With the U.S. Senate expected to take up gun legislation next week and recent passing of gun laws in Connecticut, Colorado and Maryland, we put together a tool kit on the issues around gun rights and gun control. For more information, you can follow the money, influence and news on the issue of gun control and gun rights in the U.S. at our resource page. Keep reading for information about state legislation, swing votes in the Senate, political spending by gun rights and gun control groups, details on how they lobby Congress and where they are airing TV issue ads.
Continue readingIs the U.S. Backtracking on Political Finance Transparency as Others Move Forward?
I recently returned from Croatia, where I was invited to speak about what works and what doesn’t in terms disclosure... View Article
Continue readingNewt Gingrich forms joint fundraising PAC
Seems that 2012 is the (fundraising) campaign that just won't die. We already know that President Barack Obama, despite winning what he loudly advertised would be his last campaign, is still hot on the fundraising trail. And Politico is reporting that Obama's unsuccessful GOP rival, Mitt Romney, is going to be feting donors later this spring.
Now Newt Gingrich appears to be getting into the act. Sunlight's Follow the Unlimited Money tracker turned up a registration for the not-so-modestly named "Committee for America," which has been established as a joint fundraising committee for Newt 2012, the ex-speaker ...
Continue readingDonor in Menendez probe hoped for riches from government contracts
Salomon Melgen, the Florida eye doctor whose relationship with Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez, D-N.J., is now the subject of a grand jury investigation, has left a trail of lawsuits over bad investments, including one involving a government contract in which he had attempted to tie his money to the coattails of another prominent Hispanic official.
Melgen, who has a port security firm in the Dominican Republic that Menendez denies he tried to help and a medical practice in Florida that the senator admitted he aided, has filed numerous lawsuits over other business dealings that went sour ...
In South Carolina special election full of characters, donors are just as colorful
As voters go to the polls in today's primary contests for a South Carolina special congressional election that has garnered attention for its share of colorful candidates, the donors appear just as just as worthy of a second look.
That's not just because the donors are, in most cases -- the candidates themselves. They also include a diverse range of out-of-staters from infamous dark money man David Koch to comedian Stephen Colbert's wife, as Sunlight has reported.
In the final days before polls opened, donations continued to pour in. We're keeping tabs using our Follow the Unlimited Money alert service that sends us emails every time one of the committee's we're watching files with the Federal Election Commission.
Most of the late cash has gone to former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who is trying to make the political comeback of a lifetime just two years after departing office in disgrace. Revelations of Sanford's extra-marital affair with his Argentine lover (now fiance) ended his marriage but not, it now appears, his once-promising political career. By late last month, Sanford was already the dollar frontrunner in the contest to replace Tim Scott, a Republican appointed to the Senate this year. That financial momentum has only continued to build with more late contributors jumping on the frontrunner's bandwagon.
In the 20-day period before today's primary, Sanford raked in $80,050 in contributions of $1,000 or more, bringing him to a total of at least $414,447, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Combined, the six leading Republicans and the Democrat most likely to win her primary, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, have raised over $3 million so far in the race.
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 ...
Continue readingBehind Sanford in South Carolina House race, a trail of self-funders
The race to replace Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican congressman, who won appointment earlier this year to the U.S. Senate, has attracted a (literally) rich field of candidates.
Continue readingTeddy Turner gives himself $30 K as S.C. House race heads into home stretch
Political upstart Teddy Turner bankrolls himself as corporate bigs bankroll disgraced ex-Gov. Mark Sanford in a lively special election for a South Carolina House seat.
Continue readingKoch brother among donors to Mark Sanford redemption run
Updated 1:44 p.m. 3/8
David Koch, one of the nation's most generous underwriters of conservative causes, is among more than 250 donors chipping in to help disgraced former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford get his political career on track. So is Foster Friess, a conservative millionaire who bet heavily last year on former Sen. Rick Santorum's failed bid for the Republican nomination and made headlines with his unorthodox views on contraception.
Both gave $2,500 each to Sanford's campaign to win back the House seat that that he held in the 1990s, according to ...
Continue readingMore Money in Politics is Not the Answer
It’s axiomatic that the Sunlight Foundation believes transparency can deter corruption, foster accountability and increase the public’s participation in government. ... View Article
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