The influence industry is playing a larger role than meets the eye in raising money for Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush.

Campaigns are required to file reports detailing registered lobbyists who round up donations, but that number is only a small slice of the fundraisers who work in some capacity in Washington's vast influence industry, according to a POLITICO examination of the fundraiser lists that both candidates voluntarily disclosed.


A quarter of the “Hillblazers” who bundled $100,000 or more for Clinton work at lobbying firms or public affairs agencies lobby at the state level or otherwise make their living from influencing the government on behalf of special interests, even though they aren’t themselves registered to lobby Congress. For Bush, 58 of the 342 people who raised at least $17,600 are advocates and operatives linked to the influence industry, although they aren’t reported as federal lobbyists.

The reliance on these power brokers — to an extent not fully revealed in Federal Election Commission filings alone — shows how much both candidates are drawing on family and party networks forged over decades in politics to bankroll their presidential bids. It also illustrates the weaknesses in the rules meant to subject lobbyists to more public scrutiny.

"This is an industry town and sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between registered lobbyist and others in the influence world," said CR Wooters, a Democratic lobbyist at the firm Mehlman Castagnetti. "For these campaigns, the most important thing is that the checks don't bounce."

Clinton received at least $5.4 million from professional influencers, compared with $3.2 million from registered lobbyists disclosed to the FEC. For Bush, the equivalent figures are $1.02 million and just under $408,000.

"Hillary Clinton has gone above and beyond by disclosing more information about her fundraising than any candidate in either party," said Josh Schwerin, a spokesman. The Bush campaign didn't comment.

No other campaigns have volunteered to disclose their bundlers, other than the registered lobbyists, as required.

But as Clinton’s and Bush’s fundraising ranks show, there are many ways that people may lobby for a living without formally registering with the House or Senate.

Steven W. Farber is president and founding partner of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, one of DC’s biggest lobbying firms. He bundled at least $100,000 for Clinton, so he’s listed as a Hillblazer. But he hasn't registered as a lobbyist since 2008, although he now employs an army of them.

A similar story goes for other Clinton bundlers, including:

Sally Susman, Pfizer’s executive vice president of corporate affairs, including government relations

David L. Cohen, a senior executive vice president at Comcast in charge of government and regulatory affairs

Kenneth M. Jarin, who leads Ballard Spahr's government relations, regulatory affairs and contracting practice group

Karen Persichilli Keogh, a former Clinton aide who has also lobbied for JPMorgan at the state and city level

R. Stanton Dodge, executive vice president, general counsel and secretary responsible for all legal and government affairs at DISH Network

Michael W. Kempner, founder, president and CEO of MWW, a public affairs firm that also lobbies.

Other Hillblazers include Jill Alper and Minyon Moore of Dewey Square Group, a public affairs firm that also does some lobbying; Karen Skelton, a Dewey Square consultant who also has her own shop; and former Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, now with McGuireWoods.

At least two aren’t registered as lobbyists but are registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents: Edward Gabriel, who runs an international consulting firm working for Morocco; and Imaad Zuberi, who represents Sri Lanka.

Professional influencers who bundled for Bush include:



Brian McCormack, vice president for political and external affairs at the Edison Electric Institute, a utilities trade group

Eric Tanenblatt, co-leader of Dentons' U.S. public policy and regulation practice

William S. Scherman, who chairs the energy, regulation and litigation practice group at Gibson Dunn

Linda Jordan Willard of TCH Group

Alixe Mattingly of CLS Strategies;

Gordon C. James, who heads a “full service media relations, event management, government affairs and grass-roots agency” in Phoenix and Washington

Bob Martinez, a former governor of Florida who now leads Holland & Knight’s government advocacy team in the state

Five Florida state government lobbyists in Tallahassee

David Beightol, a partner and co-founder of Flywheel Government Solutions

“I’m not a lobbyist, although Paul Ryan is a good friend so I might end up as one,” Beightol said. “I know Bush better than the average Washington bundler — lots of people just see he’s a Bush and want to help him out."

The requirement to disclose lobbyist bundlers comes from the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, which also increased fines, made disclosures more frequent and tightened rules on outgoing officials' job negotiations.

“It really speaks to the breadth of the loopholes that exist for D.C. lobbyists: Once you reach a certain point in your career, you never have to register to lobby no matter how much influence you’re exerting,” said Matthew Rumsey, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog group. “Bush and Clinton took the unnecessary but positive step of releasing the names of their bundlers and that exposes part of that web, but for a lot of campaigns you’ll never see that.”

Barack Obama, as a candidate in 2008, pledged not to take money from lobbyists, but he still relied on bundling by Pfizer’s Susman, Comcast’s Cohen and other advocates who aren’t registered. Clinton hasn’t made an equivalent pledge. Bush is the first Republican to voluntarily disclose his bundlers.

Gabriel Debenedetti contributed to this report.