National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-Texas) is putting his colleagues to work in an effort to boost the committee’s fundraising.
Cornyn is expanding the NRSC’s efforts to bring Republican senators to events with donors, something that hasn’t happened in recent years. Republican senators previously had been allowed to hand over their dues and be left alone.
{mosads}Now, Cornyn is holding events around the country where donors are able to hobnob with senators. Over recess, Cornyn held an event in New York City with Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). He also organized an event in Washington state with Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) and one in San Francisco with Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the NRSC’s vice chairman.
“My colleagues have really stepped up and responded to my requests that they show up,” Cornyn said. “People actually would like to interact with our donors, tell them a little bit of what’s on their mind.”
Other events earlier this year drew more than a dozen senators to a Capitol Hill wine bar, and a similar number to a fundraiser for a fund supporting former Sen. Norm Coleman’s (R-Minn.) legal efforts to return to the Senate.
“Not only are we seeing people be more active here in Washington, but they’re traveling other places,” Cornyn said. “I think people are starting to feel the benefits of that greater participation, just in terms of the response we’ve gotten from our donors and supporters.”
In his first term as NRSC chairman after winning a second six-year stint in the Senate, Cornyn has jumped off to a fast fundraising start. The committee has raised $8.5 million from individual donors and PACs in the first three months of the year, more than a 35 percent increase over the same period in 2007.
That number has been augmented by an additional $1 million transfer from the Republican National Committee, and as a consequence the NRSC carries significantly less debt than its Democratic counterpart.
Cornyn has tapped Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) to handle the NRSC’s Majority Makers, the donor club for those who contribute the maximum $30,400. Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) head the Senatorial Trust Club, for $15,000 donors.
For smaller donors, those who give more than $5,000 are in the care of Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and the Roundtable Club, while anyone who gives more than $1,000 will make the NRSC’s Inner Circle, headed by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).
In its outreach to political action committees that give either $5,000 or $15,000, the NRSC will rely on Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Kit Bond (R-Mo.), who head the committee’s Policy Board.
“As Sen. [Richard] Lugar (R-Ind.) told me when I was elected chair of the NRSC, he said it is called a committee for a reason. It’s not just the chairman doing his thing while everybody else does their thing. It’s a joint effort,” Cornyn told The Hill.