At its last meeting of the year Thursday, the Federal Election Commission approved a new way to charge donors who want to give to political committees via text message. But it did not approve a proposed novel way for companies to bulk up their political action committees' receipts -- by soliciting independent dealers that sell their products.
The FEC gave the green light to an electronic payment processing company to process payments from political donors via text message. The company, Global Transaction Services Group, would charge the mobile customer's credit card. The FEC approved a slightly different form of charging ...
Continue readingGroups ask feds to investigate mystery corporate campaign donations
Election watchdog groups are asking the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission to investigate a mysterious series of large campaign donation first reported by Sunlight.
Continue readingFive House members who got the most NRA money
As voices rise for more restrictions on the sale of assault weapons in the wake of the Newtown tragedy, the biggest looming obstacle may be the House, where the NRA has given generously to members of the GOP majority.
Continue readingAnd the ads go on: 2012’s big campaign spenders keep up the air wars
Think the campaign season was over? Since Election Day, dozens of TV, web and radio ads have been airing in political battlegrounds, many of them directly naming lawmakers. The Sunlight Foundation has been archiving them on Ad Hawk, a mobile app that allows viewers to help flag political advertising that they are seeing and learn about the funders behind ads .
Many of these ads have popped up just this week. Though the ad content often relates to Congress’s handling of the impending fiscal cliff, in many cases they also have an eye on the 2014 election. Big spending groups ...
Continue readingJim DeMint’s possible successors: influence profiles
Rep. Tim Scott, the frontrunner to replace retiring Sen. Jim DeMint, owned an AllState insurance branch before being elected to congress. His biggest campaign donor has been the conservative Club for Growth.
Continue readingFEC considers whether company can solicit PAC contributions from its dealers
Can Slim Jim solicit employees of 7-11 for donations to its political action committee?
Members of the Federal Election Commission mused about that hypothetical prospect today in an open meeting that considered whether companies should be able to ask independent retailers to participate in their PACs, potentially opening the door for corporations to significantly broaden their donor base.
On another non-controversial request, commissioners appear ready to soon approve a request by the Global Transaction Services Group to fundraise for political committees via text messages – the phone user’s credit card would be charged. In another decision, the committee gave the ...
Continue readingWho benefited most from dark money in the 2012 election?
Eighteen incoming members of Congress each got more than $1 million in dark money donations during their recent campaigns, but many more have reason to resent the stealthiest of campaign contributions, a Sunlight Foundation analysis has found.
Dark money represents campaign contributions whose sources never have to be publicly reported. That's because the money is funneled through non-profit entities organized under a section of the tax code that protects them from having to name their donors. These kind of groups -- such as the pro-GOP Crossroads GPS and the pro-Democrat League of Conservation Voters -- have increased their electoral role in the wake of a series of court rulings that opened the door for unlimited corporate and union spending on campaigns. Nonprofit groups made more than $300 million of such donations during the course of the 2012 election cycle, the vast majority to influence the fall races.
Continue readingPandora gets heard but many lawmakers change the channel
To the delight of the recording industry, a congressional hearing about a bill that would decrease the royalties that Pandora pays to record labels and artists turned into a larger discussion about how Congress regulates the music business.
The hearing, on the Judiciary Committee’s intellectual property subcommittee, was about the Internet Radio Freedom Act, a bill sponsored by panel member Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, that would subject Internet radio services to the same rate setting standard of cable and satellite radio.
MORE: Check out the archive of Sunlight Live's coverage of the hearing.
In a press release issued after ...
Continue readingBattle brews between recording industry and Internet music providers
The fiscal cliff might be getting all the headlines, but another battle is brewing in Congress, pitting the recording industry, a traditional source of Washington power, against Internet firms using an upstart technology.
But in a departure from last year's struggle over the Stop Online Piracy Act, better known as SOPA, which favored entrenched media firms like Walt Disney and Time Warner while drawing opposition from technology firms like Google and Reddit, this time the bill at the center of the controversy favors the upstarts. The Internet Radio Fairness Act would lower the royalty fees that sites like Pandora pay out to recording companies and artists.
Continue readingElection lawyers say super PACs should shift strategy
Given the underperformance of many outside spending groups in this year's election, some election lawyers suggested they shift strategies to focus more on mobilizing voters on the ground rather than TV ads in a panel discussion today.
The discussion took place at George Washington University Law School during a conference analyzing the 2012 campaign.
Super PACs that spent the most put their money into TV ads, noted Monica Yuan, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. In contrast, unions and union-affiliated super PACs put much of their resources into get-out-the-vote efforts. The union groups were relatively successful compared ...
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