Jerry Lewis: fundraiser.

There's a fascinating article in usatoday about 'political' 'fundraising'.

First, let's look at the magnitude of the return on the 'donated' contritbutions:

"One day after a New York investment group raised $110,000 for Republican Rep. Jerry Lewis, the House passed a defense spending bill that preserved $160 million for a Navy project critical to the firm... None of the people connected to Cerberus had ever given money to either Lewis or his political action committee before the fundraiser or the vote on the bill Lewis sponsored, a USA TODAY analysis of their political contributions shows."

cheap, no?

perhaps we can't prove a quid-pro-quo yet, but a former chief lawyer for the Federal Election Commission notes that

" the timing of the fundraiser within days of a favorable vote "looks like influence buying."

and why did Lewis sell his soul and risk a stint in prison?

"Meanwhile, Lewis was gearing up for the race to become chairman of the House Appropriations Committee — one of the most powerful jobs in Congress, with the clout to push pet projects or cut funding for programs that fall out of favor.

To win, Lewis had to impress House Republican leaders with his ability to raise money for other GOP candidates... Lewis' Future Leaders PAC gave $407,000 to 69 House candidates in the 2004 election. The Cerberus-related money was equal to nearly a third of that amount. In 2003, the PAC collected $522,725 — a quarter of it connected to Cerberus."

Ok - we know the mechanism here. Lewis has a fund-raiser, people donate to the PAC, the PAC gives money to other politicians. The magnitude of funds raised, and dispersed, determines whether the congressperson gets appointed to different committees. For just a million dollars over these two years, Lewis received one of the most powerful positions in DC - the Chair of Appropriations. So to the extent that we can draw a direct line between the donations and the appropriation decisions - for $300k, Cerebus owned Lewis. His job and power, (apparently) literally depended on their meagre donations.

"(Lewis) acknowledges that the fundraising efforts of Cerberus "played a very significant role" in winning the post."

Three hundred thousand dollars. what a bargain. (I'm surprised that the price isn't higher - purely because there should be more competition.)

And now to the other, more murky, type of fundraising that i've been interested in - donations to the NRCC, and how credit gets allocated to the ultimate fundraiser:

"Lewis also got Cerberus to help with his fundraising for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the arm of the GOP that gives money to House candidates. Lewis said he invited Cerberus executives to an April 2004 NRCC fundraiser he chaired that included a speech by President Bush.

The NRCC got $70,000 in Cerberus-related donations during the first two weeks of April 2004, including $25,000 from Cerberus founder Stephen Feinberg, records show."

Now you can see why i'm so interested in the campaign contributions i've been obsessing over - particularly in the college loan business (see cary katz, ryan katz). the katz's donated as much money to the NRCC as the Cerberus crew. Similarly, ziyad abduljawad gave $25k to the nrcc 3 weeks after the Duke's troubles were first revealed.

btw - i'm still working on a much larger post on the college loan industry. there's a very good reason why these people were throwing money at congressmen - of most interest is John Boehner - possible successor to DeLay.

as an aside, here's the final para of the USAToday story:

""Large contractors give lots of money to these members of Congress. They always have," said Tom Schatz of the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, which had called for MCI to be banned from federal work. "That's the way things are done.""

i mention that here just because the Citizens Against Government Waste also turns up in my student loan story. As it happens, PNACer Vin Weber sits on the board of Citizens Against Government Waste - and it seems as though he uses the organisation as a front to push the agenda of his lobbying clients. nice. Sallie Mae has paid Weber at least $1.6 million to lobby for them. Ergo, my guess is that if Citizens Against Government Waste are calling for MCI to be banned, there's likely a real-life paying client on the other side of that argument which would benefit from an MCI-free world.

stay tuned.