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After months of paging through invitations we had a pretty good idea where the hottest party spots were for members of Congress and lobbyist donors. But thanks to lots of hard work cleaning up and standardizing the data in our Party Time database, now we really know.

According to these invitations, Congressional fundraisers in 2008 were clustered in a semicircle around the Capitol building in a handful of Washington private clubs, restaurants, and townhouses. The top 20 most popular partying spots accounted for more than half of the 2,117 events we analyzed. In addition to party-operated venues, a handful of pricey restaurants and private townhouses are the site of most of the festivities. Top restaurants included Johnny's Half Shell, with 120 events (chosen by Gourmet Magazine in 2000 as one of "America's Best Restaurants); Charlie Palmer Steak, with 83 (named by Washingtonian as one of the best 100 restaurants in 2008); and Bistro Bis (also in Washingtonian's top 100), with 79.  See the full list of the top 20 top partying spots by clicking here.

That doesn't mean that some lawmakers don't do their fundraising in farther flung locales. There are your trips to Vegas, to Daytona International Speedway, to Yankee Stadium. Not to mention the games of golf all over the country. But for the most part, it seems like members of Congress and donors like to stay closer to their workplaces. It's just a hop, skip, or a jump from these popular party spots to Capitol Hill offices or to a vote on the House or Senate floor.

Many of the parties are at private clubs that cater to one political party or the other, such as the Capitol Hill Club and the National Democratic Club Townhouse or are at restaurants. Many are also at townhouses maintained by particular organizations, such as the Patton Boggs and UPS townhouses. One of the venues on the top 20 list was a townhouse owned by lobbyist Tim Rupli, who lobbies for such clients as the Community Financial Services Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America. The townhouse is the site of parties benefiting Democrats and Republicans.

Overall, the Sunlight Foundation's Party Time analysis documented 2,117 events in 2008. That amounts to an average of more than 176 per month or nearly six a day. Yet this is certainly an underestimate of the number of fundraising parties held by members of Congress and Congressional candidates throughout the year.

There is no legal requirement these invitations be disclosed. The Sunlight Foundation gathers them from about a dozen anonymous lobbyists sources and welcomes new submissions from trustworthy sources who would like to contribute. We post images of these invitations for viewing on the Sunlight Party Time's website (politicalpartytime.org) along with a searchable database based on the information. This is the most comprehensive collection of these invitations and the collection grows daily as we post new information.

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Here at Party Time we're curious about Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO). Now that President-elect Barack Obama has said Salazar is his pick for Interior Secretary, will Salazar still hold his planned Vail Winter fundraising retreat next month? And if he goes ahead and collects the "$5,000 suggested contribution" from donors what will he do with that cash and the rest of the $1.8 million cash on hand that he has in his campaign fund?

There are rules, of course, governing what members of Congress can do with their leftover campaign cash when they leave office. According to the Center for Responsive Politics:

The law stipulates that leftover campaign funds should be returned to donors, transferred to a political party or candidate, or donated to charity. Because of the logistics of returning partially spent donations of different sizes to an array of contributors, that option is not widely exercised.

Maybe it's all a matter of how good the snow is in Vail. The resort is reporting three feet new of the white stuff over the past three days, and more than 4,000 acres open.

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Politico takes a look at the holiday party scene in Washington this year, and unlike ABC's blotter the other day, finds it wanting. There are fewer parties this year, according to the article--a function of the recession, hangover from the convention, and the parties anticipated for the presidential inaugural:

Things are so sparse this year that Washington fundraiser Monica Notzon didn't even bother creating the holiday party calendar she usually distributes to her clients, who include 20 GOP members of the House and Senate.

The economy notwithstanding, Notzon said the party shortage of 2008 is part of a predictable cycle. "Every four years, we get in this weird place where we blow it out at convention, then you have an election, and then you have Christmas, and then you have Inauguration. And it's just too much," she says.

The Distilled Spirits Council is holding off on partying until the inaugural. The National Association of Manufacturers pared back its holiday party for employees only. Debbie Dingell, wife of Rep. John Dingell (D-MI),  and Marlene Malek, wife of GOP businessman Fred Malek, canceled their annual holiday lunch.

Yet Politico notes that some parties are still going strong:

Washington lobbying firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates threw its holiday party last week, and the event was as packed as ever. "We had the same number of people we have had in past years," Jack Quinn says. "We had terrific feedback from clients and friends who were disappointed that we didn't hold a holiday party in 2007."

Party Time readers may remember that Quinn Gillespie was the source for our initial list of convention parties back in the summer. So these guys not only know where the parties are--they know how to party.

Of course whether and if and how there are more or less parties in any given time is ultimately a guessing game. There is no formal disclosure of these events. Here are Party Time, we do our best to bring these parties to light by collecting and posting as many invitations as we can from anonymous lobbyist sources.

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There's snow on the ground here in Denver. Last summer's Democratic convention here and the GOP convention in Minneapolis/St. Paul seem like distant, balmy memories. Unfortunately,  disclosure of donors to the convention committees comes only long after the fact.

So it's not until today that the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and the Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) are able to come out with joint, detailed analyses of who exactly these donors were and how much they gave: some $118 million for both conventions, $61 million for the Democratic National Conventionand $57 million to the GOP convention. Of that amount, "heavy hitters"--those giving $250,000 to $3 million--supplied 80 percent of the private financing. And those heavy hitters included some corporate faces that look awfully familiar these days--from their appearances lately in Washington with figurative hands out to receive bailout funds. From CRP:

Embattled insurance giant American International Group (AIG), which received an $85 billion loan from the government just weeks after the GOP convention, gave $750,000 to each gathering. And AIG isn't the only high-profile company that sought a handout from taxpayers after writing a big check toward the summer's political gatherings. Others included Citigroup (which spent a total of $600,000 on the conventions), Goldman Sachs (which spent $505,000), Ford Motor Co. ($100,000 to each convention) and Bank of America (which spent $100,000, entirely on the Democratic convention). The federal government took over Freddie Mac just weeks after the mortgage buyer split half a million dollars between the two conventions.

The Democratic convention benefited from labor contributions.The drug industry was the top spender, splitting its contributions nearly evenly between the two conventions. However, compuater and Internet companies, along with individuals working int he industry gave $4.1 million to the GOP convention compared to $3.1 million to the Democrats.

All in all, it's a lot of cash from a lot of folks who now find themselves pleading their financial cases in Washington. And these totals don't even include the unreported amounts that special interests poured into private parties to entertain members of Congress and staffers while they were conventioneering. If there had been disclosure of this information at the time of the parties, how would that have affected the path of bailout legislation in Congress?

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ABC news is on the party watching case, reporting on holiday parties being thrown for members of Congress and staffers by the likes of the Nuclear Energy Institute, Southern Company, Lockheed Martin, the Air Transport Association, and the the U.S. Telecom Association:

One day after the U.S. officially acknowledged it was in a recession, it was party time in Washington for lawmakers and their staff, courtesy of the nation's corporate lobbyists.

For weeks, invitations and event lists have been circulating on Capitol Hill, carrying promises of open bars and free food. Though some organizations say they have cut back on events in the wake of the sharpest economic downturn since the Great Depression, many of 2008 's parties are shaping up to look a lot like the parties of earlier years.

These parties appear not to be fundraisers, but rather gatherings designed to fall under ethics rules pertaining to receptions (food must be limited to hors d'oeurves, beverages, i.e. the "toothpick rule").

Yours truly is quoted in the story. I'd add to my comments there that the problem with these events is that they are hidden from the public eye. While these parties may be publicized in lobbyist circles around town, the only way the general public hears about them is because of the enterprising reporters at places like ABC News and the efforts we make here. So while it's true ordinary people don't get invited to these events, what's even worse is that they don't even know they take place.

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The National Journal's "Under the Influence" blog, via reporter Bara Vaida, has the scoop on parties announced so far for President Barak Obama's inauguration. She notes that while Obama's presidential inauguration committee has limited contributions from individuals to $50,000 apiece, and won't accept any from corporations, political action committees, and lobbyists, there are plenty of unofficial parties where these rules don't apply.

She points to the gala thrown by Obama's home state Illinois State Society party, which Politico reports has benefitted from big contributions from Illinois-based companies such as Exelon, American Airlines, Abbott Labs, Kraft Foods, Navistar, and Monsanta. The rumor is that Obama may stop by the event, and one cocktail party may include members of Congress.

Here is a list of parties announced so far compiled by the DC Convention Authority.  Here's another from presidential-inauguration.com. We'll work on getting them into our Party Time database.

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We're proud and honored to say that Party Time is the winner of the "best English weblog" BOB award from Deutsche Welle, Germany's international public broadcaster.

Apparently, the group of independent international journalists who make up the jury that decides these awards appreciate a good lobbyist sponsored party--or at least a blog about about them. We appreciate their good taste!

And we also are much impressed by our company. This year's top prize went to Generación Y, a Cuban blog written by Yoani Sanchez. According to the BOBs award site, "Sanchez can't even post her own entries to the blog. Despite the challenges she has to overcome, she's managed to keep in contact with her readers and create a huge international community around her work."

The BOB "Reporters Without Borders" award went to two blogs. The first is written by Zeng Jinyan, the wife of an imprisoned Chinese human rights activist Hu Jia. The second is 4equality, a Persian blog that fights for women's rights in Iran.

You can read more about the BOBs, which are now in their fifth year, here. The Sunlight Foundation was proud to win the the top BOB prize back in 2006.

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Although there has been a post election lull in parties around DC, quite a few events are being held exclusively for the freshmen members of the 111th Congress. Most of the money from these events goes towards any election debt accrued during their campaigns

For example lobbyists for the National Association of Federal Credit Union, Amanda Slater and Brad Thaler hosted a fundraiser for Representative-Elect Alan Grayson, D.Fla., where they invited guests for a basketball game in DC's Verizon Centeron November 18. The suggested contributions for the "2008 General Election Debt" were $2,500 for a PAC Sponsor or $1,000 for a PAC Guest. Some other fundraisers include luncheons for Representative-elect Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., and victory celebrations for others including Senator-elect Steve Austria, R-Ohio.

But many of these newly elected members of Congress are no strangers to these fund raising events. Even when they were running for office earlier this year, fliers collected by Party Time show that there were at least 200 events held for these newly elected members. Sponsors for those events ranged from top DC-based lobbying firms like DLA Piper to PACs like Emily's List.

Other than the newcomers, some members of Congress like Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Ala., are already announcing 2010 campaigns, holding their campaign kickoff events in early December.

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Yesterday I got together with one of the gracious people who make Party Time possible, and picked up a manila file folder stuffed with an inch-thick stack of fundraiser fliers. We'll soon have them input and uploaded into the database, but here's one I thought worth pulling out -- click to see the flier.

The event has already happened, but Sen. Norm Coleman, who narrowly won the first count for his Minnesota Senate seat against Democratic challenger Al Franken, held a fund raiser on Nov. 18 to raise money for the recount battle. That shouldn't be a shocker. Ten days earlier, his campaign sent around this flier to supporters, including D.C. PACs, looking for volunteers.

The last dramas of Election 2008 have yet to play out -- money continues to be raised, and 527s are running political ads in Georgia's runoff election. But already, the focus on Washington is on the future -- on incoming members, on the new administration, and, of course, on the 2010 election.

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For many of us, mention of the month September might conjure up memories of back-to-school shopping trips, leaves beginning to turn red and golden, or football season gearing up. Thanks to our Party Time database, we now have a new association--in this election year, September is the most partied month of all--see the graph above.

It makes sense. In the universe of congressional fundraising, the third quarter of the year closes at the end of September, with reports due at the U.S. Federal Election Commission on October 15. It's the last big chance before the election for candidates to strut their money making stuff, showing their opponents how formidable they are by how much cash they've collected. Also, Congress adjourned in early October and most lawmakers headed back to their districts to campaign, leaving behind the Washington watering holes where they do most of their fundraising from lobbyists.

Another big spike was toward the end of July, during the Democratic and Republican national conventions. These weren't for fundraising parties but rather for the festivities that accompany those stately events.

And June is another big partying month, likely largely because that's when the second quarter for financial reporting closes, on June 30.

Of course as always we must add the caveat this graph may be skewed by the fact we only know about the parties our sources tell us about. There's no official requirement that these parties be reported, so we rely on what we can get. But the patterns certainly make sense.

Stay tuned in the next several weeks for more big picture analyses from Party Time. Behind the scenes, our Party Time workers have been busy cleaning up the data from the year 2008, working to eliminate duplicates and standardize certain elements. The graph above is part of a work in progress.

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