By Alex Knott, CQ Staff

It took years for public interest groups to get a law passed requiring members of Congress to disclose the fundraising that lobbyists do for their campaigns. But after all that work, there’s not much to show for it.

At least not in the latest candidate disclosure reports.

Only 15 congressional campaign committees had filed reports with the Federal Election Commission by the midnight deadline Wednesday, noting a collective $800,000 raised in lobbyist-bundled contributions.

“It’s just a phony number,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director the Campaign Legal Center. “I think the people that filed deserve credit, but this is only a glimpse of what really goes on,” she said.

Craig Holman, a Public Citizen lobbyist who pushed for passage of the law, agreed.

“I would expect several hundred reports,” said Holman. “That is unless candidates are trying to evade reporting requirements.”

He also blames the FEC’s interpretation, which allows campaigns to associate a large number of lobbyists with the same bundled donations. This could lower the amount raised per lobbyist below the reporting threshold of $16,000. As a result, campaigns would file fewer reports identifying individual lobbyists.

The new bundling reports for candidate and party campaign committees were due for the first time on July 15. A second round of filings is due at the end of the month identifying bundled contributions to lawmaker-sponsored political action committees.

Included in the 15 filings that made the deadline were reports from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, disclosing 209,700 in bundled donations, and from the Republican National Committee reporting $137,500.