The Center for Public Integrity

Proposed cuts to the cash-hemorrhaging United States Postal Service, including eliminating Saturday delivery, are prompting outcries from lobbying interests as diverse as letter carriers to consumer groups.

Be sure to also include within their ranks the greeting card industry, which relies on the postal service for its business as much as any.

Hallmark Cards Inc. and the Greeting Card Association have both re-signed lobbyist Rafe Morrissey to advocate on their behalf for "all matters pertaining to reform and operation of the United States Postal Service," according to new documents filed with the U.S. Senate.

Morrissey, who has long lobbied for both entities, started his own firm government affairs firm March 1. Hallmark and the GCA "elected to remain with me as clients," he explained to the Center for Public Integrity.

"Both have weighed in on the importance of maintaining six-day mail service as well as the need to pass reform legislation to stabilize USPS finances for the last four years," Morrissey said. "I expect these activities to continue, but there is not an increase in activities this year compared to past years."

Hallmark spokeswoman Linda Odell told the Center for Public Integrity that the company was "skeptical of the estimate of savings to be realized from the proposed elimination of Saturday delivery" and that reducing service was "the wrong approach [for] the future viability of the USPS."

John Bolton, a former U.N. ambassador under President George W. Bush and a leading conservative voice on foreign policy issues, will lead a pair of newly formed political action committees, including a super PAC, two Bolton associates confirm to the Center for Public Integrity.

"The goal for the committees is restoring national security issues to their proper place on the political agenda," said Mark Groombridge, a long-time Bolton adviser.

Highlighting national security issues and U.S. policy in Asia and the Middle East will rank among the PACs' priorities, Groombridge said.

He added that the PACs' structure, staffing and fundraising goals haven't yet been formalized, and there's no timetable yet on when they'll enter the political fray — or how. 

"Those are details that are being worked out," Groombridge said. "For now, we just wanted to get the names registered."

Kelley Rogers, president of Virginia-based Strategic Campaign Group, which filed the committees' federal organizational paperwork, tells the Center: "We will have an announcement in a few weeks as to both entities."  

One committee is named Bolton for America PAC and is organized as a traditional political action committee, which may raise limited amounts of money and in turn donate limited amounts to political candidates and party committees, according to Federal Election Commission filings made public today.

The other, Bolton for America Super PAC, is also organized as a traditional PAC, although its establishment as such appears to be an easily corrected paperwork error.

"Bey and Jay." Whatever.

Come July 29, it'll be "Beyoncé (and Bob)" at Washington, D.C.'s Verizon Center, as Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., is planning to rock out at a political fundraiser that pairs his name with the music megastar, according to an invitation obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

For a yet-to-by-publicized (although almost certainly sizable) contribution, donors will be treated to seats in a suite over which the two-term senator will preside.

View the invitation here, along with come-ons for decidedly more traditional Casey fundraisers next week at Charlie Palmer's Steakhouse on Capitol Hill and in May at a Philapelphia Phillies baseball game. No matter that Casey doesn't face re-election again until 2018.

Amy Pfaehler, Casey's campaign finance director, said she's not authorized to comment on the events and directed questions to Casey's Senate office, a representative for which did not respond to requests for comment.

As for Beyoncé, well, Jay-Z's better half will be half an arena away on stage during Casey's fundraiser, so don't expect your contribution to include much face time with the 17-time Grammy Award winner who as of late has evermore increased her profile in the political and governmental realm.

But while it's hardly unheard of for politicians to use unwitting pop stars in bids to fill their campaign coffers, Beyoncé has recently become decidedly political on her own terms.

Toyota's North American subsidiary has formed a political action committee, a new Federal Election Commission filing indicates, meaning the Japanese automaker is adding another influence vehicle to its already sizable government outreach operation.

The PAC, which may raise up to $5,000 per year from eligible company employees, is officially named the Toyota Motor North America Inc. Political Action Committee, although it will informally go by Toyota/Lexus PAC.

"Toyota is establishing the Toyota/Lexus PAC which will allow employees, acting together, to support candidates who share the company's interests, values and goals," Toyota spokesman Ed Lewis said in a statement to the Center for Public Integrity.

Toyota, the world's largest automaker in terms of sales volume, already employs a sizable team of government lobbyists.

In recent years, it's spent between $3 million and $6 million annually on federally reportable lobbying efforts, including $3.35 million during 2012, U.S. Senate disclosures indicate.

That's consistently more federal lobbying than any other foreign automaker, including Honda and Nissan, although generally less than domestic car companies General Motors and Ford.

Political prognosticator Charlie Cook ranks Illinois' 17th Congressional District as solidly Democratic ahead of the 2014 midterm elections, but that's not keeping Democratic freshman Rep. Cheri Bustos and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from taking any chances.

Bustos, who defeated incumbent GOP Rep. Bobby Schilling in November, was one of 26 Democratic House members named to the DCCC's "Frontline" program earlier this week, a partnership designed to boost politicians' fundraising and electoral prospects. (The National Republican Congressional Committee operates a similar program for its members.)

Naming Bustos to the Frontline program is a doubling down on the investment the DCCC has already made in her: Ahead of Election Day 2012, the DCCC spent about $2.9 million on political ads trashing Schilling — ads legally known as "independent expenditures" because they were not coordinated with Bustos' campaign. 

That was more money than the committee spent on independent expenditures in any other House race, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Bustos is hardly alone among the newly named Frontline participants in terms of past DCCC air support.

All 26 newly named Frontline participants had DCCC-sponsored ads produced on their behalf in 2012, according to the Center for Public Integrity's analysis. And their races accounted for nearly half of the more than $60 million the DCCC spent on independent expenditures during the 2012 election cycle.

Last year, the DCCC made at least $2 million worth of independent expenditures in the races of several Democrats who are part of the 2014 Frontline program, including:

What do actor Will Smith, UnitedHealth Group Executive Vice President Anthony Welters and Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs have in common?

All were recently identified as bundlers by the Obama campaign, raising at least $500,000 for the Obama Victory Fund.

In fact, 11 new bundlers were added to the campaign's list of "volunteer fundraisers" this week.

A new analysis from the Center for Public Integrity examines the new rainmakers, many of whom have close connections to the influence industry, despite the fact that President Barack Obama prides himself on rejecting campaign contributions from registered lobbyists.

Overall, 769 bundlers collectively raised more than $186 million for the victory fund, a joint fundraising committee that benefited Obama's presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties in several battleground states.

Read the Center's full analysis here.

As former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush promotes his new book about immigration, some politicos are suggesting the notable Republican’s education reform-oriented nonprofit group is what’s truly worth watching, as it could serve as an early springboard toward a 2016 presidential bid.

Undoubtedly, the coffers of Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education — which favors reforms such as ending tenure for teachers, increasing school choice and expanding digital learning — have swelled in recent years, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis.

Bush launched the Foundation for Excellence in Education in 2007. That year, it raised about $244,000, according to an annual report it filed with the Internal Revenue Service. By 2009, its revenue grew to $2.8 million. And in 2011, the most recent year for which records are available, it hauled in nearly $8.5 million.

The Foundation for Excellence in Education’s mission is to “ignite a movement of reform to transform American education.” It touts itself as a “hands-on, how-to organization that provides model legislation, rule-making expertise, implementation strategies and public outreach,” according to its website. It has also hosted conferences for legislators and state officials.

Records indicate that its donors include an array of conservative-leaning foundations and supporters of charter schools.

According to the Foundation Center, the following organizations supported Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education in 2011:

Until the "snowquester" winter storm hit Washington, D.C., President Barack Obama was scheduled to honor the University of Alabama's championship football team at the White House today.

While Crimson Tide athletes were planning on making a special trip to the nation's capital for the event, the University of Alabama also maintains a full-time presence in Washington.

In fact, the University of Alabama spent $370,000 on lobbying in 2012, according to congressional records, and it hired five lobbyists from the elite firm Van Scoyoc Associates, which is one of the nation's top lobby shops in terms of revenue, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Who are the Crimson Tide's lobbyists? H. Stewart Van Scoyoc, the firm's president and chief executive officer, as well as Michael Adcock, Madeline Barter, Ray Cole and Alice Dodd.

Records indicate that they actively lobbied the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in 2012 on the University of Alabama's behalf.

Among their lobbying targets: Sequestration-related legislation, several appropriations bills, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill recovery, legislation and regulations related to organ transplant issues, funding for Department of Defense medical research programs and the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.

The soon-to-be-defunct Bowl Championship Series itself also maintained a lobbying force in Washington in 2012.

An upstart data transparency group run by a former congressional counsel has registered its first lobbyist, new U.S. Senate filings show.

Hudson Hollister, a Republican who until last year served as counsel to the U.S. House's Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, will lobby on behalf of the Data Transparency Coalition, which wants the federal government to institute "greater efficiency and better transparency by deploying consistent data standards."

Hollister is also founder and executive director of the nonprofit coalition.

The Data Transparency Coalition, whose members include firms such as Teredata, SAP, Adaptive and Level One Technologies, will in part push for passage of a revamped version of the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, which died during the last congressional session.  

The group's other lobbying priorities include pressing government agencies to adopt standard data formats so that data is more easily searchable, sortable and downloadable, Hollister said.

It will likewise advocate to make federal court documents, typically available for a charge through the government's PACER system, free to the public, he said.

"There's nobody else in the tech industry really advocating for this, and this is not going to happen if Congress doesn't hear from the tech industry," Hollister said.

Hunting animals at outdoorsy fundraisers earns politicians big bucks these days, as duck, geese, quail, dove, turkey, pheasant, alligator and antelope have all died in the name of helping re-elect both Democrats and Republicans. 

But ahead of what's almost certain in 2014 to be the most expensive congressional election in U.S. history, Rep. Joe Pitts, for one, is taking a decidedly more genteel approach to amassing cash.

For a $5,000 host-level donation, or $2,000 if you represent a political action committee, the conservative Pennsylvania Republican will bathe your palatte in vino while wooing your inner O'Keeffe.

"We provide pinot and everything you will need to paint!" an event invitation obtained by the Center for Public Integrity reads, noting in a rainbow of colors that the April 15 fundraiser is entitled "Sip & Paint."

It continues: "Then sit and watch as Congressman Pitts guides you step by step to create your very own masterpiece!"

Without question, Pitts is deft with a brush and chisel.