The analysis was conducted at the request of and in collaboration with This American Life and Planet Money public radio programs. It is featured on the March 31, 2012 episode of This American Life.

When it comes to fundraising potential, not all committee assignments in the U.S. House are created equal. A new Sunlight analysis of House fundraising patterns  from the 103^rd to 111^th Congress finds that three committees – Ways and Means, Financial Services, and Energy and Commerce – stand out as being particularly lucrative. Others – most notably Judiciary, House Administration, and Natural Resources, appear to be fundraising duds.

Table 1 shows are the estimated committee “bonuses” for individual member itemized and PAC fundraising totals. Relationships that are statistically significant are in bold.

Table 1. Estimated committee assignment “bonuses”

Committee Assignment	Estimated itemized contributions “bonus”	Estimated PAC contribution “bonus”
Ways and Means	+$258,924	+$295,774
Financial Services	+$181,799	+$122,313
Energy and Commerce	+$142,030	+$197,220
Agriculture	+$64,319	+$118,111
Appropriations	+$58,127	+$46,509
Transportation	+$49,290	+$60,952
Homeland Security	+$28,754	+$57,502
Armed Services	+$23,683	+$6,619
Rules	-$26,979	+$32,843
Foreign Affairs	-$39,845	-$72,994
Science	-$46,287	+$3,184
Budget	-$60,586	-$47,423
Small Business	-$69,262	-$21,554
Government Reform	-$81,104	-$34,348
Veterans' Affairs	-$83,442	-$15,786
Education	-$94,657	-$43,864
Natural Resources	-$102,699	-$45,556
House Administration	-$159,370	-$82,454
Judiciary	-$181,987	-$83,598

These estimates come from a multivariate regression that compares all members across multiple sessions of congress, controlling for seniority, majority status, and session of congress, with fundraising totals adjusted for inflation. The complete regression results can be found here. See below for a more complete explanation for how we came to these results.

 

Committee switches

Another way to evaluate the value of committees is to look at  patterns of incumbent switching. Table 2 looks at what assignments incumbent House members selected (or were given) from the 104^th through 111^th Congress.

Table 2. Incumbent committee switches

Committee	Joined	Left	Join-to-Leave Ratio
Ways and Means	53	4	13.3-to-1
Energy and Commerce	76	10	7.6-to-1
Appropriations	63	11	5.7-to-1
Homeland Security	33	13	2.5-to-1
House Administration	51	27	1.9-to-1
Rules	18	14	1.3-to-1
Foreign Affairs	54	48	1.1-to-1
Judiciary	21	23	0.9-to-1
Budget	82	104	0.8-to-1
Financial Services	42	68	0.6-to-1
Education	45	73	0.6-to-1
Transportation	42	69	0.6-to-1
Armed Services	25	44	0.6-to-1
Natural Resources	36	66	0.5-to-1
Government Reform	50	120	0.4-to-1
Science	29	90	0.3-to-1
Veterans’ Affairs	16	50	0.3-to-1
Agriculture	14	56	0.3-to-1
Small Business	18	100	0.2-to-1

Certain committees are clearly more popular than others. Over almost two decades, Ways and Means had 53 incumbents join, but only four leave. Energy and Commerce had 76 incumbents join, but only 10 leave, and Appropriations had 62 incumbents join, but only 11 leave.

Other committees have different flows. Judging by members’ behaviors, the least desirable committee to be on is Small Business – only 18 incumbents joined, while 100 left. Agriculture and Veterans’ Affairs are also committees that incumbents leave far more often than they join.

This way of ranking committees generally correlates with the fundraising prowess of the committees (Table 1). Ways and Means tops both lists, and Energy and Commerce is in the top three of both lists. However, Financial Services is a net loser among incumbents. Perhaps this is because many members find the subject matter too complicated or boring for their tastes. And Judiciary, which is associated with lower fundraising flows, is just about in the middle when it comes to the balance of incumbent leavers and joiners.

It is important to recognize that members may care about more than just raising money, and may have genuine policy interests. Also, members who are in relatively safe districts and have fewer ambitions to rise up in the party may be quite happy to serve on committees with less fundraising potential.

 

Methodology: How we got these results

The estimates for committee fundraising “bonuses” (Table 1) come from the results of regressions that estimate different aspects of individual member fundraising as a function of members’ committee assignments and ranking on those committees, controlling for majority party, seniority, and different congresses. We’ve adjusted for inflation so that all fundraising totals are in 2012 dollars.

The complete results of this series of regressions are published here: https://data.sunlightlabs.com/dataset/Regression-1-Effects-Of-Committee-Assignments-On-C/dk8x-utgd

The results report four different sets of columns. The first set of columns estimates the effect of committee assignments on the total itemized contributions. The second set of columns estimates the effect on individual itemized contributions. The third column estimates the effect on PAC contributions. The fourth estimates itemized out-of-state contributions. Essentially, what we have done is compared all members to all other members across multiple Congresses, trying to isolate the statistical relationship of committee assignments and fundraising totals.

For each set of columns, the predicted effect of different assignments and control variables are in the first column, the standard error in the second, and the t-stat (the effect divided by the standard error, a measure of statistical significance) in the third.

So, for example, being on the Ways and Means committee is associated with $258,924 more in total itemized contributions, as compared to not being on the committee, all else being equal. The standard error for this estimate is $63,543, so we can think of $258,924 +/- $63,543 as being the predicted fundraising advantage of a seat on the Ways and Means committee. The t-statistic is 4.07, which means that it’s a statistically significant relationship. Statisticians use 1.96 as the cut-off low point for clearly significant statistical relationships. Generally, a t-stat of 1.64 is considered the lower bound for  statistical significance.

The row at the bottom, “adjusted R-squared” is a measure of how much variation each model explains. The regression estimating total itemized contributions explains 20.8% of the variation across members. This means that about 79% of the variation across members is explained by factors we didn’t include in the model (such as unique member and district characteristics). The higher the R-squared, the more variation we’ve explained. The lower the R-squared, the more variables we are probably missing.

If we wanted to estimate predicted fundraising for a particular member, we first would get the baseline fundraising for each category for each member by starting at the intercept. Then we add an additional bonus for the congress we are in, multiply the number of years in the chamber by the value in the seniority row, and add an extra bonus for the majority row. Then we add the value for each committee assignment. If we are looking at a chair or a ranking member, we add an extra bonus on top of the already predicted value for being on the committee.

So, for example, if we had a fourth-term Democratic member in the 111^th Congress serving on the Ways and Means Committee, we could estimate predicted PAC contributions by starting with the intercept of $309,723, adding an extra $266,056 for the 111^th Congress, less $28,834 ($7,096 * 4 terms) for  seniority + $66,877 for being in the majority. So we are at $613,3822 in PAC contributions baseline. Now we’d add an extra $295,774 for being on Ways and Means. So the predicted PAC fundraising total would be $909,596.

Now the caveats.

These numbers measure statistical patterns, but they don’t directly show causality. These numbers tell us that members on certain committees raise more or less than their peers on other committees. But it may be the case that better fundraisers get rewarded with better committee assignments. As always, one must be careful confusing correlation with causality.

Still, there are some good reasons to infer some causal relations. One big reason is that the fundraising bonuses on the big money committees come primarily in the form of PAC contributions, which mostly come from corporations and are more likely to have committee-specific interests. Both Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce are associated with less individual fundraising than your average member. Financial Services is associated with more individual giving, which makes sense since individuals who work in the financial sector are major donors. But still, two-thirds of the Financial Services committee “bonus” comes from PAC contributions. Also, all three committees are associated with significantly more out-of-state funding than your average member.

Another way to get at causality is to estimate a time series regression, where we explain member fundraising as a function of prior fundraising efforts (controlling again for majority status, seniority, congress), and then look at the effect of committee switches on fundraising.

The results of these estimates can be found here: https://data.sunlightlabs.com/dataset/Regression-2-Effects-Of-Changing-Committees-On-Can/j3sk-hyqf

These estimates do a better job of explaining variation across members (notice the higher R-squared values) because they effectively take into account the differences across members, including their district characteristics and fundraising prowess.

The only statistically significant results for changing committee assignments involve transferring to Ways and Means, Financial Services, and Energy and Commerce.

Getting on Ways and Means boosts your PAC fundraising levels by $208,315, your out-of-state itemized fundraising totals by $233,742, and your total itemized fundraising totals by $220,598, all in statistically significant ways.

Joining Financial Services produces boost of $101,695 to PAC contributions and a boost of $140,334 to your out-of-state contributions, both statistically significant.

Joining Energy and Commerce yields a statistically significant boost of $72,933 to your PAC contributions.

These results should give us even more confidence that Ways and Means, Financial Services, and Energy and Commerce provide genuine fundraising bonuses to members.

There are probably two reasons why we don’t see any statistically significant results for the effect of joining a dud fundraising committee.

One is that there are only a limited number of cases where incumbent members switch onto the dud fundraising committees, and with only a limited number of cases, it is hard to get statistical significance because it is harder to distinguish patterns from chance.

The second reason is that if everybody knows which committees are dud fundraising committees, those who join those committees are members who are probably less likely to be concerned about fundraising, perhaps because they have safe seats. Moreover, if members are joining a dud fundraising committee, it’s more likely to be from another dud fundraising committee. In this case, it’s less likely to alter fundraising.

 

Conclusion

Overall, these results confirm that some House committees are better for member fundraising than others. In particular, Ways and Means, Financial Services, and Energy and Commerce are very good fundraising committees. And for good reason: Ways and Means has jurisdiction over tax policy, Financial Services over securities and banking policy, and Energy and Commerce over energy policy. In all three policy areas, a substantial number of corporations care very much about how policy gets made, and their employees are willing to contribute substantial sums – both through their PACs and individually – to make sure that they have access.

 

Exactly one year ago the Sunlight Foundation unveiled our Political Action Committee (PAC) Name Generator and today we revisit it with some shocking revelations. The project showcased the absurdity of the naming culture for these political funds. The agreeable names shield them from scrutiny - who isn't in favor of common sense, truth or America? As if our anemic disclosure laws and the impotent Federal Election Commission do not allow for enough obfuscation!

It was an enormously fun project to work on and we weren't the only ones who enjoyed playing with it - we ended up getting hundreds of thousands of visitors. As the anniversary approached we decided to research if any actual PACs had adopted one of the meaningless, random names we created. So we ran every possible result from our generator against the list of all 41,203 committees scraped from the Center for Responsive Politics.

At first this seemed a rather silly exercise because our beloved generator includes some rather unlikely results such as "Honest Workers for Snow Days," "Taxpayers for Twirling Towards Freedom" and the perfectly concise "Just Another Really Really Well Funded Grassroots Organization for Short, Pithy and Informative Names for Political Action Committees."

Yet, to our surprise, we found dozens of matches. In fact, based on filing at the FEC, many of these all-American groups were created after we launched our PAC Name Generator! To the right of this text you'll see screenshots of their official filing documents with the date highlighted - each organization's name is also a possible result from the generator. To anyone who wants to check our work or happens to enjoy scrolling, here are all possible name generator results.

A tool that we created to shed light on how these organizations cower behind a circus of patriotic gobbledygook is fueling the creation of even more murky committee names! What hath we wrought!

Special thanks to Ethan Phelps-Goodman for pulling the real committee names and to Jeremy Carbaugh for matching them up with fake names. Below is the widget and embed code for those who wish to provide inspiration to the unimaginative PAC treasurers around the country:

<iframe src="http://pacgenerator.sunlightfoundation.com/embed" height="260" width="560" style="overflow: hidden; border: 0; margin: 10px 0;" scrolling="no" seamless></iframe>

As the summer of the Democrats' discontent winds to a close, the head count for health care reform in the Senate begins in earnest. One of the key Democratic senators on the fence is Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a member of the Senate Finance Committee and one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the 2010 election. Lincoln jumped into the news today with a quote to a reporter stating her opposition to a public option plan in a health care reform bill. "I would not support a solely government-funded public option. We can't afford that," Lincoln said. The senior Arkansas senator is also the 2nd highest recipient of campaign contributions from the health industry among senators this year.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Lincoln has received $325,350 in contributions from the health industry, as of June 30. The large amount in contributions underlies a constantly shifting position by the senator on health care reform.

One of Lincoln's biggest contributors this cycle is the insurance giant Blue Cross Blue Shield. The company's political action committee and employees have combined to give the senator $29,500 this year alone. Blue Cross Blue Shield and their parent company Wellpoint are vocal opponents of the inclusion of a public option plan in any health care reform bill. Blue Cross Blue Shield is the dominant insurer in Arkansas holding a 75 percent market share.

Blue Cross Blue Shield does not need to only rely on campaign contributions to reach Sen. Lincoln, as they retain Lincoln's former top health care policy adviser as a lobbyist. Elizabeth Barnett worked for Lincoln from 2000 to 2007 before leaving to become the top Democratic lobbyist for Blue Cross Blue Shield. Earlier this year, Barnett left Blue Cross to work for Avenue Solutions, where she retains Blue Cross Blue Shield as a client. Avenue Solutions' profile of Barnett notes that she "had primary responsibility for representing [Blue Cross Blue Shield] and its 39 member plans before the Senate Finance Committee, Senate Democratic Leadership, and other key Senate committees and offices." Barnett also represents other health industry organizations including UnitedHealth Group, Aetna, Bravo Health, Healthcare Leadership Council, Medco and the National Health Policy Group.

Barnett is not the only former Lincoln staffer working as a lobbyist for the health industry. Lincoln's former chief of staff Kelly Bingel is a lobbyist specializing in health care at Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti Inc, the lobbying firm of Sen. Max Baucus' former chief of staff David Castagnetti. Bingel represents a who's who of the health care industry including America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and Pharmaceutical Researchers & Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). AHIP and PhRMA have been largely supportive of health care reform this year. PhRMA, in particular, has supported the current legislation with positive advertising after receiving concessions from the White House and the Senate Finance Committee. Bingel also represents the Business Roundtable, a group that has voiced opposition to health care reform.

Throughout this year, Lincoln has benefited from countless fundraisers thrown by lobbyists. The Party Time database lists one fundraiser thrown by health care lobbyists for Lincoln. On July 24, Ernst & Young feted Lincoln with a fundraiser hosted by health care lobbyists Nick Giordano (formerly of Sen. Baucus' staff), Dick Meltzer (since moved on to Speaker Pelosi's staff), LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, Holly Bode, Francis Grab, Dave Koshgarian and Jeff Petrich. Contributions from this fundraiser will not be publicly available until the third quarter finance reports are filed.

update: post edited.

CQ Politics reports that health care related PACs accounted for the top or second highest source of contributions for 15 of the top 18 congressional leaders in the House involved in the health care debate.

Apparently, the $80 billion cost savings that the pharmaceutical industry agreed to with the Obama administration came with a price. In return, the White House promised to protect the industry from further attempts to extract cost savings from them including allowing the government to negotiate drug prices. Now we know what those trips to the White House were all about.

The House Selecte Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is investigating the forged letters sent to three congressmen by a grassroots lobbying firm on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE). ACCCE has been trying to distance themselves from Bonner & Associates, the firm in question, and has denounced the letters. In a new letter sent by Chair Ed Markey, ACCCE is questioned as to why they did not act on the forged letters after they discovered their existence on June 24, two days prior to the vote on the cap and trade bill.

A new hire by the State Department may exploit a loophole in the administration's lobbying ban.

The Washington Post has a useful interactive graphic to compare the various versions of health care reform in Congress.

This past weekend Sen. Max Baucus' political action committee (PAC) hosted a three-day retreat fundraising event at the Big Sky Resort with "fly-fishing in three nearby rivers, golfing on an Arnold Palmer-designed course, horseback riding and hiking, family fun and gorgeous scenery." The entrance fee for the event was $2,500 per individual and $5,000 for a PAC. While the roster of interest groups, lobbyists and other individuals in attendance is unknown at this time, we do know who was a no-show: Max Baucus.

According to the National Journal's Under the Influence blog, Sen. Baucus announced his intention to avoid the event before the fundraiser commenced to "tend to faltering bipartisan negotiations over health care reform legislation." The senator will not only be missing those who want his ear on a variety of issues coming before his powerful committee -- cap and trade and health care -- he'll also be missing a protest held by advocates for single payer health care.

Despite missing this fundraiser, the Montana senator's Glacier PAC has already pulled in large sums of money from the health and insurance sector and lobbyists representing both sectors. Since January, Baucus' Glacier PAC has raised $99,500 from health and insurance PACs and lobbyists representing health and insurance organizations. This represents one-third of all contributions to Glacier PAC this year.

Many of these contributions were filed with his committee in the days soon after other fundraising weekends in the mountains of Montana. Over the weekend of February 6, Baucus hosted his Eigth Annual Ski and Snow Mobile Weekend, a fundraising weekend get-away much like the July 31-Aug 2 event that Baucus skipped. Contributions that were filed on February 16 include four health care PACs and two lobbyists for health care companies. The PACs included National Emergency Medicine PAC, Sanofi-Pasteur, American College of Cardiology and American College of Radiology Association. Three out of these four PACs contributed the maximum $5,000 with Sanofi-Pasteur contributing $2,500. The lobbyists included Tracy Spicer (Aetna, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Bravo Health, Healthcare Leadership Council, Heritage Services, Medco, National Health Policy Group, Travelers Companies, UnitedHealth Group) and William Oldaker (Adventist Health Systems, Healthcare Quality Strategies, Intermountain Health Care, Iowa Foundation for Medical Care, IPRO, Lumetra, Mpro, Ohio KePRO, Parexel International, TMF Health Quality Institute, West Virginia Medical Institute).

Contributors to Sen. Baucus' Glacier PAC also include some of his former staffers now lobbying for health care organizations. These include former chief of staff David Castagnetti ($3,000), Nick Giordano ($1,000) and Roger Blauwet ($2,500). Castagnetti represents a wide array of health care companies including America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), American College of Cardiologists, Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca, Proctor & Gamble and Merck. Blauwet represents Merck, Wyeth, Rx Benefits Coalition and the Association of Financial Guaranty Insurers. Giordano is listed in reports as representing Covidien, Health Care Service Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, McKesson Corporation, Milliman Care Guidelines and the National Association of Public Hospitals. Many of these organizations have also made PAC contributions to the senator's Glacier PAC.

While Sen. Baucus has promised not to accept any more contributions from health care PACs, he is still willing to accept contributions from their lobbyists and executives. It will be interesting to see who showed up at the senator's big summer weekend getaway, even if the senator didn't make it there himself.

Full list of health and insurance PAC and lobbyist contributions below:

Glacier PAC Contributions 2009 (Health and Insurance PACs and Lobbyists):

PACs
American Society of Anesthesiologists	$5,000.00	01/05/09
National Emergency Medicine	$5,000.00	02/16/09
Sanofi-Pasteur	$2,500.00	02/16/09
American College of Cardiology	$5,000.00	02/16/09
American College of Radiology Association	$5,000.00	02/16/09
Pacific Pulmonary Services	$5,000.00	03/09/09
Merck	$5,000.00	03/20/09
Boston Scientific Corp	$5,000.00	03/31/09
American Podiatric Medical Association	$5,000.00	04/27/09
College of American Pathologists	$5,000.00	04/27/09
American Dental PAC	$1,000.00	05/01/09
Medtronic	$2,500.00	05/08/09
Schering-Plough	$5,000.00	05/08/09
American Chiropractic Association	$2,500.00	05/08/09
Aetna	$5,000.00	05/11/09
Torchmark	$5,000.00	06/04/09
Independent Insurance Agents of America	$5,000.00	06/30/09
Lobbyists
Tracy Spicer	$2,000.00	02/16/09
William Oldaker	$5,000.00	02/16/09
Jonathan Slade	$1,000.00	03/09/09
David Jory	$2,000.00	03/09/09
J Curtis Rich	$1,000.00	03/09/09
David Castagnetti	$3,000.00	03/31/09
Eric Hanson	$5,000.00	05/08/09
Billy Wynne	$1,000.00	05/18/09
Nick Giordano	$1,000.00	05/26/09
Roger Blauwet	$2,500.00	06/04/09
Geoffrey Peterson	$1,500.00	06/30/09
Nance Guenther-Peterson	$1,000.00	06/30/09

Yesterday, I posted about the mountain of health and insurance PAC money pouring into the 2010 reelection coffers of Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the ever-important Senate Finance Committee. That money came into his account like a flooding river, but the real torrent of funds comes in the waning days of June. Could this be because of these two fundraisers held for Sen. Grassley on June 22 and June 24?

From June 22 to the end of the month Sen. Grassley raised a total of $44,700. During this time he was the beneficiary of two fundraisers, one held by the lobbyist for an alternative health organization that has lampooned reform efforts, whose invites can be found at Sunlight's Party Time web site. Back in June, Nancy Watzman, at the helm of the Party Time blog, wrote about the June 24 event hosted by Sam Brunelli, lobbyist for the Whitaker Health Freedom Foundation:

Sam Brunelli, who works for the Whitaker Health Freedom Foundation, the political arm of the Freedom of Health Foundation, and his wife, Robin Read, are feting Grassley at a breakfast on June 24 at the Capitol Hill Club. The Foundation, headed by Dr. Julian Whitaker of dietary supplement fame, states it opposes the government and the pharmaceutical industry whenever they “suppress the truth about alternative medical therapies and/or nutritional supplementation.” Read is president and CEO of the Foundation for Women Legislators, which includes Dr. Whitaker on its board. The Freedom of Health Foundation did not return a call inquiring about the event.

Brunelli is introduced as a lobbyist on the organization’s Web site, here; however there are no official records of his work at least as a federal lobbyist here, according to lobbyist disclosure reports. The most recent available tax forms filed by the Whitaker Health Freedom Foundation, the political arm, claim a budget of just $34,000 and make no mention of payments to staff. (See the organization’s 1998 990 form here.)

Brunelli formerly served as executive director of the conservative group the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which works to advance conservative state legislators. He left the group in 1995 over charges of mismanagement and personal enrichment, according to a 1995 National Journal report.

The majority of the contributions coming in during this high water mark for Sen. Grassley's PAC fundraising came from health professional organizations, all of whom paid equal to or above the amount required for PACs to gain entrance to the fundraising parties on June 22 and June 24.

The amount raised over the final eight days in June accounts for over one-quarter of the health and insurance PAC money raised by Sen. Grassley in the second quarter. The other three quarters came over the course of 83 days. Knowing this, it appears that the two fundraisers had the desired effect.

Update: I guess this is the clarifying press release: Baucus staffers say that the check was returned after it was received. The report filed with the Federal Election Commission below is from Schering-Plough, not Sen. Baucus. Schering-Plough, as a PAC, is required to file their reports electronically. Senators do not file their reports electronically and thus I couldn't access Sen. Baucus' report over the Internet, even though he filed it six days ago. So, nothing to see here, except another reason to support S. 482, the bill to make senators file these reports electronically.

This is from an article about Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus' prolific fundraising from health care organizations:

To avoid any appearance of favoritism, his aides say, Baucus quietly began refusing contributions from health-care political action committees after June 1. But the policy does not apply to lobbyists or corporate executives, who continued to make donations, disclosure records show.

This is from the Federal Election Commission's records:

SCHERING - PLOUGH CORPORATION BETTER GOVERNMENT FUND

06/15/2009

5000.00

29934142146

What is Schering-Plough? Here's their explanation straight from their web site: "Schering-Plough is an innovation-driven, science-centered global health care company." And what is Schering-Plough Corporation Better Government Fund? It's a Lobbyist/Registrant PAC.

Time for a clarifying press release.

Clarify disclaimer from Sunlight: The above title "Lies Make Baby Jesus Cry" is not intended to offend your chosen deity. Instead, it is a reference to a famous quote from the popular animated series "The Simpsons." You can watch the video here.

On the same day that President Obama met with a number of health care organizations, a group of 45 conservative Democrats sent an angry letter to three House committees protesting the secrecy around the production of health care legislation in the House. The New York Times reports that this large group of Blue Dog Democrats is "'increasingly troubled' by their exclusion from the bill-writing process." The Blue Dogs largely represent more conservative-leaning districts and take positions that are often favorable to industry. They are also big fundraisers, with their coalition PAC raking in large amounts from corporate PACs.

The Blue Dog PAC pulled in $2.26 million in PAC contributions during the 2008 election cycle. Approximately eighteen percent of that amount -- $410,300 -- came from PACs connected to the health sector. During the 2008 cycle, individuals members of the Blue Dog Coalition raised a combined $6.24 million from the health sector. The average contribution to a Blue Dog Democrat in the 2008 election cycle was slightly higher -- $122,370 -- than the average contribution to a Democratic lawmaker -- $116,748.

Rep. Mike Ross, who is noted in the Times article as leading the Blue Dog Health Care Task Force, received nearly twice the average for a Blue Dog Dem -- $259,625 -- from the health sector, the most from any sector. Some other top Blue Dogs, many of whom are on the Health Care Task Force, are also leading recipients of contributions from the health sector. Reps. Bart Gordon ($395,178), Earl Pomeroy ($392,699), Jim Matheson ($350,994), Jason Altmire ($336,729), John Tanner ($264,299), Ross ($259,625), Mike Thompson ($254,625), and Patrick Murphy ($239,371) all rank in top 50 recipients of health sector campaign contributions.

When examing health sector campaign contributions over the careers of the 51 members of the Blue Dogs, the numbers jump up dramatically. For their collective careers (some spanning decades, others only one or two election cycles), the Blue Dogs have raised a total of $17.6 million from the health sector. Two members -- Gordon and Pomeroy -- have received over $1 million in contributions. Three more -- Jim Cooper, Matheson and Tanner -- are close to reaching that mark.

A spokesman for House Energy & Commerce chair Henry Waxman, one of the recipients of the letter, stated that he has already met with members of the Blue Dogs and did not understand what the commotion was about. They obviously want a seat at the table. But are they bringing their campaign funding friends with them?

Health Sector Campaign Contributions to Blue Dog Democrats in 2008

Bart Gordon	($395,178)
Earl Pomeroy	($392,699)
Jim Matheson	($350,994)
Jason Altmire	($336,729)
John Tanner	($264,299)
Mike Ross	($259,625)
Mike Thompson	($254,625)
Patrick Murphy	($239,371)
Average Democrat	($116,748)
Average Blue Dog Democrat	($122,370)

Apparently, PACs and the FEC are playing a serious game of Calvinball over disclosure rules. Bill Allison at Real Time Investigations looks at the ways PACs get around disclosure requirements by, well, making up the rules as they go along. This is how I imagine the disclosure Calvinball dialogue as it is played:

“I’m in the no-disclosure zone,” PAC.

“The no-disclosure zone only works in odd years and when you sing the ‘I hate transparency’ song,” FEC.

“Pppfffttt!!!,” PAC.