Lobbyists spend $36M on lawmakers' events

WASHINGTON, June 8 (UPI) -- Lobbyists spent $35.8 million last year on honorific events and contributions to non-profit groups connected to lawmakers or U.S. officials, documents indicate.

USA Today reported Monday it arrived at the totals by examining expenditures disclosed under a 2007 ethics rule mandating lobbyists declare when they hold events to honor politicians or government officials, or donate to charities and non-profit groups connected to them or their families.

The newspaper said it found 2,759 payments from lobbyists to honor 534 current and former lawmakers, nearly 250 other federal officials and more than 100 groups, whose membership frequently includes lawmakers.

"It's another example of the many pockets of a politician's coat," Ellen Miller of the Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog group, told USA Today, saying the spending on honorific events amounts to an "end-run" around campaign-finance laws "that are designed to limit the appearance of undue influence."

The newspaper said the spending ran the gamut from golf tournaments that raise money for lawmakers' favored non-profit groups to gifts to a powerful House committee chairman's alma mater.