Lobbyists Donated $15,000 To Obama Campaign
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, MoneyApparently some of these donations have fallen through the cracks, but given how adamant the Obama campaign has been about not accepting any donations from this particular group, they’d do well to return every penny…and soon.
The Obama campaign said it has not changed its policy regarding lobbyist contributions and that it continues to take steps to ensure such contributions are returned.“Individuals who donate either have to check a box indicating that they are not a federally registered lobbyist, or fill out a donor card with a disclaimer that says we don’t accept lobbyist money,†Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in an e-mail. “For when these voluntary measures fail, we also check contributions against a database and decline or return all contributions from federally registered lobbyists.â€
Despite those measures, only two of the 42 federally registered contributing lobbyists, David Taylor of Weil Gotshal & Manges and Kyle Danish of Van Ness Feldman, reported on their forms that the Obama campaign had refunded their money.
As Roll Call points out, many of these donations are under a “$200 threshold that triggers reporting,” but again…the bar has been set so high that the campaign needs to live up to their pledge and return the money.
And to that point…
“Because of a law championed by Sen. Obama, lobbyists are now required to disclose their contributions, which gives us another chance to make sure we haven’t taken any money from lobbyists,†Vietor said. “Any contributions from lobbyists that weren’t already returned will be soon.â€
More as it develops…
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 and is filed under 2008 Election, Barack, Democrats, Money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
