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TheHill.com

Ken Raske, president and CEO of the Greater New York Hospital Association, collected donations worth more than $152,000 for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) in September alone, according to the latest FEC reports.

Raske is an important voice in this year’s healthcare debate. His association, representing more than 300 not-for-profit and public hospitals in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, has spent more than a $1 million on federal lobbying in 2009 so far. Raske was also one of three hospital association representatives invited to the White House in May for a meeting with President Barack Obama and other administration officials to discuss healthcare reform.

After Raske, Al Cardenas of Miami-based law firm Tew Cardenas raised the most money among lobbyists this fall.

Cardenas, a former head of the Florida Republican Party, bundled more than $66,200 this fall for Florida Gov. Charlie Crist (R), who is running for the Senate. Crist also collected more than $25,400 from Daniel Murphy of BG&R Group.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) attracted the most money bundled by lobbyists in the third quarter. (The article lists more Dems getting broke off by lobbyists)

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Hiding Money

In a rich irony, the Republican congressman leading the fight to have Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) ousted as chair of the House’s top tax-writing body turns out to have ethics problems of his own.

Rep. John Carter (R-TX) had nearly $300,000 in unreported profits from oil stock sales in 2006 and 2007, Roll Call reported yesterday.

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But in 2006, Carter made $199,000 in profits through the sale of Exxon stock. He made another $97,000 the following year. And in neither case did he list the profit on his financial disclosure form. In mid 2008, Carter did amend the 2007 form to include “capital gains”, but he say how much he earned through the stock sale.

Carter did, however, pay taxes on those profits, according to his tax forms for those years. So the misstep appears to have been of a reporting nature, rather than a tax-paying nature. (more…)