Texas politico rapidly rises to No. 1 overall donor, now No. 1 bundler

By The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group

What does the single largest donor in federal politics do when the maximum allowed by law just isn’t enough? He collects contributions from others, becoming the single biggest bundler. What won’t surprise you is that the person in question is a lobbyist. But what might surprise you is that he’s based in Texas, and chances are good you’ve never heard of him.

Democratic supporter Ben Barnes, who is from faraway Austin, Texas, has quietly and rather suddenly become the premier political financier in America. He appeared on the Center for Responsive Politics’ list of top 100 donors in 2006, ranking 87^th, and shot up to 18^th place the next cycle. Now, just two cycles after making the list, he is number one.

In addition to his individual contributions,.according to the latest bundling disclosures with the Federal Election Commission, he’s raised more money than big Washington names such as Tony Podesta: a total of $630,450 for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the first half of last year alone. That means he singlehandedly collected more than twice as much for the DCCC as all of the bundlers for its Republican counterpart, the NRCC, combined.

With his wife, Barnes has personally donated more money at the federal level than any other person or couple this cycle, at $233,000. Federal election law limits the amount any individual can donate–$115,500 per person for the 2010 cycle–so he and his wife have maxed out early. Because the aggregate cap was lower in previous cycles, no one has donated as much money in one election cycle as Barnes has in just nine months–at least since the 2002 campaign finance overhaul.

In fact, his emergence as a poster boy for bundling is a direct result of that legislation, the crux of which was a cap on formerly unlimited donations from corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to party committees. On October 11, 2002, just days before McCain-Feingold went into effect, Barnes wrote a $100,000 check to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, his last opportunity to give directly at that magnitude. Now, he and other heavy hitters must turn to other methods to move as much money as possible to their parties of choice–one of several unanticipated, indirect effects of the act that have emerged in recent years.

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The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group is part of the Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based organization that uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable.