collect contributions up to the limit of $2,000 from others."

[NewYorkerfromMass]

9. "bundling" is not the problem- it is akin to cheerleading

Obviously it is meant to curry favor and influence with the candidate but it is simply not the same as corporate influence with more insidious ends.

[stickdog]

10. THREE MURDOCH NEWS EXECUTIVES were among Kerry's biggest

"cheerleaders."

To the tune of over $100,000 each!

Doesn't that strike anyone else here as just a little strange?

[Nicholas_J]

15. Yes

Rob Reiner bundled 125,000 dollars at a house party of rich Hollywood celebrities to contribute to Dean. This was not put down as bundled money, even though Hollywood also has a vested interest in legislation regardin the media:

• Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, has benefited from supporters who can leverage their extensive contacts into campaign donations. Actor-director Rob Reiner raised $125,000 for Dean at an event at his house in Los Angeles on June 18.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/2003-10-15-cover-bundlers_x.htm

Over 900,000 dollars was bundled in various smaller contributions to the Dean campaign from lawyers:

Campus cash crucial to candidates


Dean collected almost $719,000 from education interests through Sept. 30, ranking that sector third most-lucrative behind retirees ($1.6 million) and lawyers ($932,000).

Among other contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination, education is the 10th most lucrative sector ($325,915) for U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; eighth ($174,324) for U.S. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.; 15th ($107,420) for U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo.; ninth ($207,640) for U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.; third ($119,898) for retired Gen. Wesley Clark; third ($69,809) for U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich D-Ohio; 16th ($3,250) for former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun; and 18th ($2,990) for the Rev. Al Sharpton.

http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com/Stories/0,1413,87~11268~1870457,00.html

None of these are among the bundled contributions Dean revealed, because they were all set up to arrange for contributions that fell below the arbitrary 50,000 mark Dean is pointing out. The education money is coming in in smaller than 50,000 dollar amounts except for one single University of California contribution of 67,000. Dean makes certain that the rest are bundled in smaller amounts.

[Nicholas_J]

18. Also

How much is less important than who.

One of the easiest ways to hide bundling above a certain sum is to have suibsidiaries of an office send in amounts less than some arbitrary figure by having the subsidiaries or local offices send in contributions that fall below some arbirary number that the media then looks at, or the campaigners points out. Dean points out 50,000 for weeks, the media looks at 50,000 and above but not the 49,000 that the candidates has recieeved from the ten branch offices of the law firms that have sent out individual contributions to the campaign.

Sothe ten national offices of the law firms of Dewey, Cheatham and Steele send out 49,000 dollars to the deal campaign each, resukting in a total contribution of 490,000 from one law firm, broken down because they are reported separately as contributions from differncent profrssional assiciations in differnt cities and are treated as separate corporations rather than one company eith the same vested interests.

AS governor, Dean was reported as the master of raising money from special interests:

The influence of out-of-state donations: "Outside money is one of Howard Dean's specialties. Of the $ 312,290 the governor raised for his 1996 election, 65 percent came from out-of-state contributors: labor unions, Washington lawyer-lobbyists, the health care industry, to name a few of the special interests." n13 For the 1994 election "Dean, for example, received more money from major pharmaceutical manufacturers during the reporting period ($ 11,000) thin he did from people and companies located in Burlington ($ 10,460)." n14 One editorial said, "it's no mystery why out-of-state contributors pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Vermont campaigns. ... They're trying to buy influence. But the cost is public trust." n15



http://www.brookingsinstitution.org/dybdocroot/gs/cf/headlines/cases/LandellvSorrell.DOC

Notice the way in which the special interest contributions were given to Dean as govenror, with one company contributing 11,000 dollars.

Yet in this same year, Dena earned more from drug company contributions than his republican opponent raised for his entire campaign.

[HFishbine]

21. Stop it, you're cracking me up

In Kerry's last senate run, he raised over $6,000,000.00 from out of state contributors.

http://www.opensecrets.org/races/instate.asp?ID=MAS2&cycle=2002&special=N

[Freddie Stubbs]

13. 'Public Citizen' is a front organization fro Nader

They are doing his dirty work.

[HFishbine]

16. Quinn Gillespie ?

Isn't that RNC hack Ed Gillespie's firm?

[D G]

19. OMG - "bundling"

Please explain to me how this is different from Dean's bat.