Apollo, Voyager, Endeavour. These familiar names no longer belong only to space shuttles: They're also how Jeb Bush is categorizing his top donors in the 2016 presidential race. We hope Bush will attach identities to those titles and make them public, as he has promised. We also hope other candidates who have not yet disclosed their campaign bundlers will do the same.
It's heartening that Bush and Scott Walker--serious contenders for the Republican nomination--have made a move toward transparency, especially when so many fell short last cycle. Today, super PACs package billions of dollars for candidates. Almost every major candidate except Bernie Sanders has at least one as a backer.
The FEC caps individual contributions at $2,700 for good reason: to limit any one person's influence on a race and prevent corruption. Yet bundlers retain the ability to exert power and then reap the rewards.
When Bush and Walker release the names of their bundlers, they should do it right--with a low threshold for disclosure and a breakdown of bundlers into brackets according to amounts raised. Hillary Clinton should also go the extra distance. And those candidates who have done nothing so far should move quickly.
Editorial on 07/30/2015