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Clinton puts 'Rangers' to shame – Clinton Should 'Tell All' About Bundlers

Today, the Washington Post editorialized about Sen. Hillary Clinton’s

(D-N.Y.) one-million-dollar ask of supporters for her presidential bid.

This dwarfs the $200,000 which Bush asked prospective Rangers to raise.

Every four years, the bar for presidential fundraising shoots

skywards – 2008 will surely take us to new stomach-turning heights.

The Federal Election Commission sets contribution limits at $2,300 per

person for the primary, and allows another $2,300 per person for the

general election. Big donors get around these limits by driving truck

loads of cash through a loophole known as bundling. It allows people

(especially those of the lobbyist variety) to keep funneling money

to candidates long after reaching their personal limit. Examples of

bundling include lobbyist who host fundraisers or corporate CEO who ask

employees to make donations.

If running for president means asking supporters to gather this obscene

amount of money, the public deserves to know who the bundlers

are, whose money they are bundling and how much they bundle. Both Bush

and Kerry chose to tell the public this information in the 2004

election, but such disclosure of bundling is entirely voluntary. It

should be mandatory.

Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Marty Meehan

(D-Mass.) are co-sponsoring a bill (H.R. 633) that would require

disclosure of bundling by lobbyists for all presidential and

congressional candidates. The Senate already passed this measure in

their lobbying and ethics reform bill (S. 1). You can take action here to ensure the House does the same.