Thanks to Citizens United, the Massachusetts Senate race is turning into a money slugfest between two deep-pocketed Californians.
Continue readingReporter’s notebook: How we came up with that campaign finance maze
If it makes you all feel any better, campaign finance is hard for us too.
At the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group, we make a speciality of money in politics reporting, so when the dark money groups that we often cover burst into the headlines -- on reports that the Internal Revenue Service was denying the coveted tax exempt status to Tea Party groups -- we figured it was time to put what we know about the campaign finance ecosystem out there.
The process turned out to be revealing, if painful.
You can see the final product here. But we learned a lot ...
Continue readingWhom Mark Sanford owes
Some big investors got a nice payoff Tuesday when Mark Sanford, South Carolina's disgraced former governor, won back his old House seat.
As Sanford acknowledged in his victory speech Tuesday night in Charleston, he's got a lot to be thankful for. The list could include more than $200,000 in late donations from big Republican donors and interests who bet that the ex-South Carolina governor could overcome a sex scandal and get his political career on track. The group includes 47 organizations and out-of-state givers -- a number of them with ties to the financial industry and libertarian causes ...
Continue readingMayors Against Illegal Guns hits the airwaves in N.H and Pa.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the pro-gun control group backed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is not giving up the fight.
Three weeks after the Senate rejected legislation offered in the wake of the December shooting massacre that left 26 people dead at a Connecticut elementary school, the group is launching what appears to be a high-priced ad campaign to keep the pressure on lawmakers.
The ad seen above attacks Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a New Hampshire Republican who was the lone lawmaker from the Northeast to vote against the gun control measure; another advertisement praises Sen. Pat Toomey, a ...
Continue readingDemocratic establishment betting heavily on Colbert Busch upset in S.C.
The shifting political tides in a coastal South Carolina congressional district are vividly apparent from the first look at last-minute big donations to Mark Sanford and Elizabeth Colbert Busch, rival candidates for the House seat left vacant when Republican Tim Scott was promoted to the U.S. Senate earlier this year.
Under federal law, any donations of $1,000 or more made during the final days before the May 7 election must be reported to the Federal Election Commission. Over the weekend, both campaigns filed their first reports, and they showed the late money breaking strongly in favor of Democrat ...
Continue readingObama taps Romney donors for labor board
Whether it's a sign of post-partisanship or sheer exasperation is hard to say, but two of the three nominees that President Barack Obama today tapped for seats on the National Labor Relations Board donated to the Republican who wanted to take his place.
Harry I. Johnson donated $1,500 to Mitt Romney's unsuccessful presidential campaign last year and Philip Miscimarra gave Romney $1,000, according to data downloaded from Sunlight's Influence Explorer.
Both are Republican labor attorneys who, while not prolific donors, have also made other contributions to GOP committees. To view Johnson's donations, click here ...
Continue readingStart your engines: GOP makes first 2014 ad buys against Democratic House members
(Updated: 2:25 p.m.)
The National Republican Congressional Committee is making its first ad buy of the 2014 season with a blitz against seven vulnerable House Democrats.
Sunlight's Ad Hawk, which allows mobile phone users identify the sources of political advertising, picked up new spots aimed at the incumbents overnight. The early ads underscore the already-intensifying battle for the House, which President Barack Obama has vowed to put back in Democratic control. The president is travelling to the West Coast today for a series of fundraisers benefiting the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Read the details on Political Party ...
Continue readingThe real scam: Don’t let broadcasters shut down FCC political ad database over online ripoff
A story which had been making the rounds in broadcast trade publications, broke into the mainstream media Thursday, when NPR reported that scammers have been taking advantage of the Federal Communications Commission's online political ad file to rip off political consultants.
Hold the no-honor-among-thieves jokes. Let's just stipulate that stealing is not a good thing, even if the victims are political consultants. More worrisome than what the latest developments on the FCC database mean for advertisers' information is what they could mean for yours.
What’s in a name? Republican- versus Democrat-speak on gay marriage
How something is described often affects how people react to it. So it's interesting, as the Supreme Court begins two days of arguments on how to and who can define marriage, to see how the lawmakers across the street have talked about the same issue.
A look through Sunlight's Capitol Words shows a clear partisan divide: Democrats tend to use the term "gay marriage" while Republicans prefer "same-sex marriage." As you can see in the chart above, the latter term occurs more frequently in congressional debate. The full Capitol Words analysis gives us the party breakdown: Democrats account ...
Continue readingNew Labor nominee Perez an active political giver and getter
Tom Perez, tapped today by President Barack Obama as his next labor secretary, has a national network of friends in Democratic donor circles and has shown a knack for both getting and giving campaign donations.
Records compiled by the National Institute on Money and State Politics and available via Sunlight's Influence Explorer show that Perez attracted more than $800,000 in campaign contributions from labor unions, members of Congress and a Cabinet member during a short-lived run six years ago for Maryland state attorney general.
For a complete list of donations to Perez in the 2006 campaign cycle, see ...
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