Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Advocacy groups call on presidential candidates to disclose bundlers

Sixteen advocacy groups, including some of the most influential players in the political reform movement, co-signed a letter Thursday urging 2020 presidential candidates to voluntarily disclose their top individual fundraisers, or "bundlers," during their campaign bids.

The letter asked the candidates to create a system to "regularly and meaningfully" disclose details about the campaign's bundlers — individuals who solicit and collect donations from others and then deliver those funds in a "bundle" to aid a candidate's campaign.


Bundlers who successfully pool large amounts of money from a network of well-heeled donors are often rewarded with desirable post-election appointments, such as ambassadorships.

Former presidents and presidential candidates from both parties, such as George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have voluntarily disclosed bundler details, Politico noted. During the 2016 election cycle, however, presidential candidates had "a mixed record of releasing bundler information."

"Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush released lists of their top fundraisers, though Clinton released less information about the people raising money for her campaign than Obama had. But others, including President Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, did not identify their bundlers," the article noted.

The letter asked the candidates to:

  • Disclose bundler information in reports that coincide with regular Federal Election Commission reporting requirements.
  • Provide the name, city, state and ZIP code of every bundler along with their employer and occupation — information that candidates must already provide for large donors.
  • Update regularly the aggregate amount each bundler has raised for their campaign.
  • Publish this information on their official website in a format that can be searched, sorted and downloaded.

The groups also requested that the eventual nominees include in subsequent reports how much bundlers raise for their party, as well as state and national party committees and joint fundraising committees that benefit the winning candidate.

The 16 advocacy groups that co-signed the letter include the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Public Citizen, Represent.Us and Issue One. (The Firewall is being incubated by Issue One but remains journalistically independent.)

Read More

MAGA says no to Trump & Kennedy’s junk science

U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions after making an announcement on“ significant medical and scientific findings for America’ s children” in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Sept. 22, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Federal health officials suggested a link between the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy as a risk for autism, although many health...

(Getty Images)

MAGA says no to Trump & Kennedy’s junk science

President Trump stood at the White House podium, addressing a room full of reporters.

“First, effective immediately, the FDA will be notifying physicians that the use of…ah-said-a…well…let’s see how we say that.”

Keep ReadingShow less
On Live Facial Recognition in the City: We Are Not Guinea Pigs, and We Are Not Disposable

New Orleans fights a facial recognition ordinance as residents warn of privacy risks, mass surveillance, and threats to immigrant communities.

Getty Images, PhanuwatNandee

On Live Facial Recognition in the City: We Are Not Guinea Pigs, and We Are Not Disposable

Every day, I ride my bike down my block in Milan, a tight-knit residential neighborhood in central New Orleans. And every day, a surveillance camera follows me down the block.

Despite the rosy rhetoric of pro-surveillance politicians and facial recognition vendors, that camera doesn’t make me safer. In fact, it puts everyone in New Orleans at risk.

Keep ReadingShow less
An illustration of two people holding legal documents.
llustration by Olivia Abeyta for palabra

Proof of Citizenship, No Proof of Safety

Claudia, an immigrant from Chile who lives in suburban Maryland right outside Washington, D.C., watched closely as the Trump administration ramped up its mass deportation campaign during the spring (Claudia, not her real name, asked to be identified by a pseudonym because she is afraid of federal immigration agents).

She went online and watched countless videos of masked, heavily armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents breaking the car windows of immigrants to wrestle them out of their cars, and detaining people at their workplaces, like restaurants, car washes, and agricultural fields. Many of her friends told her about ICE sweeps in heavily Latino apartment complexes near her home.

Keep ReadingShow less
Protest sign, We the people.
Protests have been sparked across the country over the last few weeks.
Gene Gallin on Unsplash

Why Constitution Day Should Spark a Movement for a New Convention in 2037

Sept. 17 marked Constitution Day, grounded in a federal law commemorating the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787. As explained by the courts of Maryland, “By law, all educational institutions receiving federal funding must observe Constitution Day. It is an opportunity to celebrate and discuss our Constitution and system of government.”

This week also marked the release of an important new book by the historian Jill Lepore: “We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution” (as reviewed in the New York Times in a public link). Here’s an overview of her conclusions from the publisher:

Keep ReadingShow less