WASHINGTON — It’s the first Tuesday of the month, and the book club is in session. Between bites of their lunch buffet, two dozen members leaf through classics, best sellers and the latest nonfiction.
The scene, though, seems more country club than book club: a shoeshine man, an ornate rug, a picture of John A. Boehner, the House speaker. That’s because this book club gathers at a Republican social parlor in the Capitol’s shadow. And unlike a local library’s book club, this event doubles as a political fund-raiser.
For the book club’s members — an A-list of lobbyists from banks and insurance companies — the main attraction is access to the House Financial Services Committee. The cost of admission is a campaign donation to whichever committee member is playing host that month.
The lawmaker of the month collects the money and picks the book, drawing from a collection of personal favorites and conservative texts. Some titles inject an uncharacteristically sophisticated element into a fund-raising event: Representative Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania, a psychologist, once brought his own book, “The Angry Child,” inspiring a debate over how to handle unruly children that seemed relevant for Congress. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota brought “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.” One attendee recalled that Representative Andy Barr of Kentucky elected to read “Seabiscuit.”
The books change, but the club’s routine remains fixed. Inside a private room at the National Republican Club of Capitol Hill, a white brick building tucked behind the Capitol and the Library of Congress, a lawmaker delivers a report on that month’s book. The lobbyists, clutching copies signed not by the author but by the lawmaker, chime in with their favorite plot twists and passages. The chatter in the room sometimes moves away from literary topics, lobbyists who have attended the lunches said, switching to the effort to roll back the Dodd-Frank Act, the regulatory overhaul passed in response to the financial crisis.
Every time, the book club pumps thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars into each lawmaker’s campaign coffers. And now, on the eve of the midterm elections, that stream of cash is coming in handy.
The fund-raising success, carried out through the vehicle of a book club, tells a story about the clubby nature of this town, where Wall Street lobbyists, lawmakers and their staffs operate as an extended social group that blurs the lines between the personal and the professional.
But the book club, at least according to its supporters, is no ploy to exploit some campaign finance loophole. And given all the questionable ways that lawmakers raise money nowadays, often from organizations that disclose little or nothing about their donors, the book club is almost a quaint alternative.
“Most of the books were not nearly in the jurisdiction of the committee — or had anything to do with it,” said Michael G. Oxley, the former Ohio congressman who created the book club 14 years ago, while he was chairman of the Financial Services Committee. It was more of a social event than an opportunity for lobbyists to push any particular cause, he said.
The book club (its proper name is the First Tuesday Luncheon Series) also speaks to a broader movement in political fund-raising. Gone are the days when cocktail parties, or even concerts and golf outings, would sufficiently mobilize the donor base.
The Financial Services Committee, taking a cue from other congressional panels, has adopted a more creative approach. In addition to the book club, the committee’s Republicans are increasingly offering oddball activities — rooftop bocce ball, hunting trips and visits to shooting ranges — to attract Wall Street lobbyists and other big spenders.
The destination fund-raiser is another reliable cash cow, and Las Vegas is a favorite draw. Representative Ann Wagner, Republican of Missouri, who sits on the committee, scheduled a spa weekend there in March, according to the Political Party Time project, which tracks political fund-raisers. Another Republican committee member, Frank Lucas of Oklahoma, planned a fund-raising trip to the National Finals Rodeo, also in Las Vegas.
As with the book club, these events allow the donors to reassert personal ties that can come in handy when lobbying. Relationships are the true currency in Washington, and they make fund-raisers worth the price of admission.
Such events are not unique to the committee’s Republicans. For example, Representative Bill Foster, an Illinois Democrat on the committee, recently organized a fund-raiser called Learn the Art and Physics of Trapeze.
By comparison, the book club might appear substantive, even academic. After all, dissecting the finer points of, say, “Revolutionary Summer,” hardly stacks up to a night in Vegas.
And that happens to be the key to its success. Without raising any eyebrows, the club has helped show the committee’s fund-raising prowess — cementing its reputation as the “cash committee,” a magnet for donations from the financial industry.
Political action committees, those fund-raising vehicles bankrolled by unions, lobbyists and other interest groups, have steered more money to Democrats on the Financial Services Committee in the last two years than to Democrats on any other committee, according to the Political Moneyline database.
The flood of money reinforces the sense that Wall Street has bought a special status in Washington, particularly with members of the Financial Services Committee, where lawmakers and lobbyists collaborate not just at fund-raisers but also on policy.
Before the committee holds public hearings, lobbyists submit proposed questions to lawmakers and their staff, seeking to shape the outcome of the debate. In a previously unreported email sent ahead of a 2012 committee hearing with Richard Cordray, a financial regulator, a lobbyist wrote to the committee’s staff members to raise concerns about a particular consumer advocate’s advising Mr. Cordray’s agency.
The lobbyist wanted Spencer Bachus, the Alabama Republican who was the committee’s chairman, to get “Mr. Cordray on the record about whether he believes this is the sort of person that would be a constructive force.” The lobbyist added, “Alternatively, maybe there’s another member you could tip off to this.”
Fund-raisers eliminate that layer of congressional aides, providing Wall Street lobbyists direct access to the lawmakers.
When Mr. Oxley retired in 2006, he handed the book club to Mr. Bachus. Control now rests with Jeb Hensarling, Republican of Texas, the current chairman.
“While events come and go, this successful tradition has continued,” said Julie Hooks Dwyer, who runs a political consulting and fund-raising firm and helps organize the club. The club’s members — 30 or so lobbyists from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association as well as banks big and small — arrive each month at a private room in the Capitol Hill Club.
Once inside, they greet the event’s M.C., Dee Buchanan, a financial lobbyist and former aide to Mr. Hensarling. Mr. Buchanan introduces the lawmaker of the month and the chosen book.
Representative Steve Stivers of Ohio selected “The Winners Manual: For the Game of Life” by the former Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel. Representative Robert Hurt picked “Founding Rivals,” a retelling of the 1789 congressional election between James Madison and James Monroe, which took place in his Virginia district. Each month, attendees say, the lobbyists typically donate $1,000 to $5,000. “It is a $50,000 fund-raiser,” one lobbyist said, “without a sweat.”
While the club has been popular, few in the room actually read the book before the lunch.
“Oh, no, no, no, Lord no,” Mr. Oxley, now a lobbyist for the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, said with a chuckle. “That would never happen.”