Convention cash: Donors have spent more than $1 billion on lobbying efforts

Donors to the Republican and Democratic national conventions have spent more than $1 billion on lobbying efforts in Washington during the last four years, according to a report released today by the Campaign Finance Institute. The contributors have also made roughly $100 million in federal campaign contributions since 2005.

The Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) identified 146 donors to the conventions slated for St. Paul and Denver, predominantly large corporations. Of those, 37 companies are giving to both conventions, while 39 are only contributing to the Republican gathering and 70 exclusively to the Democratic gala. CFI wrote letters to every organization seeking details on their contributions, but only succeeded in obtaining information about 31 donors contributing $27.6 million out of an estimated $112 million expected to be raised. Qwest Communications is the largest identified corporate giver, providing $6 million in cash and in-kind services to each convention.

A survey of Republican convention donors last month by Minnesota Independent yielded similarly sparse results. Of the 53 organizations listed as contributors at the time, only 23 responded to our inquiries and just eight were willing to provide a dollar figure for their donations.

The 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance legislation prohibited unlimited soft-money contributions to political parties. But conventions remain a loophole through which corporations can seek to purchase influence with politicians. The contributions are funneled through nonprofit groups set up by the respective parties and are therefore tax deductible. Details of the donations are not required to be made public until 60 days after the conventions are held. The Minneapolis Saint Paul 2008 Host Committee announced yesterday that it had met its mandate to raise $39 million for the festivities. The nonprofit group still hopes to pull in an additional $19 million before the convention opens on September 1.