Outside spending by independent groups is dramatically changing the face and shape of elections in the United States in the 2010 midterms. So far, this year there has been more than $200 million spent on independent expenditures by all outside groups, including party committees. Aside from the increase in money spent the big change this election cycle is that independent groups are now spending more money on influencing the election than political parties.

According to data obtained from the Federal Election Commission, fifty-nine percent of all outside spending on independent expenditures has come from non-party aligned groups while only forty-one percent comes from the party committees. This is a dramatic change from the 2006 midterms (as of October 19, 2006) when party committees accounted for eighty-two percent of all outside spending on independent expenditures and non-party aligned committees accounted for eighteen percent.

The total amount spent on independent expenditures by non-party outside groups this election cycle is a shade over $106 million compared to only $72.8 million spent by the party committees. At the same time in 2006 the parties had spent $118 million to the non-party groups' $25 million.

Independent expenditures are made by an outside committee to support or oppose candidates for election, as opposed to electioneering communications, which focus on an issue and only mention a candidate. (A full description of the differences can be found here.)

This dramatic change has occurred in the wake of two controversial Supreme Court rulings, which have upended the campaign finance system in federal, state and local elections.

The first ruling came in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission where the court issued a 5-4 ruling allowing corporations, unions and independent groups to run express advocacy advertisements (those that call for the election or defeat of a candidate), which overturned a previous 1990 court case forbidding such ads. The Citizens United ruling also argued that unlimited contributions to outside groups have no corrupting influence on candidates.

The argument that candidates would not suffer corrupting influences from spending by outside groups led to a second ruling from a federal appeals court in the case SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission. The SpeechNow case built upon the "no corrupting influence" argument by ruling that independent groups--non-party aligned groups--could accept unlimited contributions from donors, but would still have to register with the Federal Election Commission and disclose.

This has created a multi-tiered election system where the parties and candidates operate under one set of rules with contribution limits and disclosure requirements, political action committees can accept unlimited contributions if they choose, but must file disclosure reports, and outside groups operating under the non-profit section of the tax code can accept unlimited contributions, not disclose any of their donors and run political and issue advertisements.

The current top spenders on independent expenditures include groups from across the campaign finance rainbow. Crossroads GPS, organized as a 501c(4) organization, has spent $7.9 million so far and does not disclose their donors. The National Association of Realtors, organized as a traditional political action committee (PAC) with limits on contributions, has spent $5.6 million and does disclose donors. Alaskans Standing Together, organized as a Super PAC taking unlimited contributions, has spent nearly $600,000 and discloses its large donors.

The outside groups are supplanting traditional party spending largely on the Republican side of the aisle. There are currently eight outside groups that have each spent at least $2 million exclusively on aiding Republican candidates.

These groups are American Crossroads, American Crossroads GPS, American Future Fund, The 60 Plus Association, Americans for Job Security, Club for Growth Action Fund, Club for Growth and Tea Party Express.

These eight groups have combined to outspend the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) by $9 million so far. By comparison, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) have out spent the combined spending of the eight highest spending outside groups that are exclusively aiding Democrats by $17 million. (Follow the spending here.)

After the court rulings the President advocated for a bill, the DISCLOSE Act, that would have required outside groups to disclose their donors. The bill died as all 41 Republican senators and one Democrat voted against cloture.

A round up of what we're seeing in online disclosures:

Tops: National Republican Congressional Committee ($13,979,025) and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee ($10,370,412) disclosed spending the most money on directly attempting to elect or defeat federal candidates (called independent expenditures) as of this morning. Labor union SEIU and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are next, with American Crossroads, a section 527 organization that top Republican political strategist Karl Rove advises, placing fifth. National Republican Senatorial Committee places tenth ($2,749,953) -- significantly less than AFSCME, American Future Fund, the 60 Plus Association and Americans for Job Security. U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent the most on issue ads that mention federal candidates (called electioneering communications) with $8,838,680, followed by American Future Fund ($1,548,778).

Check out the latest on spending by outside groups on our Follow the Unlimited Money tracker.

Media: I was on Anderson Cooper 360 last night talking about outside groups influencing elections. Thanks to Cooper and CNN for having me on.

Friendly skies: Continental Airlines files new registration for its political action committee, noting that the United Airlines Political Action Committee is now an affiliated committee. Continental and United just got approval for their merger.

Granting extra credit: GAO finds that large for-profit schools and ones that specialize in healthcare get lots of their revenue from student aid programs; in the 2008 school year, for-profits got a total $24 billion in grants and loans. We looked at one specialty, chiropractors, a while back--and found a tale of lobbying, bad loans and defaults.

Bag men: Brian L. Wolff, lobbyist for Edison Election Institute, bundled $411,400 to DCCC, FEC disclosures show. Ben Barnes--profiled here--chipped in $116,000.

Shallow Pockets: South Korean Embassy hires Daniel J. Edelman to promote Korea Free Trade Agreement. Fees include $120K for "Strategic Counsel, Online Website Services" and $70K for "out of pocket expenses."

Coming attractions: Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker will soon be updated with 2009 data.

Tech guru: General Services Administration seeks "evangelist" to promote data.gov, duties to include "extensive outreach and communications shill and experience to bring excite to the program."

Rosty Revolver: Charles Mellody, former Dan Rostenkowski aide, registers to lobby for "largest provider of cosmetology education in North America".

Gainful employment: Education Management Corporation hires Covington & Burlington revolver William Wichterman to lobby on "program integrity: gainful employment."

Crowdsourcing makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Think about it: tapping into the ingenuity of your peers to capture the best ideas and information out there? It's a marvelous use of online communication, and it's powering our latest project, Sunlight Campaign Ad Monitor ("Sunlight CAM" for short).

With your help, we're building a resource to track campaign spending this election season, and we're excited that so many of you have decided to be involved. Sunlight CAM has only been live for a week, and already you've submitted over 80 ads, with more added each day from all across the country and the aisle. When you take the three easy steps to report an ad that you saw on television or the Internet or that you've heard over the radio, you provide reporters, bloggers and your peers access to information about who's trying to influence your votes. Now that the DISCLOSE Act has failed in the Senate for the second time, it's more important than ever that we work together to watchdog Washington. The more information you provide about the ads you see or hear, the more information we can dig up about the ad's sponsor.

We're already using the data you've picked up on: Earlier this week, my colleague Lindsay took at look at some of the data you've provided and found some interesting results. Researching one ad by the 60 Plus Association revealed that the organization spent almost half a million dollars of PhRMA-backed money against Pennsylvania Representative Paul Kanjorski in September alone (!).

As we head into the thick of political advertising battles that mark October (a.k.a. The Final Countdown), we urge you to keep your ears and eyes open and to keep those reports coming.

The Washington Post weighs in on the growth of "Super Pacs," organizations that can take unlimited funds from any source and spend them to influence elections. You can find a complete list of these Super PACs, technically called independent expenditure committees by the Federal Election Commission, here.

My colleague Ryan Sibley has followed them since one Super PAC, the League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund, spent $50,000 to run phone banks to help Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., stave off a primary challenge. Super PACs also intervened in Florida elections and have been set up by everyone from Joe the Plumber to Karl Rove.

Use the Reporting Group's new tool, Follow the Unlimited Money to track all independent expenditures by traditional party committees, labor unions that have taken advantage of Citizens United to spend unlimited sums straight from their coffers to influence elections, and the new Super PACs.

In January, I noted that the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case would open the “floodgates of political money such as we have never seen before.” Since then, Sunlight has continuously pressed Congress to create a more transparent, accountable political disclosure system. We asked for online, real-time transparency provisions in the DISCLOSE Act. But as of today, Congress has failed to pass any legislation in the wake of Citizens United.

While this is disappointing, we're putting the issue of tracking the money into everyone's hands by launching a new website -- Sunlight Campaign Ad Monitor (Sunlight CAM) -- that turns everyone into ad watchdogs. This new site allows anyone to share real-time information on who is buying political ad time in support of or against candidates running for elected office or issues on the ballot. With hundreds of millions of dollars already spent on political advertising and even more expecting to be spent in the final weeks leading up to Election Day, we need everyone to help us keep track of the money. After all, if Congress won't act, we still have to find a way to follow the money -- voters have the right to know what private interests are paying for these ads.

Participating in this distributed research project has just three steps :

1. Identify—When you hear or see a political ad, visit http://SunlightCAM.com on your computer or smart phone.

2. Watchdog—Once you are on the site, note the type of ad your are reporting (radio, TV or Internet), as well as information about the media outlet it appeared on, which politician was mentioned, and if the ad included a “paid for by” line. Your anonymous submission will be added to our online database.

3. Share—Let others know what you find by sharing your reporting with friends on Twitter or Facebook.

We encourage reporters, bloggers and citizens to download the data from the site to do additional research on these ads and funders. Our own Reporting Group will also use Sunlight CAM to assist with its online investigations examining the flow of money in campaigns. And we also welcome the Associated Press Managing Editors association as a media partner for the site.

I am truly excited about this project, but it needs your help to so let’s work together to bring greater transparency to the political ads we see on TV, hear on the radio or watch online.

Join us at Sunlight Campaign Ad Monitor.

The Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling opened up a massive hole in the disclosure regime governing campaign spending. According to a new report by the group Public Citizen, that hole is as wide as many feared. Only 32 percent of the independent groups spending on the 2010 midterm elections are disclosing the names of their donors to the Federal Election Commission. This is down from 98 percent in the 2004 election.

Congress, backed by President Obama, is seeking to close this hole by passing a bill known as the Disclose Act. The Disclose Act passed the House of Representatives, but has stalled in the Senate.

This weekend the President called on Congress to plug this disclosure hole and pass the Disclose Act, "We’ve tried to fix this with a new law – one that would simply require that you say who you are and who’s paying for your ad.  This way, voters are able to make an informed judgment about a group’s motivations."

The New York Times points out what happened to the Disclose Act when it was blocked in the Senate earlier this year, "The Citizens United decision, paradoxically, supported greater disclosure of donors, but Senate Republicans have filibustered a bill that would eliminate the secrecy shield."

At the time, Sunlight's Lisa Rosenberg wrote, "by opposing transparency, it seems that Senate Republicans and their special interest allies are trying to boost their own fortunes in November by ensuring that Republican-leaning corporate coffers can be opened up to help Republican candidates without leaving any fingerprints behind." As the decrease in disclosure has increased, largely driven by Republican-oriented firms, we can see this outcome already playing out. But who's to say that the next election won't be driven by groups backing Democratic candidates and policies?

The Senate is considering taking the Disclose Act back up, possibly as a stripped-down, disclosure-only bill. Even though it's too late to fix the transparency hole blasted into our elections by the Supreme Court, the Senate can still ensure that the next election won't be as unaccountable as this one by passing a bill that requires that these firms report their donors.

The New York Times' The Caucus blog features a graphic highlighting the declining level of disclosure post-Citizens United.

The Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling will allow corporate interests to spend unlimited amounts trying to influence voters, something they've already proven themselves adept at on the state level. Case in point: the oil and gas industry has directed the majority of its political spending not on the campaigns of lawmakers, but on its own campaigns against ballot initiatives.

From 1998 to 2008 major oil and gas companies pumped over $120 million into state level elections. The vast majority of that did not go to influencing politicians, but rather to influencing the public to vote against ballot measures that would increase taxes on oil and gas companies.

Committees organized to influence the public to support or oppose ballot measures at the state level are governed by state laws, most of which allowed unlimited corporate or union contributions prior to the Citizens United decision.

A review of state-level campaign contributions, obtained through TransparencyData.com, shows that 73 percent of all campaign contributions made by major oil and gas companies went towards the group Californians Against Higher Taxes—No on 87, a group devoted to the defeat of the 2006 ballot measure, California Proposition 87.

Prop 87 would have levied taxes—between 1.6 percent and 6 percent—on companies extracting oil in California. The receipts were intended to create a $4 billion fund to invest in alternative energy, alternative energy vehicles and energy efficiency. After the oil & gas companies had dropped nearly $88 million into their campaign to defeat it, Prop 87 failed by a popular vote of 54 percent to 45 percent.

The major oil companies paid in full to defeat the proposition. Californians Against Higher Taxes received $38 million from Chevron, $32 million from Aera Energy, a joint venture of ExxonMobil and Shell, $9.5 million from Occidental Oil & Gas and over $3 million from both ConocoPhillips and BP.

A similar ballot measure made Colorado the number two recipient of oil and gas money at the state-level over the same period of time. From 1998 to 2008 major oil and gas interests spent $7.4 million in state-level Colorado politics. The vast majority of that was spent by one organization devoted to the defeat of one ballot measure.

Coloradans for a Stable Economy was organized by large oil and gas interests to oppose Amendment 58, a ballot measure that would have repealed a tax-exemption that favored the industry and used the funds—approximately $300 million—to pay for college scholarships, infrastructure improvements and renewable energy projects.

Major oil and gas companies dropped $7.2 million into Coloradans for a Stable Economy allowing it to run countless advertisements against the ballot measure. BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Encana Oil & Gas, ExxonMobil and Noble Energy each contributed over $1 million to the organization.

Amendment 58 failed when voters went to polls with a commanding 58 percent voting against adoption.

Oil and gas companies also spent big in Alaska, the fourth biggest recipient of contributions from the industry, on defeating a threatening ballot initiative.

General Ballot Initiative 2 would have raised taxes on natural gas reserves held in Alaska’s North Slope. The effort was intended to push the companies holding the reserves to construct a pipeline to extract the natural gas.

BP, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil all contributed handsomely to the defeat of Ballot Initiative 2. The initiative fell by a nearly 2-1 margin.

Neither Colorado nor Alaska saw much of the oil and gas contributions go to their politicians. In those states, the industry largesse was mostly focused on influencing voter opinions. Politicians in California, along with Texas and Louisiana, the two states rounding out the top five recipients of oil and gas money, however, reaped a good amount of industry money for their campaigns.

Chief among them is California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, the recipient of $1.72 million in contributions from the oil and gas industry. The majority of that money came from the San Ramon, California-based Chevron.

A 2004 Associated Press article detailed Schwarzenegger’s adoption of many of Chevron’s desired policy agenda items. These included streamlining the refinery approval process and the processes of the agency that oversees mining and dredging in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Schwarzenegger also endorsed other oil industry priorities including offshore drilling (after the BP oil spill the governor dropped his support) and opposing Proposition 87.

Lawmakers throughout the legislature were targets for oil and gas money in Texas. Perhaps the state most closely link with the industry, oil and gas companies spread their money far and wide in Texas. The industry contributed to over 400 candidates.

The biggest recipients were current Gov. Rick Perry ($129,890) and former House Speaker Tom Craddick ($104,250). The industry also contributed heavily across the board to legislative and judicial campaigns. Most of these contributions went to Republicans candidates.

In Louisiana the largest contributions went to governors—Bobby Jindal, Kathleen Blanco, Mike Foster--and lawmakers—Max Malone and Heulette Fontenot--close to the industry. Other top recipients included leading members of the state Senate. Frontpage feature graphic courtesey of richardmasoner

After responding to a non-sequiturial (sic?) tweet from Patrick Ruffini last week, Ruffini responded by calling my post a non-sequitur. Apparently, Ruffini's tweet, which stated that the Sunlight Foundation's work would lead to a world where only billionaires would run for office, was a more general statement largely about the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and not our support for the DISCLOSE Act. While I largely disagree with the fears that campaign financing laws create incentives for the super-wealthy to self-fund their campaigns, I do--personally--agree with Ruffini that campaign finance laws have caused a ton of problems.

What I am curious about though is what a different structure, one that Ruffini and other campaign finance reform opponents, would look like? Particularly from a transparency standpoint.

Quoting from Ruffini's response to my non-sequitor post:

I for one would much rather have a system where an individual can give a candidate $100,000, fully disclosed, rather than the one we have now where members of Congress have to grovel before industry PAC representatives for 20 measly $5,000 checks.

I am imagining a system whereby contribution limits are nonexistant, but disclosure laws still exist. This is certainly a system that I could the current Supreme Court deeming legitimate and it's worth exploring what it would look like. (Most of these suggestions or questions should be adopted or explored under the current system as well.)

Transparency and disclosure policies should be designed to ensure and encourage accountability and thus should be designed to maximize the public's responsiveness. Thus, real time posting of contributions would be the first order of business in any new--even in the current--system. I don't know if this would create some onerous burden on campaigns--probably not--or perhaps all contributions could be routed through the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to ensure immediate posting.

Ethical guidelines and perhaps laws restricting graft and bribery may need to be tightened. For example, there is currently no guidelines in Congress as to whether it is improper for a lawmaker to provide an earmark for a firm or organization who's employees give campaign contributions to said lawmaker. The PMA Group scandal stands out as an example where a lack of guidelines and norms created a situation where the ethics committee could not discern if anything improper occurred. Larger contributions may create a larger perception of improper influence and a clarifying of ethical lines not to cross should be in order.

I would also put up for debate whether corporations or unions should be able to contribute money to candidates directly from their treasuries.

Those are just some quick thoughts. I know we have a lot of critics out there who support the rolling back of campaign finance reforms from FECA onward. What would your system of federal campaign finance regulation look like?

The Washington Independent has a great write-up of political spending after the Citizens decision, with one exception: the headline.

Citizens United Frees Corporations to Spend on Elections, But Increases Scrutiny

The Citizens decision doesn't increase scrutiny on spending in elections. In fact, it makes it much harder to track. That's why the DISCLOSE Act is so important, despite its significant flaws. Without online, real time disclosure of political spending, our elections are vulnerable to the distorting influence of moneyed interests operating completely out of public view.

Despite the headline, the story notes the importance of the DISCLOSE Act, and highlights that the blowback against Target was only possible because of state laws:

The only reason Target’s contribution to MN Forward became public knowledge was because it affected a state rather than national candidate, and the state of Minnesota has more stringent disclosure laws for its elections than the federal government.

The White House is characterizing their failure to replace Ethics Czar Norm Eisen as an upgrade. If they wanted to vigorously pursue the portfolio assembled under Eisen, though, they could have replaced him, and fit a new person into the empty slot.

Instead of filling an existing position, though, the White House is carving up Eisen's portfolio, and transferring those responsibilities to the White House Counsel, Bob Bauer, who already has a full plate of Presidential issues. This could bode poorly for some of the issues Sunlight cares about most. Here are some of the issues that will now apparently have to vie for the White House counsel's attention:

Earmark Transparency: In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama called for a single searchable database of all earmarks and earmark requests. In the months since then, we've seen bills introduced in the House and Senate, and a bill reported favorably out of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. The time is ripe for earmark transparency to be solved through online disclosure, and yet the White House has remained silent since the SOTU address.

Open Government Directive: The Open Government Directive can either become a dated, rhetorical memo, or a transformative commitment to a new era of openness. Only if the White House holds agencies to their requirements and plans can the Directive have real force. OMB Director Orszag has left, and with Eisen leaving, enforcement faces more uncertainty. When the public compliance dashboard doesn't meaningfully differentiate between failure and progress toward meeting expectations (compare the yellow to the red in this chart), we can expect clarity in enforcement to continue to be a concern.

Citizens United: The White House is clearly committed to passing a legislative fix to the Supreme Court decision, but will the legislative fight get the attention it needs to succeed?

Whither Ethics.gov?: Ethics.gov was a campaign promise to build a single website with ethics and accountability information to transform government accountability. Does this have any hope of still happening?

Lobbying Disclosure Reform: President Obama also called for reform of lobbying regulations in his State of the Union. While the White House frequently rails against special interest lobbying and disproportional influence, will they have the bandwidth to push for real solutions to this real problem?

Executive Disclosure: The White House made some meaningful first steps in posting ethics filings online, requiring extensive stimulus lobbying disclosure, and posting the Visitor Logs records online for the first time. These aren't well established policies, though, and need a steady hand and a clear commitment to mature into permanent, reliable, effective policies. Will the White House Counsel's office take on these challenges?

Regulatory Failure: In the wake of the failed Minerals Management Service, the Executive continues to fight entrenched incompetence, conflicts of interest, and ineffective regulation. Will the administration respond sufficiently to the oil spill, and the myriad other regulatory failures it represents? Will the ethics and disclosure systems at the heart of our regulatory system get the thorough analysis and reform they desperately need?

These are just some of the issues Sunlight cares deeply about, and they are among the many others our broader community fights for, like whistleblower protection, records management, or regulatory reform.

As we look at the rearrangement in the White House, we're left wondering not just whether they can succeed without a dedicated Ethics Czar, but whether they could succeed if they had hired three of them.