Political fundraisers happening this weekend:

* Rep. Joseph Crowley of New York’s 7th Congressional District, hosts his “I Love NY Weekend” at the chic Standard Hotel, which sits above New York City’s High Line, an old elevated rail-turned park in the Meatpacking District. The weekend will cost PACs $5,000 while individual donors can come along for $2,400.

* At DNC Headquarters on Sunday, a throng of Democrats and lobbyists are scheduled to join Kentucky’s 3rd District Congressman John Yarmuth for his 4th Annual Bourbon & Barbecue. According to the invitation, attendees can sample Kentucky bourbons and southern-style barbecue from Yarmuth family-owned Sonny’s Real Pit Bar-B-Q.

Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., will be on hand, along with Lyndon Boozer, a lobbyist with AT&T who has been billed as a host on at least five invitations to Democratic fundraisers this year. PAC tickets range from $1,000 to $5,000 while individuals can play host for $2,400.

Yarmuth is the favorite to win in November, though his seat is in play, according to the Cook Political Report. He faces Republican anti-establishment pick and National Air Guard veteran Todd Lally.

* For $2,500, PACs can send a golfer to tee off at The Country Club at Woodmore in Mitchellville, MD, to benefit The Committee for the Preservation of Capitalism, Charles Boustany’s Leadership PAC. Boustany, R-La., a former surgeon and big supporter of market-based reforms to the health care system, has received over $1 million from health professionals over his career. This year, about a third of donations to Boustany’s PAC have come from the health care industry.

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.

Beer: it’s not just for diffusing racial tensions. It’s also for political fundraising. As are wine, bourbon, cocktails, margaritas, and mojitos–all used as attractions for recent fundraisers by members of Congress, according to our Party Time database. It’s as if lawmakers and lobbyists are living out the famous lines of the George Thorogood song: “One bourbon, one scotch, one beer.”

Tomorrow President Barack Obama is welcoming Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley to the White House, where they’re planning to quaff some suds. It’s an an attempt to put to rest the controversy over Gates’ recent arrest by Crowley and Obama’s comments soon thereafter.

Meanwhile, lawmakers routinely count on the relaxing properties of alcohol to get donors to open their wallets. But the drinks don’t come cheap.

Tonight alone Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is charging $5,000 for those who want to sponsor his “Beers, Brats, Wines, and Squeaky Cheese” fundraiser at the UPS Townhouse. There’s no mention on the invite of whether he’ll be doling out alka seltzer. Showing that beer has bipartisan appeal, Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK) tonight hosts a “Beer Tasting and Dinner” at Brasserie Beck, proceeds going to his leadership PAC, the Great American Fund. The event costs $1,500 for a PAC, $500 for an individual.

Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY) apparently has an annual Kentucky bourbon tasting–this year marked his third. Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) likes to combine cocktails and cigars. Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) goes for margaritas and mojitos (and those events were just one day apart). Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA) represents the Pittsburgh, a beer sort of place, but nevertheless planned a wine tasting at Sonoma.

Check out our map for recent fundraisers featuring alcohol. If you click on the pins, you’ll find links to the invitations.

View Larger Map

As the members of the House Ways and Means Committee prepare to take up the health care reform debate next month, they are busy fundraising from health care lobbyists representing such companies as Eli Lilly, the American Hospital Association, and Johnson & Johnson.

Party Time has identified at least 124 fundraising events in 2009 alone for members of this powerful committee. Most invitations do not contain information about hosts or who might be attending. However, those that do provide a tantalizing glimpse of what the guest lists are like at these private events.

For example:

• Using the same watermark background of an image of the Capitol, a gaggle of nine lobbyists hosted one event for Chairman Rangel (a Valentine’s day bash breakfast on February 12) and is planning another on June 10 for Rep. Richard Neal, a Democrat from Massachusetts (reception and dinner). All but one of these hosts lobby for Ernst & Young–Nick Giordano, LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, Francis Grab Dave Koshgarian, Dick Meltzer, Jeff Petrich, Bobby Rozen, and Holly Bode–where they represent such clients as Aetna Inc., Johnson & Johnson, and Health Care Service Corp. The ninth, Tom Jolly, includes AFLAC Inc. among his clients. Rangel has collected $2.3 million in campaign contributions over the course of his congressional career from the health care sector. Neal has gotten more than $500,000.
  
• On April 22, lobbyists representing major drug companies were among the hosts of a dinner at Arcadiana for Rep. Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin. Rebecca Anderson, Chris Hatcher, and Susan Hirshmann all lobby for Wiliams & Jensen, where they represent such clients as Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca Inc., Novartis, Pfizer, and Wyeth. Ryan has collected more than $155,000 from the pharmaceutical industry during his years in Congress.
• Reps. Allyson Schwartz, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, and John Yarmuth, a Democrat from Kentucky, have both been wined and dined this year by Fred Graefe and Rita Norton. Graefe represents a host of health care interests, including Invacare Corp., AmerisourceBergen Corp, and the Federation of American Hospitals. Norton lobbies for AmerisourceBergen Corp. Schwartz has collected more than $857,000 in campaign contributions from health care interests for her elections; Yarmuth, more than $257,000.

As we noted in our first post last week on parties for members of key health care committees, on parties for members of the Senate Finance Committee, it is nearly impossible to find out who attends these fundraising events. Lawmakers report their campaign contributions only once every three months. Even then, while it is possible to look for clusters of contributions around particular dates, there’s no way definitively to link contributions to a particular event unless one confirms it with the donor or campaign. Meanwhile, new Federal Election Commission rules on disclosing “bundles” of contributions are so weak that only one bundler disclosed by the first deadline.

[Thanks to Party Time intern Josh Heath for help researching this post.]

Here are the parties for members of the House Ways & Means Committee:

As the health care debate begins in earnest in Washington, D.C., here are some congressional fundraisers flagged as “health care” related on the invitations themselves–a sign to potential health care industry donors that it would be a good time to pony up.

Note the party for Rep. John Yarmuth at the home of lobbyist Julie Dominick hosted by the American Hospital Association. Dominick, who had worked for more than two decades for the Investment Company Institute, hung out her own lobbyist shingle in 2007 after the Democrats took control of Congress. Her home is now the location for many a congressional fundraiser.

Keep in mind that there are certainly there are many more fundraisers involving health care interests than on this list–these are only the ones we’ve collected that state their purpose so blatantly. Since there is no official disclosure required of these events, lawmakers choose how to advertise them. We’ll be doing more detailed analysis of health care related fundraisers in upcoming weeks.

Here are “health care” fundraisers:

Here are “healthcare” fundraisers:

Hot from our lobbyist sources, check out these opportunities to drink up and donate this week with lawmakers. They’re not in the database yet, so for now I’m posting images of the invitations.

On Tuesday, donors are invited to a “martinis and mayhem” party with Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, Republican from Wisconsin, at the Capitol Hill Club Grill. Cost is $1,000 for a PAC, $500 for “friends,” and $250 for “individuals. ” (What’s the difference between a friend and an individual, we’d like to know?)

On Wednesday there’s a party at Charlie Palmer Steak for Rep. John Yarmuth, Democrat of Kentucky, sponsored by the lobbying triumvurate of the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers PAC, Distilled SPirits Council PAC, and the National Beer Wholesalers Association PAC. Requested contributions are $5,000 for a “host,” $2,500 for a “friend,” and $1,000 for an “individual.”

Of course alcohol and fundraisers are a popular mix–there’s nothing like a drink or two to make you open up your checkbook. Click to see events in our database that mention beer, bourbon, wine, and, yes, margaritas.