The outlet ProPublica reports on its investigation into which lawmakers attended the Super Bowl this year, and how they managed to get their tickets, here. Their basic finding? That most of the congressional partying at such events stays “out of the limelight.” We were happy to partner with ProPublica in this distributed reporting effort, and glad to see them follow up on the Super Bowl fundraising invitations we posted here at Party Time.

Some key obvservations from  ProPublica:

What we learned from this exercise is that even when the venue is America’s most public sports spectacle, politicians largely succeed in remaining invisible, especially when their activities include fundraising. It quickly became apparent that they feel they’re entitled to privacy when they’re accepting campaign money from contributors.

and:

The Super Bowl presents a special opportunity, because tickets to the game aren’t sold to the general public. A small number—1,000 this year—are sold to people who enter and win a lottery the league conducts. The rest are distributed at face value (either $800 or $1,000 this year) by the NFL and its 32 member teams as they see fit, under a shroud of secrecy.

Most fans are forced to get their tickets on Web sites like StubHub, where a ticket for the nosebleed seats sold for about $1,800. Yet lawmakers like Conyers, Meeks and Meek have no trouble getting tickets, not only for their personal use but also to exchange for contributions that are four or five times the face value of the tickets.

ProPublica also points out that even when lawmakers report their expenses many weeks in the future, it’s unlikely we’ll be able to find out how much their campaigns spent on Super Bowl tickets:

At some point, depending on whether they file monthly, quarterly or semi-annually, anyone in Congress who used campaign or leadership PAC money to pay for their tickets will have to file a campaign finance report listing the expenditure. But it might be impossible to find. The line giving the reason for the expense is unlikely to say “to pay for Super Bowl tickets.” More likely, it will say something vague like “fundraising expense.”

Read more at ProPublica.org.

If you visit the motherlode of all campaign finance data websites, the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpenSecrets.org, you can now find Party Time data about congressional fundraisers. Check out this link, for example, to Rep. Steny Hoyer’s (D-Md.) profile page here, which now shows his upcoming fundraising events. We’re really pleased to see the information from Party Time get around the web, where more people will see it. Note: the Sunlight Foundation helps fund the Center for Responsive Politics.)

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) will be cheering on the Saints at the Super Bowl in Miami–and trolling for campaign cash while he’s at it. This invitation suggests that recipients contact his fundraising firm, the Levatino Group, if “interested in attending,” but tastefully doesn’t say what level of contribution is required.

Propublica, the investigative news site, is asking readers to help with a project to find out which lawmakers are going to the Super Bowl–and who is paying for their tickets:

“Why would we cast our skeptical eyeglass on Congress and the Super Bowl?  Because the event “has long been used to rub shoulders, gain influence and form ties that help congressional candidates raise the approximately $1 billion they spend on their campaigns every two years,” wrote Mike Webb, director of communications, in an email to supporters.

Are leadership PACs paying for these tickets? Are they being provided free from the National Football League? Are the national political parties giving them out to reward big donors? Propublica is seeking to find out by asking for volunteers to call each lawmaker’s office and ask some simple questions. You can find all the details here.

We’ll be keeping an eye on what Propublica finds out, as well as continuing to report on any invitation for fundraisers we receive that feature the Super Bowl.

This just in…a Super Bowl fundraising luncheon in Miami benefiting Rep. John Conyers’ (D-Mich.) leadership PAC, America Forward PAC. $5,000 will get you a ticket to the game plus two admissions to the luncheon, at Joe’s Stone Crab. Presumably this is if you’re making an contribution as an individual; $5,000 from a “PAC host,” $2,500 from a “PAC Supporter,” or a $1,000 contribution from an individual just gets you a seat at the luncheon.

We’re keeping our eyes out for more Super Bowl fundraising invitations and will flag them as we get them.

What’s all the hoopla about? Several lawmakers are cashing in on the slew of upcoming Wizards basketball games at the Verizon Center.

These lawmakers aren’t the first to get into the spirit of basketball season. Basketball games have been popular fundraising sites in the past.

Hat tip to Sunlight’s Nisha Thompson, who alerted us to a couple of local blogs that have made good use of Party Time this week:

The Progressive Pulse reports here on how Reps. Patrick McHenry and Heath Shuler have been feted by lobbyist Tim Rupli.

Irregular Times does a nice round up of parties here.

When we come across examples like these, we’ll link to them here on the blog.

If you’ve come across any congressional fundraisers at this year’s Super Bowl, please send them our way. We’d love to put them in our database.  (You can send them using this upload feature or to nwatzman (at) sunlightfoundation.com.)

The snow is flying out west, where several lawmakers plan this week to fundraise while skiing:

• Rep. Ed Whitfield, Republican of Kentucky, will be welcoming donors to Vail on January 7-8; cost is $2,500 per PAC.
• Also in Vail on January 8 will be Democrat Rep. Diana Degette, for her annual fundraising event there. (Here’s last year’s invite.) She’s asking $5,000 per PAC, $2,400 per individual donor.
• In Park City, Utah this weekend is Republican Sen. Bob Bennett, who also hosts an annual ski fundraising event. He wants $5,000 for a “PAC sponsor,” $3,000 for a PAC, and $2,000 for an individual.

As the year draws to a close, we want to give a shout out to some of the journalists, bloggers, and advocacy groups that have done their own analyses of Party Time data this year to produce ground-breaking stories:

• “Few members of Congress are disclosing that lobbyists are helping them raise campaign cash despite a new law that was supposed to shed light on the ties between lawmakers and the capital’s influence brokers,” reported an Associated Press investigation published in September using Party Time data. Read the story here.
• Propublica produced this investigation in September showing how Sen. Saxby Chambliss uses his leadership PAC to fund golf outings, using our data and featuring a Party Time “widget” displaying leadership PAC parties.
• In July, the Washington Post used Party Time data to demonstrate how Blue Dog Democrats were feted by health care lobbyists while they were working on the health care reform bill.
• Public Citizen produced a report in August that showed lobbyists for Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) recipients had hosted fundraisers for lawmakers.
• The folks at LobbyData.com created a Google map mashup showing locations of fundraisers based on Party Time data, and reportedly are at work on an iPhone application.
• Back in March, American News Project journalist Harry Hanbury took on the daunting task of attempting to go to every single congressional fundraiser listed in the Party Time database for a single day. Check out the video here.
  0 Comments