Opinion: Bundles of joy

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It’s an inside-the-Beltway story in more ways than one: A boring procedural standoff over an issue that itself is of interest largely to political junkies: whether registered lobbyists who play rainmaker for members of Congress seeking re-election should disclose for public inspection how many contributions they have “bundled.”

Both houses of Congress have passed legislation to require disclosure of bundling, a practice that subverts the limits on individual contributions contained in federal election law. But a conference committee to resolve different versions of this and other ethics reforms has been stalled by an objection from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who is afraid that a conference might inter disclosure requirements for another Washington folkway — special-interest “earmarks.”

Now, in an attempt to make an end run around deMint’s “hold,” congressional leaders are talking about skipping a conference and having the House and Senate enact identical ethics bills.

But there’s a catch: Roll Call reports that Senate Democratic leaders are redrafting the bundling-disclosure provision to “shift responsibility for the disclosure from lobbyists to the candidates themselves.” This could make it harder for the public to keep track of which lobbyists are bundling and into whose laps those bundles are being dropped.

It wouldn’t be a bad thing if election law could allow the public to know who’s bundling contributions for which candidates — presidential as well as congressional. But that doesn’t alter the case for bundling disclosure as part of the reporting required of lobbyists, who arguably get a bigger bang from their bundling than other financial angels.