GOP presidential hopefuls are preparing to battle for the hearts and minds of the people of South Carolina ahead of the all important primary tomorrow as they attend various fundraisers, town hall meetings and rallies to reach as many potential voters as possible.

Former Senator Rick Santorum is no exception. Santorum will be one of the special guests scheduled to attend The Patriot Dinner, hosted by The Citadel Republican Society. Tickets for tonight’s dinner start at $5,000 for the presenting sponsor (2 tables of 10) to $45.00 for general admission.

For more information on presidential fundraising events , check out Party Time’s Presidential Fundraiser Tracker.

“Concrete Jungle Where Dreams are Made” – Rep. Ed Towns, D-N.Y. and Rep. André Carson, D-Ind., will be hosting fundraising events at the Jay-Z and Kanye West Concert on Nov. 3 at the Verizon Center in Washington D.C. Admission to the event and reception will cost $2,500 for two tickets and $1500 for a single one.

Arg! Navigating the Political Seas – Although not your usual fundraiser, Purple Strategies will be hosting an event titled ‘The New Political Advocacy for 2012: Navigating the Complex World of Political Engagement’ on Nov. 3.  Panelists include: Monica Dixon, The Majority PAC, Brian Walsh, Congressional Leadership Fund and Joe Sandler, Former In-House Counsel to the DNC.

Sweet Georgia Peach – The National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee will be having its Fall Retreat Nov. 4-6 in Sea Island, Georgia.

Good Eats- Several members of Congress and organizations will be hosting breakfast, luncheons and receptions this week.  Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., is having a reception at the Brookfield Office Properties on Nov. 1. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., will be the special guest.

Also, on Nov. 1, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is hosting a Roundtable Breakfast Briefing with Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill.

Rep. Robert Scott, D-Va., will be at the Erickson & Co. Townhouse on Nov. 1 for a reception. Prices range from $2,500 for PACs to $100 individuals.

On Nov. 2 Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and Sen. Jeff Bingham, D-N.M., will be at the Crescent Council breakfast.

To join Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, at the Charlie Palmer Steak on Nov. 2, the cost is $5,000 to Co-Host, $2,500 to be an Event Sponsor, or $1,000 per individual.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y. will be hosting fundraising events on Nov. 3. Hatch will be at the Monocle Restaurant for a breakfast hosted by fundraising consultant Bill Oorbeek and Maloney will be hosting a breakfast at her home.

Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, will at the Capitol Hill Club on Nov. 4 for a breakfast event.

NDN will be hosting a lunch featuring Chris Kofinis, Chief of Staff to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on Nov. 4. The event will take place at the NDN event space on 15^th Street NW in Washington, DC.

Updates:

There is a birthday celebration fundraiser for Rep. Bruce Braley, D-IA on Nov. 1.

Rep. Emanuel Clever, D-Mo., is having a fundraiser at the Jay-Z and Kanye West concert on Nov. 3.

Two Super Committee members will be attending fundraisers this week.  On Nov. 1, Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz., will be a special guest at Sen. Ron Johnson’s R-Wis. breakfast event at the Caucus Room. Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., will be attending a breakfast honoring Rep. Larry Kissell, D-N.C., Nov. 4 at Johnny’s Half Shell. (See here for a list of the panel’s events)

Despite the looming threat of a federal government shutdown, it’s fundraising as usual for Congress. Party Time has collected invitations for 27 events planned between today and April 15.

Although it’s unclear how long the shutdown will last (if it happens at all), lawmakers are having an assortment of fundraisers from the standard breakfasts and luncheons to sporting events and outdoor adventures, with a few members of Congress choosing to escape from the shutdown city and fundraise in their home districts.

Freshman Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., plans to kick off federal government-free week on the links with his First Annual Arizona Golf Weekend in Phoenix. If attendees wish to join the congressman for a round at Grayhawk or Whisper Rock courses, they will have to produce a check ranging from $1,500 to $5,000.

Also heading out for some fresh air this upcoming week will be Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who has a Skeet Shoot scheduled for Tuesday, April 12 in Prince George’s County Maryland. Details on the invite are sparse but attendees will be asked to donate either $750 or $1,500 for the honor of shooting skeet with Congressman Chaffetz.

On the spectator side of sports, a pair of New Jersey Democrats, Reps. Donald Payne, D-N.J., and Albio Sires, D-N.J., will be holding fundraisers at NBA match-ups. Attendees of Payne’s event will be watching the New Jersey Nets take on the New York Knicks at the Prudential Center in Newark tonight, while those at Rep. Sires’ party will be in D.C. Monday night as the Washington Wizards take on the Boston Celtics.

Correction: The original spreadsheet listed Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., as a congressman.

Get out the pointy hats and the balloons because it’s time to celebrate some birthdays! Party Time would like to say Happy Birthday to Reps. Bobby Scott, D-Va., and Gwen Moore, D-Wis., both of who will be celebrating their birthdays next week with some fundraisers.

Individuals attending the birthday fundraisers on April 12 and April 13 will have to cough up $200 for Scott’s party and $250 for Moore’s while requested donations from PACs is $2,500 and $5,000, respectively. The venues for the events are familiar Party Time locations, the Erickson & Co. Townhouse for Scott, and the home of John Weinfurter for Moore.

Weinfurter’s home is a known hotspot for Democratic fundraisers, especially for members of Congress from Wisconsin or Massachusetts. Moore’s party at the residence promises to be quite the event, where the honorary hosts include fellow members of Congress from Wisconsin Herb Kohl, Ron Kind, and Tammy Baldwin (no stranger to Weinfurter’s home herself), Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and ranking member of the House Budget committee, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., according to the invite.

But the party isn’t just noteworthy for the members of Congress who may be present but also because of those who are holding the event. It’s an exhaustive list including the PACs of Bank of America, Assurant, and DRS Technologies, as well as a slew of individual lobbyists. These companies—including DRS’ parent Finmeccanica SpA—are well-established supporters of Congresswoman Moore. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, all three were top donors to her 2010 campaign.

These types of birthday celebrations aren’t unknown in the D.C. fundraising circuit. A search of the Party Time database reveals over a hundred such fundraising events in the last three years. Some members of Congress appear to have these birthday fundraisers every year. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., who recently scheduled such a celebration a few weeks ago, has been the beneficiary of birthday fundraisers every year going back to at least 2008. Other members of Congress who like to hold  annual birthday fundraisers include Rep. Larry Kissell, D-N.C.,  Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Ill., and Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif.

The Party Time database shows that seven of the eight lawmakers currently being investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics for holding fundraisers or receiving major donations just two days before the House vote on the Wall Street reform bill, have invites for fundraisers that took place within the time frame of the Ethics probe.

The probe is focused on whether the timing of accepting the campaign checks 48 hours before the vote on December 11, 2009 created an unacceptable appearance of a conflict, the Washington Post reported today. The Ethics Office has sent letters to lobbyists requesting information about these donations, the Post also found.

According to our database of fundraising invitations, which is by no means complete, the following lawmakers sent invitations to the fundraisers listed below which were set to take place on December 9, 2009 or December 10, 2009:

•    Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., planned a December 10, 2009 “Financial Services Luncheon” featuring Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., at the Capitol Hill Club. Guests and political action committees could attend by donating anywhere from $500-$2,500.

•    Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., planned a December 9, 2009 reception at Democratic National Headquarters titled “Bojangles’ Fried Chicken, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, and Mel Watt, of course!” Individuals were asked to contribute $500 and political action committees $1,000.

•    Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., planned a December 9, 2009 “California Wine Tasting” that cost participants anywhere from $500-$1,000. The distribution for the wine tasting event was paid for by the Gula Graham Group a fundraising and political consulting firm. Campbell also planned a December 8, 2009 lunch at the Capitol Hill club where guests could pay anywhere from $500-$2,000. The event also featured special guest Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif.

•    Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., planned a “Last Call” breakfast on December 9, 2009 at the Capitol Hill Club. The invitation prominently displayed his position as a ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, and a member of the House Financial Services Committee and House Science and Technology Committee. The cost to attend was $500 per person and $1,000 per political action committee.

•    Rep. Chris Lee, R-N.Y., planned a “Holiday Reception” on December 9, 2009 for “max out donors only” who could attend for $1,000 per political action committee or co-sponsor the event for $2,500 per political action committee.

•    Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-N.Y., planned two fundraisers in this time frame: A December 10, 2009 “Holiday Cocktail Reception” featuring special guest Sen. Mark Warner that cost $500-$2,500 to attend.

•    Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., planned a December 10, 2009 breakfast at the offices of Davis and Harman LLP where guests could pay anywhere from $500-$2,000 to attend. The firm has several financial firms as clients.

•    There are no invitations on file for the two-day time period of the probe for Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, who is also being investigated. However there are plenty of other invites for Hensarling in our database. According to the Post, Ethics investigators want to know about the 10-day period before the vote when he raised at least $30,000 in case from financial firms and their advocates.

The 2008 House Ethics Manual states:

“The Standards Committee has long advised Members and staff that they should always exercise caution to avoid even the appearance that solicitations of campaign contributions are connected in any way with an action taken or to be taken in their official capacity.”

As voters await the Connecticut Senate primary in August, politicians are doing all they can to snag Democratic Senator Chris Dodd’s seat.

Republican candidate Linda McMahon appears to be the financial frontrunner thus far, with more than $14.5 million coming from her own self-financing, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Other Republican candidates, Peter Schiff and Robert Simmons, have raised more than $2 million, mostly from individual contributions from donors.

The race holds a democratic advantage, according to The Cook Political Report.

Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic candidate for Dodd’s seat, held a fundraiser at DC’s Brown Rudnick in March. Though there are doubts that he can win the seat for the Democrats, Blumenthal has the backing from all five of Connecticut’s representatives. His March fundraiser was hosted by Democratic Reps. Joe Courtney, Rosa DeLauro, Jim Himes, John Larson, and Chris Murphy.

A fundraiser that would have been held next week by House Foreign Affairs member Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., was canceled yesterday after Roll Call questioned the invitation — which had simultaneously asked attendees to join her advisory council and donate $2,500 per political action committee.

According to Roll Call the invitation noted that the Congresswoman serves as a ranking member of the committee and promised “when the GOP regain[s] the majority, I would turn to you for advice on pertinent issues affecting our nation.” The event was canceled “due to a misunderstanding and to avoid the appearance of impropriety,” said a spokesman for the Congresswoman.

Roll Call interviewed Party Time director Nancy Watzman for the story:

Nancy Watzman, director of the Sunlight Foundation’s Party Time project, which tracks fundraising activities, said the Ros-Lehtinen invitation was “about as blatant as I’ve ever heard.” Watzman said in most invitations, the offer of access in exchange for contributions is “kind of nudge-nudge, wink-wink — that’s what these are all about.”

“Almost every single invitation will state what committees these Members sit on,” Watzman said. “And why would you do this unless you were advertising ‘I can do this for you’?”

But Watzman said, “It’s very difficult to prove that it violates any actual law. … It certainly violates the spirit.”

Sadly, Party Time does not happen to have this particular invitation on file, but here are some invites for Rep. Ros-Lehtinen from 2009 and 2008. Our database is hardly complete — it largely consists of events sent to us that take place in Washington, D.C. We rely on anonymous sources to give or send us the invites, and when we get them, we strip all identifying information.

If you know of a fundraiser please consider uploading it to our anonymous upload system here.

USA TODAY used Party Time today to estimate how many fundraising events have been hosted by The Online Lenders Alliance, an association of Internet-based payday lenders. USA TODAY was looking into increased lobbying by payday lenders as Congress works on sweeping legislation to regulate banks and protect consumers from risky financial practices.

The newspaper found that since January 2009, the Alliance hosted 19 fundraising events at a Capitol Hill building listed as the Alliance’s townhouse and more than half benefited lawmakers on committees that oversee the industry.

A search of our database has found that there were actually 26 invitations to fundraisers hosted by the Online Lenders Alliance since January 2009, and 42 since June 2006.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee hosts a breakfast briefing this morning with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), both members of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Bennet is facing a primary challenge this year, but first quarter reports showed him outraising his opponent, Andrew Romanoff, by a ratio of 3.5 to 1. Fifty-eight percent of the cash he collects in large individual contributions comes from out of state. Merkley is not up for reelection this year.

The monthly DSCC breakfasts are open to any donor who gives at least $5,000 to the committee per year, according to the invitation.

This weekend features a couple of getaways from the city offered by lawmakers seeking cash for their leadership PACs.

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) will be hosting a “Pacific Northwest Summer Retreat” at the Suquamish Clearwater Casino in Washington state. Guests can look forward to sailing, kayaking (with the Congressman!), gambling and a ‘legislative update breakfast.’ Contributions are to be made out to his New Apollo Energy PAC–named for the New Apollo Energy Act he and 14 other representatives introduced in the House on June 9, 2005.

The second fundraiser will be hosted by House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH), Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) and Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA). Contributions are to be made out to the joint fundraising committee Americans for a Conservative Course. The invitation states that all donations will then be equally distributed between the four leadership committees: the Freedom Project (Boehner), For America’s Republican Majority (Latham), the Next Century Fund (Burr), and the Republican Majority Fund (Chambliss).