There are almost 27,000 people—or 1/100th of one percent of the United States population—who spent more than $10,000 to influence elections during the 2010 election cycle.

The top 10 people from this elite class of donors together spent more than $23 million on the last election. The majority of that money went to Super PACs used for independent expenditures. Eight contributed their money exclusively to Republican groups and candidates; two contributed exclusively to Democratic groups and candidates.

In total, this tiny group of relatively unknown individuals was responsible for $774 million of the $3.2 billion that poured into the hotly contested mid-term elections. That money went not only to candidate campaigns and political action committees, but to Super PACs, officially known as “independent expenditure-only committees.” After the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United and the Federal Election Commission’s two advisory opinions that followed, individuals and corporations effectively have unlimited giving potential. By giving to Super PACs, they can bypass traditional giving limits.

The group that benefited most from the top 10 mega-donors largesse: American Crossroads. That Super PAC received millions of dollars from seven of the top donors, and $7 million from just one donor, Bob Perry.

Here’s a look at who’s who among America’s top 10 most influential givers:

1. Bob Perry is the CEO of Perry Homes. Perry has been influential in politics and a prominent donor for a number of years. In 2004, he gave $8 million to a number of nonprofit political groups known as 527 committees. Most notably, $4.4 million of that money went to the political group Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, which opposed Sen. John Kerry’s presidential bid. During the 2010 election cycle, Perry donated $7.3 million to political efforts. All but a small portion of his money for the 2010 election went to American Crossroads, a group cofounded by former George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove and former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie.

2. Wayne Hughes, owner and chairman of Public Storage, Inc. According to disclosures, Hughes gave a total of $3.28 million to conservative candidates and committees, with $3.25 million going to American Crossroads. Hughes also gave $4,800 to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.

3. Fred Eshelman is the CEO of Pharmaceutical Product Development. Eshelman spent $3 million in 2010 funding his own group, RightChange. RightChange registered with the FEC as a Super PAC and spent those millions of dollars to defeat Democratic candidates including Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington.

4. Robert Rowling, CEO and Chairman of TRT Holdings, a holding company that owns Golds Gyms and Omni Hotels as well as oil and gas interests. Rowling spent $2.59 million during the last election on conservative efforts. He gave $2.5 million of that money to American Crossroads.

5. Donald Sussman is the Chairman of the holding company Paloma Partners. Sussman, who earlier this year married Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, gave $1.26 million in 2010 to Democratic candidates. He has also funded a group called the Democracy Fund, a separate but predecessor organization to the United Republic Action Fund. Both of these groups have been affiliated with United Republic, and both have been dissolved.* Sussman gave a little more than $750,000 to the Super PAC Women Vote! and its parent organization Emily’s List. Those two organizations support pro-choice female political candidates.

6. John Ricketts is the founder of TD Ameritrade and still a board member there. In 2010, his total political contributions were $1.25 million. He gave to a variety of Republican candidates, including House Speaker John Boehner.
   

7. Jerry Perenchio is the CEO of the investment firm Chartwell Partners and former owner of the Spanish-speaking television network Univision. In 2010, he gave $1.12 million to conservative candidates and groups, including $1 million to American Crossroads.

8. Trevor Rees-Jones is the president of Chief Oil & Gas. In 2010, he gave $1.1 million to Republican efforts. $1,000,000 of that was given to American Crossroads.

9. Rachel Hunter is the Treasurer for the organization Media Matters and an heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune. She’s related to Penny Pritzker who was the national finance chairwoman of the Obama campaign in 2008. In 2010, Hunter gave more than $1 million to democratic groups and candidates. The bulk of that money went to the 527 organization, Bring Ohio Back.

10. John Childs is on the Board of Directors for Club for Growth and is the founder of JW Childs Assoc., a private equity firm. In 2010, he gave a total $923,000 to Super PACs supporting Republicans and to Republican candidates directly. He gave $100,000 of that money to American Crossroads and $650,000 to his own group, Club for Growth.

For a full list of the top donors for 2010, see the embedded spreadsheet below.

Also, as a disclaimer, we think it is important to note that there are funders of the Sunlight Foundation on this list. For example, David Bonderman and Marjorie Roswell are numbers 9 and 103 on the list and have donated to the Sunlight Foundation. Additionally, the founder of the Open Society Foundations, George Soros, is 134th on the list. Open Society Foundations has provided grant support to Sunlight.

*Based on inaccurate information received from a source at United Republic, we originally reported incorrectly that Donald Sussman is a funder of that organization.

Last Friday, the House passed a measure that aims to block any executive order regarding disclosure of political donations.

Eighteen House Democrats joined almost every Republican to support the amendment, while another eight Democrats did not vote at all. All other Democrats opposed it. The measure was attached to an energy and water appropriations bill and would prohibit the use of any funding to implement an Obama administration effort to require more information on campaign spending.

On average, the 18 Democrats House members received about 63 percent of their campaign contributions from corporate sources for the 2010 election, according to an analysis of Center for Responsive Politics data. This was calculated by totaling each members’ donations from 14 13 sectors (such as defense and finance) identified by CRP but excluding donations from the following sectors: lawyers and lobbyists, Labor, ideological or single-issue groups and groups labeled ‘other.’

Of the 18 congressmen, Reps. Mike Ross, Jim Matheson, and Colin Peterson relied most on corporate PACs and employees during the last election, taking in nearly 85 percent from those sources. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Dan Boren received nearly 80 percent of their campaign cash from corporate sources.

<p>Your browser does not support iframes.</p> <p>

The amendment they voted for sought to preempt an Obama administration effort, first disclosed in April, to issue an executive order that would require all government contractors to disclose their political contributions, including those to organizations that don't disclose their donors. It was meant as a response to Citizens United v. FEC, where the Supreme Court ruled to remove restrictions on corporations’ expenditures in elections.

That ruling opened the floodgates for some undisclosed election spending. Nonprofit organizations can now receive corporate donations and make independent expenditures on elections without reporting their donors to the Federal Election Commission. Crossroads GPS spent $15 million opposing Democratic candidates last election; because it's organized as a section 501(c)4 committee, it's not required to disclose its donors. Similarly, because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a 501(c)6 organization, it doesn't have to disclose its donors, despite spending more than $32 million in the 2010 cycle to influence elections.

Democrats have gotten into the act as well, recently launching Priorities USA Action, a 501(c)4 organization that was co-founded by former White House spokesman Bill Burton.

Obama's executive order would bring some unknown corporate donations to nonprofits into the public realm. It would also make the donations of the nation’s largest union, AFL-CIO, known, because it has small contracts with the Department of Labor.

   

by Eric Dunn, Policy Intern

The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure recently held a hearing on the Competition for Intercity Passenger Rail in America Act, proposed by Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) and Bill Shuster (R-Pa.). The goal of the legislation is to let private companies do what Reps. Mica and Shuster feel the federally subsidized rail company Amtrak hasn't: make commuter rail quick, easy, and cheap. The bill would strip Amtrak of its most profitable routes and allow the Department of Transportation to auction them off to private railroad companies.

A look at Sunlight's Influence Explorer reveals that both Mica and Shuster have received significant campaign contributions from the railroad industry.

The railroad industry was Rep. Shuster's second largest campaign contributor in the 2010 election cycle, contributing $49,000 to his campaign. Four of his top five top contributors have ties to the railroad industry and could benefit if Amtrak's assets are privatized.

Rep. Mica received contributions from the railroad industry totalling $50,000 in the 2010 cycle.

Amtrak has voiced opposition to the plan offered by Congress.

On Wednesday, the House passed a bill 253-166 to limit the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency and expedite the agency’s air quality permit process.

H.R. 2021, the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act of 2011, was introduced by Republican Rep. Cory Gardner of Colorado, and will alter the Clean Air Act by changing the physical location drilling vessels are required to be inspected at to determine their impact on air pollution from offshore to onshore. It also forces the EPA to make decisions regarding applications for clean air within six months.

Gardner, a freshman Rep. and the bill’s sponsor, received his second greatest amount of contributions during his campaign for the House in 2009-10 from the oil and gas industry.

The bill’s most vocal opponents, Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill, and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif, frequently referred to it as “the Shell bill,” during the debate because they believe the bill was only drafted to facilitate Shell’s permit request to begin the drilling process in the Arctic waters off Alaska. According to Shell, the company has been trying to obtain a permit from the EPA for five years. However, representatives from the EPA said in a hearing in May before the Subcommittee on Energy and Power that Shell withdrew its permit application at least once and changed the location for the permit on other occasions, thus starting the process over.

Shell has reported spending $3.8 million lobbying in the first quarter of this year alone, according to the Sunlight Foundation’s Influence Explorer. The oil company has reported lobbying on many issues related to drilling and energy policy including permitting issues.

Gardner and other supporters of the bill cite the long and arduous process Shell claims to have gone through to get a clean air permit granted to them by the EPA as a need to cap the time allotted for making decisions on such applications.

Reps. opposing the bill called it a “give away” to the oil companies and damaging to the public’s opportunity to weigh in on such measures because the limit on time allowed to complete the permit process will take away from the public comments period and possibly make the permits issued less defendable in court. Opponents also say that based on the EPA’s reported consistent history of giving Shell permits within 3-6 months of application, this legislation is not necessary.

     

An article on the front page of the New York Times yesterday reported on the pressure some major corporations—such as Microsoft— put on Congress and the administration to have a tax break implemented to make it cheaper for them to bring their money back to the states.

What the corporations and their lobbyists are asking for is known as a repatriation holiday, which would bring the tax rate on profits returned to the states down to about 5 percent from 35 percent for one year.

Here's a look at the influence efforts behind the names and corporations mentioned in the piece:

• Apple made $165,848 in campaign contributions for the 2009-10 election cycle. The technology giant reported spending just over $3 million in lobbying money between the years 2009 and 2010 with $560,00 of that money going to Capital Tax Partners. Capital Tax Partners regularly lobbies on tax related issues. For the first quarter of 2011, the company has reported paying Capital Tax Partners $80,000.
• Microsoft made $4.4 million in campaign contributions during the 2009-2010 cycle and reported spending $13.6 million on lobbying for those same years.
• Google made $1.4 million in campaign contributions in 2009-10 and reported spending $9.1 million lobbying Congress.
• Kevin Brady, a R-Texas, received just over $1 million in campaign contributions for the 2009-10 election cycle.

An article published in Business Insider reports on a lower-profile corporation that also lobbies and make contributions to influence Washington. The article details Celanese Corporation's appointment of a new vice president. Here's a look at the global chemical producer's influence profile:

• Celanese Corporation made $31,562 in campaign contributions during the 2009-10 election cycle and spent $160,000 lobbying Congress those same years.

‘Influence Explored’ takes an article from the day’s headlines and exposes the influential ways of entities mentioned in the article. Names and corporations are run through Sunlight’s influence tracking tools such as Influence Explorer and Transparency Data to remind readers of the money that powers Washington.

By guest blogger Matthew Gerring, Sunlight Labs intern The Washington Post published an article on Wednesday about the personal financial disclosures filed by members of Congress, and the data isn't surprising — the current Congress, like the last Congress, is full of millionaires.

Aside from personal wealth, top politicians in Congress, like John Boehner, raked in millions in campaign contributions during the last election cycle. Here's a look at some of the people and companies mentioned in the article:

• John Boehner, current Speaker of the House, received $6,001,138 in contributions in the last election cycle.
• Eric Cantor, House Majority Leader, received $5,557,405 in campaign contributions.
• 79% of political contributions made by Domino’s Pizza employees and political action committee went to Republicans in the 2009-10 cycle.
• House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi received $2,500,575 in campaign contributions in the 2009-10 cycle.
• One of Pelosi’s top contributors, E&J Gallo Winery, contributed $12,000 to Pelosi, and 75% of its employees’ and PAC’s contributions went to Democrats.
• Paul Ryan, author of the Republican’s budget plan, received $2,836,581 in contributions in 2009-10.
• House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy may have the smallest financial holdings according to the Post, at $114,00, but his fundraising was up there with the best of them — he received $2,013,573 in campaign contributions in 2009-10.

‘Influence Explored’ takes an article from the day’s headlines and exposes the influential ways of entities mentioned in the article. Names and corporations are run through Sunlight’s influence tracking tools such as Influence Explorer and Transparency Data to remind readers of the money that powers Washington.

Recently, the Pentagon released the list of its top 10 contractors for 2010, all which spent significant amounts of money lobbying Congress and contributing large sums to federal campaigns last year and in 2009.

Boeing—while only the second biggest contractor in terms of money received—spent the most money lobbying Congress between 2009 and 2010 at almost $35 million, according to the Sunlight Foundation’s Influence Explorer.

Northrop Grumman was second, spending $30 million.

The biggest contractor, Lockheed Martin, came in third for those same years spending $26 million lobbying.

Corporation	2009-2010 Contributions	2009-2010 Lobbying money	Total contractor misconduct cases	Number of contractor misconduct cases that were defense contracts
LOCKHEED MARTIN CORPORATION	$2,674,654	$25,950,000	67	25
THE BOEING COMPANY	$3,082,455	$34,746,000	47	20
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORPORATION	$1,836,746	$30,920,000	33	17
GENERAL DYNAMICS CORPORATION	$1,457,799	$21,003,664	15	4
RAYTHEON COMPANY	$2,196,725	$14,100,000	22	13
OSHKOSH CORPORATION	$283,855	$2,140,000	0	0
L-3 COMMUNICATIONS HOLDINGS INC.	$557,282	$9,900,000	11	7
UNITED TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION	$1,261,335	$22,630,000	16	6
BAE SYSTEMS PLC	$922,785	$9,377,000	8	1
SAIC INC.	$943,550	$6,390,000	11	5
TOTAL	$15,217,186	$177,156,664

 

Also noteworthy is the number of misconduct cases filed against each contractor, which usually results in fines to be paid by the contractor. All of the top ten names listed except OshKosh, as reported by the Project on Government Oversight, have had multiple cases filed against them with at least some violations incurred while working as contractors for the Department of Defense.

For instance, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) has five cases of misconduct as a Defense contractor, but has 11 cases total on record dating back to 1995, also according to data made available by Influence Explorer. For the five cases where SAIC was a Defense contractor, the company paid out $6.6 million.

Few companies have received as much attention for their campaign expenses than Koch Industries in the past year. According to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Koch contributed $1.35 million to winning congressional campaigns in the 2010 cycle.

Koch has become the target of liberal groups' ire as the conservative-backing owners, David and Charles Koch, have increased their profile in Republican politics in the past few years. The Koch brothers are long-time funders of conservative and libertarian causes, often times in disagreement with the Republican Party that they are associated with.

The two have been known to fund a variety of political groups, including Americans for Prosperity, that became very active in running independent expenditures in the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling.

Today's Washington Post has a story on Rep. Mike Pompeo, the top recipient of money from Koch Industries in the 2010 cycle. Pompeo received nearly $80,000 from Koch Industries in 2010 and recently hired a former Koch Industries lawyer as his chief of staff. The article also reveals that Pompeo's business received backing by Koch Venture Capital. Both Koch Industries and Pompeo hail from Kansas.

The majority of the money contributed by Koch Industries has gone to Republicans. A select few Democrats have also been recipients. These include the most conservative members of the Democratic caucus including Reps. Mike Ross, Jim Matheson, and Dan Boren. Others are those who support Koch priorities like defeating proposed Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

You can navigate the graphic below to see all Koch Industries campaign contributions from last year:

Koch Industries' political action committee (PAC) reports contributions totaling $46,500 to the congressional campaigns and PACs of sixteen Republicans and one Democrat in their first reported spending in the 2012 election cycle.

One of these contributions was to Sen. Scott Brown, who was seen on tape asking David Koch for campaign contributions a few weeks after this contribution was made.

Recipient	Party	State	Amount
Cornyn, John	R	TX	$5000
Barrasso, John	R	WY	$5000
McHenry, Patrick	R	NC	$5000
DeMint, Jim	R	SC	$5000
Hatch, Orrin	R	UT	$3000
McConnell, Mitch	R	KY	$2500
Mack, Connie	R	FL	$2500
Burgess, Michael	R	TX	$2500
Chambliss, Saxby	R	GA	$2500
Roskam, Pete	R	IL	$2500
Brown, Scott	R	MA	$2500
Lucas, Frank	R	OK	$2000
Ross, Mike	D	AR	$2000
Ryan, Paul	R	WI	$1500
Jordan, Jim	R	OH	$1000
Kinzinger, Adam	R	IL	$1000
Rogers, Mike	R	MI	$1000

Citizen's United opened the door for corporate spending and when Target decided to flex their new political muscle, it blew up in their face due to a disclosure law Minnesota passed in response to the Supreme Court ruling. Target, Best Buy and a growing number of corporations are now looking at voluntarily enacting policies to disclose their political spending in hopes of avoiding fallout that threatens their bottom line. Target has set up a policy page about their 'Civic Activity' that is the product of months of criticism and boycotts following the exposure of contributions through state filings.

It's nice to see corporations moving in the direction towards disclosure, but self-imposed regulations are a far cry from sweeping disclosure laws needed to provide accountability on how the money flows in our political system. The lesson that companies should learn from this episode is that people care about how money is spent in elections.

If pressure from citizens can change corporate policies than we hope that same pressure can inspire Congress to improve disclosure laws.