White House for Sale goes live

Contact: Taylor Lincoln (202) 454-5197 tlincoln@citizen.org or Robert
Yule (202) 588-7703 ryule@citizen.org
Congress Watch
Public Citizen
215 Pennsylvania Ave, SE
Washington, D.C. 20016
(202) 546-4996
congress@citizen.org

Revamped WhiteHouseForSale Web Site Tracks 2008 Presidential Candidates'
"Bundlers" Site Provides Clearinghouse of Information About Those Powering
Billion-Dollar White House Race

WASHINGTON, D.C. * Public Citizen today unveiled a Web site that
provides an up-to-date listing of the 2008 presidential hopefuls'
"bundlers," the super-fundraisers who are powering the billion-dollar
race for the White House. The revitalized site, an expansion of Public
Citizen's similar effort during the 2004 campaign and the only such
clearinghouse for the 2008 campaign, is at www.WhiteHouseForSale.org.
The site identifies nearly 1,900 individuals who are funneling money
from other donors to the candidates. Of these, more than 230 were
bundlers for President George W. Bush in at least one of his
presidential campaigns, or for either Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) or
former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in 2004.

Aside from disclosing bundlers, the site includes a "Must Reads"
feature providing the most salient articles relating to presidential
fundraising, RSS feeds that notify subscribers of updates to candidates'
bundlers' lists and a blog that articulates Public Citizen's perspective
on money-and-politics issues. The site also includes in-depth papers on
the history of bundling, public funding of elections and campaign
finance reform issues, and fact sheets chronicling the candidates'
disclosure practices and tracking which bundlers from past elections are
working for current candidates.

The interactive research project, which Public Citizen will update
frequently throughout the campaign, underscores the dire need for
compulsory disclosure of bundlers' identities and activities. The
paucity of details disclosed by the candidates prevented Public Citizen
from identifying the employers of nearly half the 2008 bundlers. More
important, none of the campaigns is disclosing the amount of money
raised by each bundler.

In fact, none of the candidates has even equaled the disclosure
standard of the 2004 Bush campaign. By identifying which bundlers raised
a threshold amount of at least $100,000 (nicknamed Pioneers) or at least
$200,000 (called Rangers), Bush provided the public with some insight
into the extent of each bundler's role.

"It's a sorry day when our presidential candidates can't even match the
transparency standards of Bush and Cheney," said Laura MacCleery,
director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch division. "The unseemly
money chase shows that revitalizing public funding of elections is
desperately needed."

Bundlers are able to funnel much more money to campaigns than they are
allowed to give personally by soliciting contributions from others.
Campaigns keep track of how much money bundlers raise but rarely share
such details with the public, except sometimes in broad ranges.
Candidates' sophisticated fundraising techniques have afforded bundlers
exalted status while rendering the presidential public financing system
almost obsolete. Bundlers play a disproportionately large role in
choosing the president and are positioned to reap the spoils if their
candidate wins.

"Bundlers reduce the significance of individual voters," said Taylor
Lincoln, research director for Public Citizen's Congress Watch division.
"Bundling shuts out regular Americans when it comes to choosing our
president and leaves them to foot the bill when these super-fundraisers
are repaid through tax breaks, corporate subsidies and regulatory
loopholes."

The type of bundling operations that all top-tier 2008 candidates are
using was an innovation of Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. Looking
back provides insight into how unsavory the practice can be.Bundlers
move to the front of the line for presidential jobs. More than 40
percent of Bush's bundlers in his 2000 campaign eventually received
government jobs, such as ambassadorships or cabinet positions, or
received slots on influential transition committees. At least one also
evidently influenced other appointments. While serving on the Energy
Department transition team at the dawn of the Bush administration, Enron
CEO and Bush Pioneer Ken Lay sent the White House a list of eight
candidates for positions on the five-person Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission. Two were named. Bundlers often seek * and receive *
government favors. The 30 Ohioans who were anointed Rangers or Pioneers
in 2004 received more than $1.2 billion in federal contracts for their
companies and their clients between 2001 and 2005. At the very least,
bundlers receiving federal contracts create the appearance of
preferential treatment. Meanwhile, more than 60 of Bush's bundlers in
2004 were federal lobbyists. Bundling operations offer unsavory
individuals entr�e into White House aspirants' operations. Aside from
Lay, who was convicted of several felony counts shortly before his
death, Bush's 2000 and 2004 fundraising operations attracted a rouge's
gallery of white-collar criminals, including indicted government
contractor and alleged Duke Cunningham co-conspirator Brent Wilkes;
Thomas Noe, who was convicted of laundering campaign contributions to
Bush as well as siphoning money from the Ohio workers' compensation fund
for personal use; and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Public Citizen is calling on Congress to complete the lobbying and
ethics reform bill * which has passed both houses and is now being
negotiated between the House and Senate * by preserving a strong
requirement that lobbyists who bundle contributions disclose the amounts
as a part of lobbying reports.

Public Citizen maintains that candidates should be required to disclose
all bundlers' identities, how much each raised and from whom each
bundled contribution is obtained. Also, the presidential public
financing system should be modernized to allow candidates to run
competitive campaigns without stooping to unseemly fundraising
practices.
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