Speaking of post-election celebrations, Rep. Mellisa Bean (D-IL) is planning one for after the election benefitting her leadership PAC, BEAN PAC, aka “Building Empowerment and Accountability Now.” She uses the PAC to help out other Democrats do what she’s done successfully for herself–win close races.

The occasion? A breakfast welcoming the “new class of the 111th Congress” as part of a “Frontline/Red2Blue” celebration. The location? The street address is 421 New Jersey Avenue, NW, which just happens to be the location of the UPS townhouse. This is a popular place for congressional fundraisers, as USA Today reported earlier this year.

Bean, who was elected in 2004, has been a top target of Republicans. She has also been, however, a tremendously successful fundraiser, collecting more than $3 million for her 2008 election bid. (To see more of her parties, click here.) Her reputation as a pro-business centrist and her seat on the powerful House Financial Services committee helps: she was the second top recipient this election cycle from finance and credit companies, and collected $827,000 from the finance, insurance, and real estate sector overall. Bean is favored to win her race next week.

Tim Leahy, who is the contact person for the event, says the event is no longer planned for Nov. 17 but will likely be later that week.

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Our party analysis continues.  We now count 357 parties this year planned for or featuring members of the two crucial committees that are the first stops for considering the administration’s $700 billion bailout request for the financial sector, which reportedly is close to a deal.

Our new, improved number comes from adding in parties for lawmakers who sit on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee. See the Senate Banking Committee parties here and the House Financial Services Committee parties here. (There is some overlap in the two lists, as some parties feature lawmakers from the House and the Senate.) Some of the more interesting specimens include:

• A luncheon for Sen. Tom Harkin in June sponsored by the REALTORs PAC. at the office of the National Association of Realtors. Harkin is not a member of the Senate Banking Committee; however, Sen. Christopher Dodd, who is listed on the invitation as a “featured guest,” is the chairman. Since 1989, Dodd has raised $13,163,356 from employees, their family members, and PACs from the Finance, Insurance & Real Estate sector out of a total of $43,344,186 - 30.3 percent of his total take, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

• An April reception for Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who is up for reelection this year. One of the hosts was former Senator Alfonse D’Amato, now a lobbyist at Park Strategies, whose clients include Freddie Mac. Dole has gotten 10.8 percent, or $3,285,529 of $30,528,042, of her campaign cash over the years from the financial sector.

• A breakfast scheduled for this week for Sen. Jack Reed. The hosts were Robert Dibblee and Langston Emerson, both of whom lobby for the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts. Since 1989, Reed has raised $2,686,232 from employees, their family members, and PACs from the Finance, Insurance & Real Estate sector out of a total of $13,147,550 - 20.4 percent of his total take.

• A reception in June for Sen. Tom Carper. The event was hosted by the PAC for DLA Piper, a firm with lobbying clients including as Aon Corp., Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis and Merrill Lynch. The invitation also lists Mac Bernstein and John Merrigan, who both lobby for the company. Since 1989, Carper has raised $2,097,718 from employees, their family members, and PACs from the Finance, Insurance & Real Estate sector out of a total of $8,306,428 - 25.2 percent of his total take.

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Why would several timber PACs host a breakfast for Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) at the Charlie Palmer restaurant this morning? The price of entry was $1,000 for a PAC, $500 for an individual.

Here at Party Time, we are like the unpopular kid who didn’t get invited. We don’t know exactly what happens at these soirees, because we’re not actually there, but we can pick up some evidence from the surrounding chatter. It’s mostly circumstantial, it’s true, but oh-so-intriguing.

First, we know that North Carolina is a timber state. And a bit of searching shows that the American Forest and Paper Association, one of the sponsoring PACs, thinks quite highly of the senator, giving her a perfect 100% voting score for the 109^th and 108^th Congresses, if not the current session. We also can find out that the timber industry has been fairly generous to her in the past, giving her more than $67,000 for her campaigns.

Dig a little deeper and we find out the senator is one of 22 sponsors of S. 402, a bill to provide a tax break for timber sales. The other senators are a mix of Democrats and Republicans, with representation from timber states such as Washington and Oregon.

Then it turns out that Weyerhaeuser, the Washington-based company whose PAC was one of the sponsors of today’s breakfast, has been lobbying desperately for tax relief. It seems that the company’s coffers have been declining in a big way thanks to the real estate crisis:

Weyerhaeuser’s immediate troubles come from the same poisoned well that choked Safeco and still menaces Washington Mutual: the housing bust. Weyerhaeuser’s first-quarter revenues declined nearly 24 percent, and last month it announced a write-off of up to $325 million, largely because of real-estate troubles. Impatient investors caused Weyerhaeuser shares to touch a five-year low on Thursday to close at $49.60.

Weyerhaeuser successfully pushed to get a related version of the timber bill sponsored by Dole, the TREE Act, into the recently approved farm bill:

In the end, the TREE Act was included in the farm bill. Weyerhaeuser and some small timber companies will see their tax rate reduced from 35 percent to about 17 percent, congressional aides said.

And we know that Dole voted “yes” on the farm bill.

Dole is also up for reelection this year. She has raised a lot more cash than her opponent, Democrat Kay Hagan. A recent poll from the liberal DailyKos shows that she enjoys a comfortable lead, at 50 percent versus her opponent’s 42 percent. But with Democrats pushing this year to win a filibuster-proof lead in the Senate, no seat is considered completely safe. “I doubt anyone really thinks Dole can just slack off,” writes Kos.

Put all this together and breakfast for a senator who has been very good to the timber industry starts to make a lot of sense. New friends are all very well and good, but old friends are nice and reliable. Pass the coffee.

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