Quantcast
Home manage Las Vegas Review-Journal
  Jobs Cars Homes Shopping Travel Weddings Golf Best of Las Vegas Photo   Search:
The Political Eye blog
A look at Nevada politics by the staff of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Stephens Media Washington Bureau.
View all blog entries
November 2009
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
« Oct    
  01
02 03 04 05 06 07 08
09 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30            
Monthly archives
Reid files list of campaign bundlers

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s latest haul of campaign cash included $114,000 in bundled contributions from lobbyists and political action committees, according to a newly required disclosure his campaign filed this month with the Federal Election Commission.

Under a new congressional ethics law passed in 2007, the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, campaigns are required to report bundled contributions from lobbyists and PACs when they exceed $16,000. The reporting requirement kicked in this year.

In the first half of 2009, Reid’s No. 1 bundler was William Singer, a partner in the Chicago law firm Kirland and Ellis who hosted a Reid fundraiser there in June. He’s credited with $39,750 in bundled donations.

“Bundling” is when one campaign donor gets credit for getting a bunch of others to contribute, a la the “Rangers” of the George W. Bush campaign. Ethics hawks criticize the practice as a way of circumventing campaign-finance limits.

What exactly constitutes “bundling” is largely left up to campaigns to define under the new law. Essentially, anyone the campaign credits with bringing in multiple donations is a bundler.

Reid lists three more bundlers in addition to Singer: FMR Corp. PAC, the Boston-based parent company of financial firm Fidelity Investments, with $36,500; Emanuel Rouvelas, a lobbyist and partner in the firm K&L Gates, with $19,000; and another top D.C. lobbyist, Anthony T. Podesta of the Podesta Group, with $18,700.

The bundled donations total $113,950 out of the more than $5 million Reid raised from Jan. 1 to June 30 of this year.

Add a comment!
Terms & Conditions
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsiblity of the authors. The reviewjournal.com does not review comments before publication nor guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by the comment policy. If you see a comment that violates the policy, please notify the web editor.

Some comments may not display immediately due to an automatic filter. These comments will be reviewed within 48 hours. Please do not submit a comment more than once.
0 Responses to "Reid files list of campaign bundlers"
Newsvine Digg Fark Technorati reddit StumbleUpon del.icio.us Slashdot Propeller Mixx Furl Twitter MySpace Facebook Google Bookmarks Yahoo! Bookmarks Windows Live Favorites Ask MyStuff myAOL Favorites
More Blogs