With a first glance at the campaign money Congresman Henry Cuellar gathered in 2009, it seems that the the Representative was able to control his reliance on corporate interest money in check to some extent. 45 percent of contributions to his 2010 re-election campaign came from political action committees, while 55 percent came from individual donations.

When we use the phrase “individual donations”, we tend to assume that these contributions are from politically active citizens who donate to leaders who represent their interests well. That’s not always the case, however. Individuals with very particular financial interests in congressional legislation can also be included in the category of individual donations. Professional lobbyists are one such sort of individual, and donations to Henry Cuellar’s campaign last year were made by many people of this sort.

Dean Aguillen, Senior Vice President at Ogilvy Government Relations, was one such lobbyist donor to Henry Cuellar. Aguillen left government service a few years ago to cash in on his contacts in Congress as a lobbyist. Aguillen currently takes money in order to serve clients such as predatory lender Cash America International, the finance powerhouse Carlyle Group, oil giant Chevron, pharmaceuticals corporation Pfizer, and the agribusiness titan Monsanto. He passed some of that money on to Representative Cuellar last year.

Back in the early 1990s, Steve Champlin was Executive Director of the House Democratic Caucus, but in 1994, when Newt Gingrich and his allies took over the House of Representatives, instead of staying in the struggle, Champlin left to become a lobbyist with the Duberstein Group. Champlin had many corporate clients last year, including big bailout recipient Goldman Sachs, military contractor Honeywell International, and America’s Health Insurance Plans – a trade association that represents over 1,300 health insurance companies. Did Champlin take time out of his busy schedule to be sure to send some money to Congressman Cuellar’s re-election campaign, or was sending that money part of Champlin’s busy schedule.

Raul Tapia works as a lobbyist for the C2 Group. He represents corporate clients such as Comcast and WellMed Medical Management Inc. Tapia lives in Washington D.C., perhaps a thousand miles away from Cuellar’s congressional district. What could his interest be in seeing Cuellar re-elected?

These lobbyists are just a few of those who gave money to Henry Cuellar’s 2010 re-election campaign. Consider as well the many corporate executives living outside of Cuellar’s district who also gave individual contributions to Cuellar’s campaign committee, and you’ll see that the category of “individual contributions” is a great deal less about grassroots support than it initially appears to be.