Because party committees are subject to contribution limits, the groups often have lobbyists “bundle” checks, which means the operatives collect payments from various colleagues and connections and then combine them into a larger total. In exchange, the lobbyists score access to key lawmakers.

New federal election records show that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the group that works to elect Democratic House members, used check bundling to score roughly half a million dollars in donations during the first half of the year. Unfortunately, as the records reveal, those checks came courtesy of lobbyists with troubling corporate ties.

Find out more about those lobbyists and much more in today’s Midday Poster below, exclusively for subscribers.