Uncovering Obama's special-interest money

     My editors at USA Today asked me to scrutinize Barack Obama's fundraising. Obama had portrayed himself as independent of special interests. But were his big donors and fundraisers really so different from those of other candidates?

     I started by examining the bundlers – the folks who gather up checks from their family, friends, business associates and social networks. One thing immediately jumped out: Obama's policy of refusing contributions and fundraising help from Washington lobbyists was not nearly as far-reaching as one might imagine.

     Going down the list, I could see that many bundlers were partners at law firms with major lobbying operations. Some were state lobbyists and others were former federal lobbyists. One practiced before the Federal Communications Commission. These are people who had promised to raise from $50,000 to more than $200,000.

     Clearly, Obama was still receiving important fundraising help from people who had significant business interests before the federal government, if not from individuals currently registered to lobby. And some of these people were profiting from lobbying fees.

     That was the story. But to make the front page, I needed to quantify it. How many? How much? Who?

 

Web sites aid transparency

     That's where the data came in: Primarily FEC data compiled by nonpartisan Web sites and lobbying disclosures on the Senate Web site.

     First, my editor Eugene Kiely and I set about identifying, through lobbyist registrations on the U.S. Senate Web site, each bundler who was a partner or associate in a firm that lobbies in Washington.

     Although the Obama campaign discloses bundler names on its Web site, we used Public Citizen's White House for Sale Web site, which lists the bundlers' occupations and employers.

     We then used CQ MoneyLine, a subscription site that allows you to search contributions by employer, to tally up how much members of each firm had given to Obama. Opensecrets.org, the Web site of the Center for Responsive Politics, also allows such a search for free. For good measure, we added up how much each firm was paid in 2007 to lobby, using Opensecrets’ tallies that are based on Senate lobbying disclosures.

     The result was a front page piece that began: "Barack Obama often boasts he is ‘the only candidate who isn't taking a dime from Washington lobbyists,' yet his fundraising team includes 38 members of law firms that were paid $138 million last year to lobby the federal government, records show."

     We noted that "Those lawyers, including 10 former federal lobbyists, have pledged to raise at least $3.5 million for the Illinois senator's presidential race. Employees of their firms have given Obama's campaign $2.26 million."

     The amounts the bundlers pledged to raise came from a minimum figure disclosed by the campaign. Some of the numbers may have changed since the Obama campaign updated its bundler list July 12.

     By searching each firm's Web site, we were able to note that 31 of the 38 are law firm partners, who typically receive a share of their firm's lobbying fees. And we found that at least six of the bundlers have some managerial authority over lobbyists.

     Fundraisers often are happy to talk to reporters. I quoted fundraiser Allan Katz, a Florida lawyer who chairs the government relations practice of Akerman Senterfitt. The firm, which made $3.6 million for Washington lobbying last year, touts on its Web site "an enviable level of access" for clients.

 

Attention-grabbing findings

     The piece was the most-read, most-blogged, most-commented-upon and most-e-mailed story on USAToday.com that day.

     An accompanying story inside the paper examined Obama's claim in a TV ad that "I don't take money from oil companies or Washington lobbyists, and I won't let them block change anymore."

     That ad, which had been airing in Pennsylvania as the April 22 primary approached, was technically true but misleading, as nonpartisan FactCheck.org and Hillary Clinton's campaign had already pointed out.

     It's accurate that Obama doesn't take money from oil companies; neither do his opponents, because corporate contributions are illegal. But Obama, like Clinton and John McCain, had accepted donations from oil and gas company employees. In this case, I used Opensecrets.org, which codes contributors by industry and sector, to determine that Obama's campaign had taken in $222,309 from donors from Exxon, Shell, Chevron and others.

     Another look at the bundlers list showed that two oil company CEOs had pledged to raise at least $50,000 each as part of Obama's fundraising team.

     We concluded: "The episode underscores the pitfalls confronting a candidate who rails against special interests while raising $193 million and counting — the most of any presidential campaign. Obama's fundraising tests the limits of his claim that he is independent of Washington's influence industry because he doesn't take money from federal lobbyists and PACs."

 

Corporate ties

     We also used campaign data to unearth other examples that strain against the claim.

     Searching campaign expenses using CQ Moneyline, we found, for example, that Obama held fundraisers at law firms that lobby in Washington. The records showed payments for five fundraisers at New York and Boston offices of three firms that lobby, including Greenberg Traurig, whose lobbying clients include gambling and handgun interests.

     We found an example of Obama accepting money from the spouse of a federal lobbyist. In December, the campaign returned a $250 contribution from lobbyist Thomas Jensen of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, but a few days later, it cashed a $500 check from his wife, Sarah.

     And we reported that Obama is raising more than his opponents from executives of some of the corporate interests he criticizes. For example, he had received more money from people who work at pharmaceutical and health product companies, according to Opensecrets.

     We noted that, while Obama has called his refusal to accept PAC and federal lobbyist money "a multimillion-dollar" sacrifice, lobbyists really don’t give that much in the scheme of things. As of publication, Clinton had raised about $2 million from lobbyists and PACs while McCain has taken in about $1.2 million, according to Opensecrets.

     Lastly, we reported that Obama's 20 largest sources of money, grouped by employers, are executives from major corporations and law firms with a Washington lobbying presence — including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Google, according to Opensecrets. Clinton's and McCain's top donors include executives from some of the same companies, such as Goldman Sachs and Citigroup.