Tracking Campaign Cash

Who are the 'bundlers' financing presidential candidates?

TO WHOM will the next president be most indebted for helping to finance his or her campaign? The most accurate answer is that it is almost impossible to know. This election could end up being the first to be financed entirely with private money, if the eventual nominees choose not to take public financing. Even now, before the fourth-quarter fundraising totals come in, the presidential candidates have raised a combined $420 million. But the identities of the well-connected fundraisers who have helped haul in these big bundles, and the amounts they have brought in, remain far from clear.

Candidates are not required to reveal the identities of "bundlers" -- people who collect contributions from many individuals -- and disclosure records range from inadequate to spotty to nonexistent. The best, but still inadequate, disclosure comes from Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who have provided the identities of their big bundlers and the amounts but only within broad ranges. Ms. Clinton, for instance, lists 311 "Hillraisers" who have brought in at least $100,000 each -- but with no indication of how much each is responsible for. Mr. Obama is slightly more specific; he lists "bundlers" within the ranges of $50,000 to $100,000; $100,000 to $200,000; and $200,000 and up. Just how much information that leaves out was made clear earlier this year when the Clinton campaign returned the $850,000 that had been brought in by disgraced -- now indicted -- businessman Norman Hsu.

Despite the inadequacy of the data, the Campaign Finance Institute and Public Citizen recently teamed up to analyze the major industries represented by the bundlers. The study found that more than half of the bundlers came from three segments of the economy: law (608 bundlers); finance (336 bundlers, from securities and investment firms, banks, and other finance-related entities); and real estate (190 bundlers.) The financial importance of lawyers may be overstated, because most of the lawyer-bundlers (327 of the 608) were helping Democratic former trial lawyer John Edwards and because Mr. Edwards has chosen to list all his bundlers, no matter how much they have raised for him.

The real solution, contained in a bill recently introduced in Congress and sponsored by all four Democratic senators running for president, would be to require the disclosure of presidential bundlers. The chief goal of this important measure is to overhaul the obsolete system of providing public financing for presidential campaigns. As part of that larger change, however, the bill would require campaigns to disclose the identities and amounts of all individuals or groups that bundle contributions totaling more than $50,000 in the four-year election cycle.

As the current presidential campaign demonstrated even before 2008, this disclosure is critical. The existing system limits individuals to writing $2,300 checks, out of concern that they will wield undue influence, while it allows them to collect six- and even seven-figure sums for their favored candidates. It is dangerous to have all this take place outside public view, with candidates revealing only as much information as they choose.