Last week at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, ABC News reported on a private yacht event exclusively for Romney campaign bundlers, a.k.a. its Victory Council. The event was “attended by no more than 50 people, along with Romney relatives, including older brother Scott.”

As guests left the yacht, ABC News put faces to their wallets in an attempt to identify who are bundlers to the Romney campaign. (The campaign does not voluntarily disclose them, but Obama does.) However, a number of people could not be identified. Can you help out?

In cooperation with ABC News, we placed their photos on Sunlight’s 180º Project website. Browse through the photos, see if you recognize anyone in them and then simply tag the photo as you would on Facebook.

For all tagged photos, we use it as a starting point to verify the attendee's identification and also further investigate their policy influence by matching them to other government data on a full range of issues.

Learn more about the 180º Project and start tagging here.

As the pundits debate what the addition of Paul Ryan to the GOP presidential ticket means for the race, one sure thing the presumptive candidate for vice president brings to the campaign is a prodigious fundraising ability. According to today’s Washington Post, as a mere congressional candidate, Ryan has raised more than $8 million for this year’s election. That figure will soon be dwarfed when he starts dialing for dollars as a national candidate. But, it is safe to assume that, like the man at the top of the ticket, he will keep secret the identities of some of the most influential donors to the campaign—the bundlers who raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in one fell swoop and get unprecedented access to the candidates in return.

President Obama, like presidential candidates on the right and left before him, voluntarily discloses his bundlers. Sunlight and others have called for the Romney campaign to do the same, but as with his tax returns, Romney seems unwilling to voluntarily disclose more than he is legally required to.

It would be nice to be able to trust our potential leaders to do the right thing, but since we can’t, there oughta be a law. Conveniently enough, language to require disclosure bundler has already been written. Part of the Presidential Funding Act (S. 3312 and H.R. 414) would require presidential candidate committees to report the name, address, and employer of each person who provided 2 or more bundled contributions totaling $50,000 or more to the campaign, as well as the amount of the contributions.

Under current law, campaigns must publicly identify individuals who contribute $200 or more. Disclosure of bundlers who happen to be registered lobbyists is also required. The missing piece is disclosure of the elite individuals who have the ability to hit up their friends, family, neighbors and business associates to amass six figure contributions that make a big impact on candidates. Big enough to warrant weekly phone calls with the campaign, invitations to retreats with the candidates, the possibility of plum assignments like ambassadorships if the candidate is elected, and access to the leaders of the free world to attempt to influence them on policy.

Now that there is precedent, future presidential candidates may, like Romney, decide to keep secret the identity of their major funders. Rather than rely on candidates’ moral compasses to steer them toward transparency, Congress should remove the option of secrecy and enact a law to require that presidential candidates disclose their bundlers.

Tonight's State of the Union Address raised even less transparency issues than we expected. (See the text at the end of this post.)

President Obama called for a ban on insider trading in Congress, and proposes to ban lobbyists from bundling contributions, and to ban bundlers from lobbying.

The insider trading ban is a proposal Sunlight has supported, in the form of the STOCK Act, despite some initial misgivings. Congress should create clarity about self-dealing and insider trading, and the President is right to call on Congress to address this issue.

When Obama raised the issue of money in politics in his speech, though, he raises the "corrosive influence of money in politics." As wrong as insider trading may be, money in politics isn't about self-dealing. Obama is closer to hitting the mark in raising the issue of bundlers, but unfortunately raises a proposal that's unlikely to get discussed beyond tomorrow. A ban on lobbying or contributing to campaigns is unlikely to pass Congress, and unlikely to pass muster with the courts.  Even if it did, it would do little to mitigate the "corrosive influence of money in politics", since bundlers are often just the bag men operating at others' behest. If you're not getting the Chris Dodds of the world, your lobbying reform plan is probably aiming a little too low.

It's not clear why Obama is suddenly more interested in bundlers than say, lobbying disclosure (last year's lobbying SOTU provision), although it's possible that Obama is raising it because it will become a campaign issue, as Republican candidates have yet to release information about bundlers supporting them, as Obama has.

But this is still disappointing, since it again shows Obama relying on a flawed statutory definition of lobbyist in order to appear opposed to special interests, without actually having to do much.

Worse, though, than the lackluster vision for lobbying reform, is what's entirely missing from the State of the Union: any mention of the flood of dark money flowing into our elections. As I noted earlier today, Obama spent most of 2010 railing against the Citizens United decision -- warning us of the dangers of unlimited and secret contributions, and pushing for a legislative fix.

Since Republicans have blocked that effort, and former White House staffers started a super PAC to help Obama's re-election bid, Obama has almost completely ignored the issue. It's apparently too politically awkward to address when he's the beneficiary of all that dark money he spent 2010 warning us about.

It's good to have a President willing to raise transparency and money in politics in the State of the Union. But when insider trading and an ill-fated lunge at bundlers are all the vision he has to offer, we have to wonder whether Obama sees his old transparency platform as a political liability, rather than a vision to be perfected and implemented.

Speech Excerpt:

Some of this has to do with the corrosive influence of money in politics.  So together, let’s take some steps to fix that.  Send me a bill that bans insider trading by Members of Congress, and I will sign it tomorrow.  Let’s limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact.  Let’s make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can’t lobby Congress, and vice versa – an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington. Some of what’s broken has to do with the way Congress does its business these days.  A simple majority is no longer enough to get anything – even routine business – passed through the Senate.  Neither party has been blameless in these tactics.  Now both parties should put an end to it.  For starters, I ask the Senate to pass a rule that all judicial and public service nominations receive a simple up or down vote within 90 days.

According to The Hill, only one political action committee (PAC) reported bundling campaign contributions for a political candidate during the first filing period for disclosed bundlers. The PAC of Gilead Sciences, a health care company, disclosed raising $17,500 for Rep. Henry Waxman's PAC, LA PAC. It should come as no surprise that disclosure is virtually nil since the Federal Election Commission (FEC) eviscerated the bundling disclosure law when it implemented its regulations for disclosure.

In 2007, Congress passed a large ethics and lobbying reform package, the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, containing disclosure requirements for lobbyists bundling campaign contributions for candidates. The law for bundling disclosure was not implemented immediately as the FEC, then dormant due to controversy surrounding appointments, was required to set out regulations for the filing of disclosure reports. When the FEC finally issued their regulations, they took knocked the wind out of the law.

The two major rules that they issued were:

1. Candidates would have to show that, either, the lobbyist bundling contributions received a "benefit" -- i.e. a honorary award, an autograph from the candidate -- or the candidate must maintain a tracking system that gives credit to lobbyists bundling contributions for their campaign or PAC.
2. Lobbyists who are co-hosting a fundraiser for a candidate can divide the amount raised between them, thus circumventing the $16,000 disclosure threshold. This division of raised contributions goes so far to allow co-hosting non-lobbyists to be alotted a portion of the total raised amount.

Both of these rules allow bundlers to easily evade disclosure requirments. The second of those rules was denounced by then-Sen. Barack Obama, an early supporter of bundling disclosure, before the FEC enacted it, when he said on the floor of the Senate, "In a situation where a fundraising event is co-hosted by a number of different lobbyists, I am concerned that some might want to avoid reporting bundled contributions by dividing up the total receipts of a fundraising event among many sponsors or co-hosts of the event. Certainly, that was not our intention."

That was not their intention, but that is what the FEC enacted. And now we have one disclosure, despite bundling being a common form of fundraising in Washington.

Like a man sinking in quicksand, Rep. Charles Rangel continues, with every flailing day, to sink further as more discrepancies are revealed in his personal financial disclosures. New revelations show Rangel's disclosures to be in complete disarray. Some assets and transactions are listed at high values one year and then listed at no value the next. The Associated Press compiled a list of the erratic disclosure listings.

The New York Times called on Rangel to temporarily step down from the chair of the Ways and Means Committee barring an ethics investigation. It looks like too many are having flashbacks to the Democratic scandals of the '80s and '90s that felled numerous congressional leaders.

The Washington Post takes a look at how business connections fuel bundled political contributions. One major Bush and McCain bundler, John Vogt, calls it the "favor arbitrage business," where, "You've got to know who to ask, how to ask and more importantly, you have to be prepared to return the favor."

Rep. John Doolittle has been under investigation for a long time - longer than this presidential election - and it looks like Kevin Ring's indictment brings that investigation that much closer to his door step. Ring is accused of hiding Doolittle's attempts to find a job for his wife from federal investigators. As McClatchy Newspapers reports, "[Ring's] apparent desire to protect the Doolittles is now figuring very prominently in his legal troubles."

Three makes a trend, right? Today, there are three news stories on presidential bundlers - campaign contributors who solicit money from other contributors and bundle it together - and their activities. All of these stories highlight the need for bundling disclosure rules from the Federal Election Commission. But two of these stories pinpoint the potential for abuse in the bundling system.

The Washington Post looks at the odd practices of one Harry Sargent III, the owner of an oil trading company with billion dollar defense contracts. Sargent has raised over $50,000 for Sen. John McCain's presidential bid from a collection of Arab-Americans who refuse to discuss why they gave money to the Republican's campaign:

Some of the most prolific givers in Sargeant's network live in modest homes in Southern California's Inland Empire. Most had never given a political contribution before being contacted by Sargeant or his associates. Most said they have never voiced much interest in politics. And in several instances, they had never registered to vote. And yet, records show, some families have ponied up as much as $18,400 for various candidates between December and March. Both Sargeant and the donors were vague when asked to explain how Sargeant persuaded them to give away so much money. "I have a lot of Arab business partners. I do a lot of business in the Middle East. I've got a lot of friends," Sargeant said in a telephone interview yesterday. "I ask my friends to support candidates that I think are worthy of supporting. They usually come through for me."

As the Post story notes, this seems analogous to the Norman Hsu case that played out in 2007. Hsu was a con-artist who bundled large sums of money for Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential run from a collection of Chinese-Americans, many of whom were barely integrated into the larger American society. It turned out that Hsu funneled his own money through these individuals to be able to make contributions. Hsu was arrested for this and other crimes and Sen. Clinton returned hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. Are Sargent's bundled contributions legitimate? Why do the people who operate as Sargent's fundraising operation refuse to discuss why they are giving these campaign contributions?

In a very similar case, two individuals of modest means, an office manager at Hess and her husband, an Amtrak foreman, contributed $61,600 to Sen. McCain's campaign committee and a joint Republican-McCain committee. McClatchy:

Alice Rocchio is an office manager at the New York headquarters of the Hess Corp., drives a 1993 Chevy Cavalier and lives in an apartment in Queens, N.Y., with her husband, Pasquale, an Amtrak foreman. Despite what appears to be a middle-class lifestyle, the couple has written $61,600 in checks to John McCain's presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee, most of it within days of McCain's decision to endorse offshore oil drilling. At a June fundraiser, the Rocchios joined top executives at Hess Corp. — Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Hess, his wife, Susan, his mother, Norma Hess, and six other officials in giving a total of $313,500 to a joint McCain-RNC fundraising committee, Federal Election Commission records show.

Alice Rocchio insists that she and her husband used their own money to pay for these large campaign contributions, the first either her or husband have made. The June contributions to the joint committee were revealed in a Campaign Money Watch report earlier this week. The large Hess contributions came days before Sen. McCain switched his position on offshore drilling.

Clearly, these two stories show the danger of abuse in the bundling system and the clear lack of disclosure. While Congress approved disclosure of bundled contributions in the recent ethics reform bill, they only did so for federally registered lobbyists. In both cases, including the case of a federal contractor, neither party would be required to disclose the bundled contributions.

In our final bundling story of the day, the New York Times looks at the big dollar donors and bundlers surrounding Sen. Barack Obama's campaign. Despite the well-known small dollar donations machine the campaign built during the primaries, Sen. Obama is also raising massive sums from big dollar donors:

But records show that one-third of his record-breaking haul has come from donations of $1,000 or more: a total of $112 million, more than Senator John McCain, Mr. Obama’s Republican rival, or Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, his opponent in the Democratic primaries, raised in contributions of that size. Behind those larger donations is a phalanx of more than 500 Obama “bundlers,” fund-raisers who have each collected contributions totaling $50,000 or more. Many of the bundlers come from industries with critical interests in Washington. Nearly three dozen of the bundlers have raised more than $500,000 each, including more than a half-dozen who have passed the $1 million mark and one or two who have exceeded $2 million, according to interviews with fund-raisers.

This latest info on the McCain and Obama bundlers comes thanks to an effort by a number of groups, including the Sunlight Foundation, to pressure both campaigns to disclose their bundlers as former candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry both did. Voluntary disclosure is all well and good, but as I mentioned adove, mandatory disclosure would increase accountability and would apply across the board to include House and Senate bundlers as well.

Sunlight has joined with seven other organizations in calling on the McCain and Obama campaigns to provide more details about their bundlers, the "mega-fundraisers" who are very skilled at using their business and personal contacts to raise large amounts of campaign cash for a specific candidate. By clicking on the following links, you can view the letters sent to John McCain and Barack Obama.

Bundlers are well-connected political players such as corporate executives and lobbyists collect far more money from friends, business associates and other contacts than they are allowed by law to give as an individual donor. Bundling is a big source of funds for the campaigns, earning the bundlers great access and power within a campaign and, for those fortunate to have chosen the right horse, great access and sway in the new administration. (Think Ambassadorships, appointments to regulatory commissions like the SEC, FCC, and other plumb positions.) McCain and Obama have voluntarily listed how much their bundlers have raised their campaign but in the most general terms.

Specifically, we are asking McCain and Obama to:

• report on their Web sites the exact amount bundlers have raised for the campaign;
• ask their party's national committee to track and disclose bundling funds coming to the party;
• to disclose bundler's locations by city and state, as well as their occupations and employers, matching FEC requirements for any donor contributing more than $200;
• and for individual contributors of $200 or less, we are asking the candidates to disclose the number of contributors and cumulative amounts by ZIP code and country (for those Americans living oversees).

Sunlight, in signing the letters joins the Campaign Finance Institute, Center for Responsive Politics, Common Cause, Democracy 21, League of Women Voters, Public Citizen, and U.S. PIRG.

In the letter, we acknowledged to the campaigns that we are asking for information presidential campaigns have not provided in the past. "But, to borrow a phrase," the letter says, "for those whom much private money has been contributed, much is required." Indeed.