Since the 1970s, there have been strict limits on how much money an individual can donate to a presidential candidate in a given election—$2,500. But there’s no limit to how much they can “bundle” by soliciting donations from friends and business connections. So the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law that went into effect in 2002, which banned a variety of “soft money” loopholes that allowed donors to circumvent these limits, made bundlers a much bigger part of the money-in-politics story. Whether contributed via a bundle or a one-off donation, such “hard money” goes straight to a candidate’s coffers, to be used however the campaign sees fit.
And it’s the hard money that matters most, according to Bill Allison, editorial director at the Sunlight Foundation, a government-transparency group, and one of the reigning experts on bundling. Despite all the attention paid to superPACs in the wake of the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling, Allison said, candidates and their campaigns do not have direct control over superPAC money—and that can lead to real problems.
The famous “swift-boating” campaign against John Kerry in 2004 is a case in point. When the anti-Kerry ads hit the air, Kerry’s campaign was cash-strapped, so the fact that the independent political action committees supporting the Mass. senator—known as 527s—were lead-footed in their response may have doomed his campaign. If the campaign had had more hard cash on hand, things could have gone differently. “There is an independence to these groups and they don’t always do exactly what the candidates would do in the same circumstances,” Allison said.
Using the website OpenSecrets.org as a guide, The Daily Beast has identified seven of President Obama’s most important bundlers for the 2012 campaign, and considered why their presence will matter in this election. (Exact contributions are not available, because the campaign only provides ranges.) In keeping with his general lack of transparency, Mitt Romney has not revealed who his bundlers are.
All of the bundlers either declined to comment or did not respond to interview requests. The Obama administration declined to comment.
Occupation: Founder and Chairman, Evercore Partners
Bundled contributions: $200,000 to $500,000
Altman has cycled between the financial and government world several times: He started at Lehman Brothers in 1974, left to become assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury a few years later, then returned to Lehman four years after that. In 1996 he formed Evercore, an investment banking advisory firm that now manages $13 billion in assets. Altman’s had his share of controversy along the way. In 2010, he wrote a New York Times op-ed in which he praised Obama for his “courageous” decision to put Chrysler and General Motors through bankruptcy. What he didn’t reveal was that Evercore advised GM on the deal, earning $46 million from the automaker before the bankruptcy and billing it for another $17.9 million “success fee” after—an amount a U.S. bankruptcy trustee found unreasonable. “Evercore had no success at finding a purchaser or funder for the Debtors,” the trustee wrote in a court filing. “In light of these facts, the Evercore Application clearly exceeds the bounds of reasonableness.”
Occupation: CEO, Newsweb
Bundled contributions: $500,000+
Many of Obama’s top bundlers proudly embrace the spotlight, but Eychaner is different. A media mogul worth around $500 million, Eychaner shuns publicity (even his alma mater, Northwestern, couldn’t find a picture of him when it tried to honor him), and with the exception of his North Side home (where he hosted a $30,500-per-couple fundraising dinner that Obama attended in January), he’s known for Buffett-esque austerity in his day-to-day habits. According to the Chicago Tribune, “those who know Eychaner say his giving is driven by a desire to change the world rather than win clout.” That may be, but he didn’t come away from the last election cycle empty-handed: Along with Penny Pritzker (see below), he was named a trustee of the Kennedy Center.
Occupation: CEO, Dreamworks
Bundled contributions: $500,000+
Katzenberg has played an outsize role both in Democratic fundraising and in at least one real-life policy debate. In addition to hosting fundraisers and bundling (likely) millions, Katzenberg was a guest at a February luncheon hosted by Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton according to an article Bill Allison wrote for Sunlight for Xi Junjing, the presumptive next president of China. Katzenberg “told the Financial Times that he needed Xi's personal approval of a deal he had arranged with three state-owned media firms to create a Chinese-based studio that hopes to launch its first feature film in 2016,” Allison wrote. In addition, Katzenberg had a frontline role, along with former Senator (and current Motion Picture Association of America chief) Chris Dodd and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, in resolving a WTO dispute with China about film distribution. Less relevant: Katzenberg’s $10 million, 14,000-square-foot family getaway in Deer City, Utah, has built-in “boot warmers extending from the walls.”
Occupation: Unknown
Bundled Contributions: $500,000+
Spinner played a big part in the controversy over Solyndra, the solar company that went belly-up at taxpayer expense in 2011 after receiving half a billion dollars in government loan guarantees. Spinner’s wife’s law firm represented Solyndra and at least eight other companies doing business with the Department of Energy, where he was employed. As White House emails revealed, during his DoE stint Spinner regularly “pushed and prodded” officials from both the agency and the Office of Management and Budget to get the loan money to Solyndra, even dictating that a Solyndra groundbreaking should include “golden shovels, construction workers, bulldozers, ribbon cutting, [a] tour of existing assembly line, [and] customer testimonials.” At the same time, he assured an OMB ethics official that he would recuse himself from actively participating in the project. According to Allison, the controversy is probably part of the reason the Center for American Progress, where he had a job as a Silicon-Valley based consultant, let his contract expire last year.
Occupation: Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer, Sankaty Advisors, an affiliate of Bain Capital
Bundled contributions: $100,000 - $200,000
Just look at the “Occupation” field: Lavine is a top manager at Bain, the company cofounded by Romney which has been a source of scorching criticism from the Obama campaign and liberal critics for its layoff and restructuring practices. Being both a major Obama donor and a top name at the firm has made him an easy target for right-wing bloggers hoping to connect him to the very business practices being used to cudgel Romney. He is also part of the group that owns the Boston Celtics and serves on the team’s board of directors.
Occupation: Founder, Chairman and CEO of PSP Capital Partners and its affiliate
Bundled contributions: $200,000 - $500,000
Part of the sprawling, powerful Chicago-based family that owns the Hyatt hotel chain, Pritzker chaired Obama’s fundraising machine in 2008 and was named a 2012 co-chair earlier this year. Since then, it’s been a bit of a roller-coaster, with The New York Times reporting last month that Pritzker had taken a much less prominent role this time around. One possible reason why: Hyatt has been a longtime target of the labor movement for its allegedly unfair treatment of housekeepers, so once Pritzker’s role in fundraising for Obama became widely known, she was an easy, obvious target for their ire. But if recent reports are any indication, she and the campaign appear ready to rekindle their torrid fundraising affair. Last time around, Obama awarded her for her efforts with a spot on the Kennedy Center’s board of trustees. (A spokeswoman from PSP Capital Partners said Pritzker was too busy to comment on short notice.)
Occupation: Founder and President of Andy Spahn & Associates, Inc.
Bundled Contributions: $500,000+
Spahn is a matchmaker of sorts for both philanthropists and for big-business types hoping to get the most bang for their buck when donating to political causes (he’s Jeffrey Katzenberg’s political adviser). According to Allison, “It’s not that he’s wealthy himself, it’s that he’s basically in the business himself of directing campaign contributions for people with an interest before the federal government.” Before starting his firm, Spahn worked in corporate communications at Dreamworks, where he acted as liaison to Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, and David Geffen—giving him a powerful set of Hollywood connections and helping bring a previously lukewarm Obama closer to that wealthy community.
