Lindsay Renick Mayer of the Center for Responsive Politics writes on OpenSecrets.org about PMA Group, the lobbying firm that specialized in defense appropriations and that is reportedly under investigation for campaign finance irregularities:

No matter how we slice and dice the data related to contributions from embattled lobbying firm PMA Group and its clients, Rep. John Murtha (D-Penn.), chair of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, remains at or near the top of the recipient list, along with Reps. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.). This week, though, we took yet another look at the contributions from the firm that specializes in securing federal earmarks for its clients, this time analyzing all donations from the firm and its clients back in time to all members of the 111th Congress, plus President Obama….

Since 1998, the firm and its clients have given $40.4 million total to the candidate committees and leadership PACs of 516 lawmakers–nearly every member of the current Congress–with Democrats collecting 58 percent of that. President Obama is high on the list, having collected $905,700 from the firm and its clients, ranking him fourth among all recipients after Murtha, Visclosky and Moran. One caveat about Obama’s total: Because presidential contenders raise so much more money than congressional candidates, they tend to rank highly on lists like this one. PMA represented some very large companies, whose employees supported Obama, but the lobbying firm’s own people gave him a total of $4,225 in the 2004 and 2008 cycles.

OpenSecrets.org also has a downloadable spreadsheet of contributions — available in the post. I know they looked at contributions to members; I wonder if they included Leadership PACs. I see a lot of PMA Group clients among the donors to Murtha’s leadership PAC.

Oh, and don’t miss this Politico story on Murtha’s use of a university as a front group to funnel money to PMA Group clients — an awful lot of PMA Group clients are listed as partners of the Electro-Optics Alliance, a joint venture of Penn State University and the Office of Naval Research.