For a candidate who says he hasn’t spent a lot of time in Washington, Mitt Romney seems comfortable around D.C. insiders -- at least judging by the droves he drew to fundraisers and exclusive huddles in the nation's capital on Thursday.
Hundreds of deep-pocketed Romney supporters, who paid thousands of dollars apiece, flocked to the J.W. Marriott Hotel, just blocks from the White House the GOP presidential candidate hopes to occupy. At least some may have been hoping that the price of admission would include a ticket to join Romney there.
The event attracted influential lobbyists, businesspeople ...
Continue readingNew nuclear plant builder a major Washington player
The company benefiting from today’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission decision to approve the construction of the first new nuclear plant in the U.S. in over three decades is an influential powerhouse in Washington.
Southern Company, a power company based in Atlanta, has spent $130 million lobbying the federal government since 1998, ranking 17th among all organizations, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Last year, the company spent nearly $13 million on lobbying, including in-house efforts and hiring 14 outside firms.
The company’s political action committee, its employees and their family members also donate generously to federal candidates ...
Continue readingSuper PAC profile: 1911 United—a new kind of committee?
Although one of its founders is a longtime D.C. political insider found by an independent probe last year to have wasted D.C. taxpayers’ money, the pro-Obama super PAC 1911 United claims to have a more populist bent than other independent committees that have sprung up in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling.
The super PAC plans to focus on seven swing states with high African-American populations and will spend its resources on voter mobilization and training, as well as something more common to independent-expenditure-only committees: advertising.
The group will set itself apart in three ...
Continue readingAs campaigns head south, super PACs dominate the airwaves
As the Republican presidential race turns south, the key players to watch appear to be not the candidates emerging from Tuesday's New Hampshire primary but the super PACs who are supporting or opposing them.
In South Carolina, where the next votes will be cast in a Jan. 21 primary, local political observers and television executives tell Sunlight that the new political entities—most of which have yet to disclose any sources of their funding—are dominating the airwaves, far outspending the candidates. In Florida, which holds its primary on Jan. 31, a super PAC backing New Hampshire winner Mitt ...
Continue readingSuper PAC profile: Former Gingrich aides—and maybe donors—behind Winning Our Future
Even before it formally registered with the Federal Election Commission in mid-December, Winning Our Future, the leading super PAC backing Newt Gingrich, raised more than $2 million, according to founder and president Becky Burkett. That includes “a few” donations above the $100,000 mark, she said.
The haul is far less than that of the super PACs backing Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, and even below what's been spent so far by a pro-Jon Huntsman super PAC. But the money was amassed in a much shorter time. Burkett’s past fundraising success with a now-defunct nonprofit led by Gingrich ...
Continue readingSuper PAC spending: $13 million and counting
As the voting for the Republican presidential nomination gets underway, super PACs have already emerged as a big factor, spending more than $13 million so far in Iowa and other early-voting states. Yet a growing number of the independent expenditure groups active on behalf of presidential candidates has made moves to ensure that information on their donors will likely remain hidden until votes are cast in three more states.
Four of the biggest spenders—the pro-Romney Restore our Future PAC, the pro-Santorum Red, White & Blue Fund, the pro-Huntsman Our Destiny PAC, and the pro-Gingrich Winning Our Future, recently changed their ...
Continue readingPro-Gingrich group moves to delay revealing donors
Another leading presidential super PAC signaled Thursday that it plans to keep its donors' identities under wraps until Jan. 31, meaning voters in four crucial early contests will go to the polls without knowing who is behind two well-funded efforts to influence their decisions.
Winning Our Future, an outside group backing Newt Gingrich, notified the Federal Election Commission that it is changing its filing status to push back a deadline for making donations public by four weeks, copying a move made earlier this month by Restore Our Future, a group backing Mitt Romney, one of Gingrich's chief rivals for ...
Continue readingPresidential Super PAC disclosures may leave voters in the dark
When voters cast their ballots in January’s presidential nominating contests, they may not know the moneyed interests behind the attack ads run by shadowy outside groups trying to influence their votes, despite a Federal Election Commission deadline requiring many of them to disclose information next week.
Although FEC regulations suggest that groups making expenditures in New Hampshire’s Jan. 10 primary must file a pre-primary report on Dec. 29, it’s not clear how many of them will do so.
There are plenty of opportunities for these groups to avoid scrutiny until, in some cases, Jan. 31. The first ...
Continue readingSOPA revolvers: Sixteen former Judiciary staffers lobby on online copyright issues
As the House Judiciary Committee readies to consider a controversial bill that supporters say will crack down on websites pirating content, some interest groups may have a leg up on influencing the legislators.
That’s because 16 lobbyists, representing various companies and organizations favoring, opposing or watching the bill, used to work on the House panel. The committee plans to markup the measure tomorrow.
The bill, called the Stop Online Piracy Act, is hotly contested, dividing Hollywood, which wants tougher laws to protect copyrighted material, and Silicon Valley, which contends that SOPA would introduce new, uncertain liabilities for web companies ...
Continue readingAnother renewable energy loan recipient hires lobbyists, has fundraising ties to Obama
Abound Solar, another participant in the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program, which is facing scrutiny, has hired Washington lobbyists because of that attention, a company spokesperson said.
The lobbying—by former government officials with ties to Congress and the Department of Energy—started in mid-October, about six weeks after Solyndra, the recipient of a $535 million loan from DOE, filed for bankruptcy. Like Solyndra, one of Abound Solar’s key investors is an Obama fund-raiser, although there is no evidence that the Obama administration favored the companies because of this connection.
The Abound investor is billionaire heiress Pat ...
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