Newt in the Sunshine State – After coming off his victory in the South Carolina Primary win, the former speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is scheduled to attend the 2012 Lincoln Day Dinner on Saturday. Gingrich is listed on the invitation as the honored guest and speaker at the fundraiser that benefits the Orange County Republican Executive Committee.

For more on upcoming presidential fundraisers, check out our fundraiser tracker.

Washington Capitals Game – Capitals and Bruins fans, Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., will be at the game tomorrow at the Verizon Center.

Happy Birthday! – Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., is scheduled to be in San Diego on Thursday for a birthday celebration dinner. To wish Bilbray happy birthday in person, tickets start at $2,500 per table and $250 per person.

Breakfast of Champions – A fundraising breakfast in honor of Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., is scheduled for Tuesday. The suggested contributions start at $2,000 for PACs and $500 for individuals.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee will be having a round table breakfast scheduled for Wednesday.

Rep. Charles Rangel D-N.Y., facing 13 ethics charges and fighting for his political life in his New York primary today, has planned to be back in D.C. receiving checks bright and early tomorrow morning, according to this invitation.

In the primary, he faces a crowded Democratic field led by state Assemblyman Clayton Powell IV.

At tomorrow’s breakfast, to be held at Bistro Bis — a downtown Washington eatery which appears to be a Rangel favorite — PACs are asked to contribute between $1,000 and $5,000 while the suggested contribution for individuals is $1,000.

This is the first D.C. invitation in Party Time’s records since March, around the time when he was pushed to step down as chair of the House Ways and Means Committee. Last year, he planned to attend numerous fundraisers for himself and his colleagues. Also, some longtime donors, including Pfizer, have said they are no longer contributing to him while other lawmakers have donated the money Rangel gave their campaigns to charity.

The charges against Rangel include that he used a rent-stabilized apartment for a campaign office and did not disclose income on his Personal Financial Disclosure forms.

His campaign might be tweeting about his upcoming 80th birthday bash, but the two most recent fundraisers held by Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., were much less publicized affairs held at C2 Group, a well-connected D.C. firm that lobbies on tax issues and represents organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Rifle Association, Party Time records show.

Unless he strikes a deal with the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, Rangel, who temporarily stepped down from his chairmanship of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, would face a public trial for alleged ethics violations.

C2 Group is largely made up of former GOP staffers in the legislative and executive branches. Its founding partner, John Cline, worked in the George H.W. Bush Administration, while Nelson Litterst and Becky Halkias worked in the George W. Bush Administration, according to its website.

Another partner, Hunter Bates, is a former chief of staff to Minority Leader Mitch McConnel, R-Ky., and the firm’s director of federal affairs, Leslie Elliott, is a former McConnell hand.

Both the Mar. 16 and Mar. 25 parties (the only ones in Party Time records this year) were titled “Friends of New York Breakfast.” PACs could chair the events if they donated $5,000 to Rangel’s campaign. They could host it for $2,500 while individuals could do so for $2,000.

A call to the C2 group asking if any partners have lobbied Rangel was not returned, but the website touts a handful of lobbyists as specialists in dealing with Democrats. The site also points to dealing with the Ways and Means Committee, which Rangel presided over from 2007 until stepping aside earlier this year.

C2 Founder Tom Crawford is called the group’s Blue Dog Coalition specialist on its website. Crawford “has worked on every tax measure and budget reconcilation package considered by Congress during the past twenty years,” according to the website.

The charges against Rangel haven’t been made public yet but they reportedly include that he preserved a tax loophole for an oil company whose executive pledged to donate to a center named after Rangel at the City University of New York. Rangel’s dealings with insurance giant A.I.G. also got attention; Rangel solicited funds for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service from A.I.G. executives, who weeks later asked for help getting a tax benefit.

C2 group’s point man for health care reform to the Ways and Means Committee is Michael Hanson, a former chief of staff to Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Tex., according to the C2 website.

C2 touts the Democratic credentials of three lobbyists: Jeff Murray, Patrick Robertson and Becky Halkias. Murray was the executive director of the Blue Dog Coalition as the chief of staff to its chairman, Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala. and a former top officer at the American Gas Association. Robertson was a staffer for Jay Rockefeller, R-W.V., for many years, where he worked on tax issues. The firm also notes that Halkias, a former aide to DHS Secretary Tom Ridge, has worked closely with Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office.

Raul Tapia, a former Carter Administration official, is the group’s liaison to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, according to his profile on the firm’s website.

The group’s clients include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Legal Reform, which advocates for tort reform and against trial lawyers’ “excessive influence.” C2 also lobbies for the National Rifle Association, Comcast, and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, the cable industry’s main trade group. Homes for America Alliance, a coalition of home building and housing companies, was C2’s biggest client in 2009.

Rangel’s Birthday Fundraiser Still Planned

Despite Mayor Michael Bloomberg speculating otherwise, Rangel’s Aug. 11 80th Birthday Gala is still on, the Rangel campaign told Party Time.

“The fundraiser is on and we continue with the campaign,” press secretary Bob Liff told Party Time.

The campaign even promoted the event on Twitter today, sending a tweet inviting people to come and linking to a YouTube video promoting the event. The video includes birthday wishes from President Bill Clinton, and footage from a prior birthday fundraiser, where Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and New York politicians praise the Harlem politician. Supporters can RSVP to the event on the campaign’s website.

The invitation, obtained by the New York Post, lists Gov. David Patterson as master of ceremonies and other hosts include Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Aretha Franklin is set to perform at the Plaza Hotel.

Getting on the Rangel Birthday Gala Committee list costs between $200 and $5,000. Liff said he did not have a head count yet.

“These things usually come together late,” he said.

Yesterday, we noted that Rep. Charles Rangel, a frequent guest at fundraisers for other lawmakers, has not appeared in our database since September 2009.

We called Rangel’s office for a comment; we got a response today.

“We report all fundraising activities according to the rules set forth by the Federal Election Commission,” his spokesman e-mailed.

That clears things up…

A string of ethics violations led to Rep. Charles Rangel’s, D-NY, taking a temporary leave as chairman of the influential House Ways and Means Committee on March 3, 2010. But Rangel’s fundraising seems to have slowed long before his decision to leave the chairmanship.

Rangel, once a prolific fundraiser who hosted many parties for politicians in the past, has not attended any fundraisers recently. According to Party Time’s invitation database, Rangel’s name appeared in 36 different events going back to June 2006 with the last event being a 50th birthday celebration for former Rep. Eric Massa in September 2009.

Party Time’s database of invitations is hardly complete–it largely consists of events sent to us that take place in Washington, D.C., so it’s possible Rangel is still on the fundraising circuit. Calls to Rangel’s office to find out were not returned.

In 2009, he donated thousands of dollars to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee; Rep. Dina Titus, D-NV; Rep. Dan Maffei, D-NY; Rep. Jim Himes, D-CT; Rep. Eric Massa, D-NY and Rep. Michael McMahon, D-NY. But Rangel has not made any donations to members of Congress in 2010, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

As of April 12, Rangel has raised nearly $2 million, a number that pales in comparison to last year’s amount of more than $5 million.

Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) has taken the reins as acting chairman of the influential House Ways and Means Committee, following Rep. Charles Rangel’s (D-N.Y.) decision to take a leave of absence from this post due to ongoing ethics investigations. Levin is already scheduled to host a couple of upcoming fundraisers for fellow Democrats this month, but he’ll have a long way to go if he’s to match Rangel’s fundraising prowess.

Levin will appear at a breakfast fundraiser for Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ken.) on March 22 at the National Democratic Club Townhouse.  A few days later on March 25, Levin will attend a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Business Council Breakfast fundraiser, where he will be joined by Rep. Dennis Cardoza (D-Calif.), Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.). Party Time’s database shows only two other occasions when Levin hosted fundraisers for another lawmaker – once in the spring of 2008 and once in the summer of 2008 – but bear in mind that Party Time does not receive invitations to every fundraiser, and the Michigan lawmaker may well have hosted other events.

When it comes to raising money, Levin is overshadowed by his predecessor. Since he became chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in 2007, Rangel raised nearly $7 million for his campaign committee, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In the 2008 election cycle, he donated nearly $1.3 million to Democratic candidates, making him the second biggest donor in candidate-to-candidate contributions. Since 2007, Rangel raised nearly $2.5 million for his leadership PAC, of which a nearly $900,000 was donated to other federal candidates.

In the current election cycle, Levin has raised more than $700,000 and has donated $26,000 to fellow Democratic candidates. He has also donated $140,000 to the DCCC. In the 2010 cycle, Levin’s leadership PAC has raised $18,000.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Charles Rangel, under scrutiny for possible ethics violations, has been having trouble raising money lately, reports the New York Times. Next week he’ll be trying with a private dinner hosted by several lobbyists who represent clients with interests befor his committee–and who show up frequently in our Party Time database.

John Raffaelli, a long-time tax lobbyist, in 2007 founded the lobbying firm Capitol Council LLC. His clients include the American Bankers Association, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America. Shannon Finley, who formerly worked for Sen. Max Baucus, is also a lobbyist for the firm, as is David Jones, who used to work as Rangel’s fundraiser. The remaining host, Bernie McKay, is a lobbyist for Intuit.

Also of note about the invitation: “individual hosts” are asked to “write or raise” $2,500, which is higher than the federal individual limit of $2,400. It will be interesting to see if any of these hosts show up later on “bundling” reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

This morning Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), under much scrutiny for possible ethics violations, was scheduled for  his third annual Valentines Day breakfast hosted by a slew of Ernst & Young lobbyists. Ticket prices were $1,000 for individuals, $2,500 for PACs–same as it cost last year. (We hope they are saving some cash on design–the two invitations are in the exact same format.)

The accounting powerhouse Ernst & Young runs a major lobbying operation, collecting nearly $13 million for its efforts last year alone. In the past the firm got some unwanted attention for marketing tax shelters that were perhaps a bit too creative.  As the invitation so helpfully points out, Rangel is the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the locus point for decision making on taxes.

Why is Rangel busy raising money, so far out from election time? He never has much opposition. However, he’s quite generous at spreading around his campaign money with his colleagues–a tried and trued method of gaining, and retaining, chairmanships. These days he also needs cash for legal fees.