Twenty campaign finance-focused advocacy groups are calling on the presidential campaigns of Joseph R. Biden and President Trump to disclose information identifying their bundlers.
The coalition wrote to both Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden’s campaigns to request that they voluntarily disclose the names, locations of residence, and occupations of their bundlers, which are the campaigns’ top fundraisers. The coalition pushing for more details on the fundraisers is led by the advocacy group Issue One and also includes the Project On Government Oversight, Campaign Legal Center, and the League of Women Voters, among many others.
“More and more money is flowing into presidential elections, yet, disturbingly, there is less and less transparency about the people helping both candidates raise mountains of campaign cash,” said Meredith McGehee, Issue One executive director, in a statement. “It’s important for the public to have access to meaningful information about presidential campaign bundlers because these individuals often get special access, government contracts, and influential positions like ambassadorships.”
Campaigns already report information to the federal government about registered federal lobbyists who bundle campaign contributions, but the campaign finance groups want Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden to publish related information on their campaign websites for the public to peruse.
Neither campaign responded to requests for comment on what information they intend to make public about leading fundraisers in the 2020 campaign’s final months. The campaign finance advocacy coalition noted both campaigns participate in joint fundraising committees that are aligned with their respective national political parties and several state parties, which allow them to collect contributions exceeding $500,000.
“Government accountability depends on transparency in our campaign finance system, and that includes transparency about presidential campaign bundlers,” the coalition wrote to the Trump and Biden campaigns. “That’s why we are calling on you to implement a system to regularly and meaningfully disclose information about your campaign bundlers throughout the 2020 election cycle, ideally releasing this information in tandem with all upcoming [Federal Election Commission] reporting deadlines.”
