One month after okaying a proposal to permit small political contributions by text, the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday green-lighted a Democratic firm's plan to collect standard-size contributions using a system that will collect all the identifying information required by the regulators.
In an advisory opinion released this afternoon, the commission said that a proposal by Revolution Messaging will meet federal disclosure requirements. The Democratic digital media company, which has several veterans of President Obama's 2008 campaign on its staff, offered a plan to collect names and addresses -- required by the FEC for those giving $200 or more ...
Continue readingElection law? What election law?
A Republican lawyer wonders where the FEC enforcers are and a donor sneaks a reporter into a Karl Rove meeting for financiers. Are even the bankrollers getting fed up with the political big money game?
Continue readingInfluence profile: Paul Ryan
Rep. Paul Ryan, whom Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney reportedly will name as his running mate Saturday, is a prolific fundraiser whose most ardent backers are a curious mix of the conservative elite and the blue collar plebian.
Since winning election to the House in 1998, the Wisconsin Republican has attracted more than $11 million in donations, Sunlight's Influence Explorer shows. Among Ryan's most generous backers: the beer wholesalers, Koch industries -- headed by conservative bankrollers David and Charles Koch -- and the Carpenter and Joiners union. Over the years, Ryan also has received steady support from the Laborers union ...
Continue readingCourt to broadcasters: Put political ad files online
Television stations in the nation's top 50 markets will have to begin putting information about political ad buys online next week under a court order issued late Friday by a panel of federal judges.
In a terse three-sentence order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied an the National Association of Broadcasters' effort to block a Federal Communications Commission order that requires the stations to begin posting the ad information on Thursday.
UPDATE: The NAB will continue to fight the decision in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, though it seems they will ...
Continue readingGun interests spend millions to influence lawmakers
In the wake of the Batman movie massacre, Colorado's second mass killing in recent memory, much is being written about the unlikeliness of the tragedy leading to the kind of gun control legislation that might have prevented another troubled young man from amassing a huge arsenal. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was quoted in the New York Times on Saturday venting his frustration at the inertia of both major party's presidential candidates.
The gun lobby is one of the most influential in Washington -- as well as state capitals -- and figures available on Sunlight's Influence Explorer describe ...
Continue readingFreedom (or not?) of information: FOIA at 46
There probably are more reasons to sound the alarm than to bang a celebratory drum on the 46th birthday of the Freedom of Information Act.
Continue readingFeds order online posting of political ad info next month
Information about political TV ads must be posted online by Aug. 2 under an order published this morning in the Federal Register.
Sunlight Foundation learned of the order as soon as it was published early this morning from Scout, our new online alert service.
The order ratifies a May ruling by the Federal Communications Commission that requires TV stations affiliated with the four major broadcast networks -- ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox -- in the nation's 50 largest television markets to make the information available via the Internet. The National Association of Broadcasters is suing to block the order.
Today's ...
Continue readingWhat’s in a name? A look at how ‘health reform’ became ‘Obamacare’
The political backdrop for Thursday's Supreme Court ruling on President Obama's health care law is vividly illustrated in the way rhetoric about the controversial measure has changed. The orange line indicates frequency of mentions for "Obamacare." The pink line is for "health reform."
In the graphic above, created by Capitol Words -- Sunlight's tool for tracking the language used on the floor of Congress -- you can see how the derogatory term "Obamacare," invented and mostly used by Republicans, as seen below. The red line indicates Republican mentions of the term, the blue, Democrats.
If winning a debate means ...
Continue readingSupremes hand setback to Obama super PAC bankroller
The Supreme Court on Thursday handed a setback -- and an ominous warning -- to a labor giant that has been one of the most generous bankrollers of the super PACs backing President Obama and other Democratic candidates.
At issue in the case: tactics that the Service Employees International Union, which has bankrolled a constellation of Democratic super PACs to the tune of more than $3 million, used to beef up its political warchest in California during 2005. SEIU imposed a special assessment on its members to fight a pair of ballot initiatives aimed at public service unions. The high court ruled ...
Continue readingJamie Dimon on Senate hot seat: Can money buy him love?
When JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon delivers his not-so-abject apology for his bank's $2 billion-plus blooper on Wednesday morning, he'll be facing some interrogators who are also his beneficiaries.
Since 1998, according to Sunlight's Influence Explorer, Dimon and members of his immediate family -- wife Judith, father Theodore and mother Themis -- have given more than $400,000 to politicians and political organizations, including to members of the Senate Banking Committee that has summoned Dimon to testify. Dimon gave $2,000 to committee chairman Tim Johnson, D-S.D., during his last reelection campaign and the same amount to Sen ...
Continue reading
59063
