With the end of the 2012 election season, so too comes the conclusion of a seemingly infinite number of campaign... View Article
Continue readingOutside spenders dump $210 million into last full week of the campaign
In the last full week before the election, outside spending groups have bombarded voters with a record $210 million in ads, direct mail, and other political expenditures, and, as in weeks past, the vast majority of the funds went to support Republican candidates.
Since Sept. 7 -- when the FEC began requiring all groups to disclose independent expenditures, regardless of the content -- the rate of outside spending has ballooned, reaching a new high this week. A Sunlight analysis of Federal Election Commission records shows that organizations dropped $132.6 million to back Republicans in the period between Oct. 26 and Nov. 1, while just $76.4 went to help Democrats. That compares to $26 million for the second week of September.
Continue readingWeek’s outside spending favors Republicans 2:1
Less than two weeks before the election, outside spending took another big leap last week, jumping to $180 million since last Friday favoring Republicans nearly two-to-one.
Continue readingObama September surge leaves Romney in a $360 million hole
Unless Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney persuaded donors to cough up $360 million in September, President Barack Obama will remain the all-time king of political fundraising.
The Obama campaign released preliminary figures showing their candidate's dollar domination in September, when he raised $181 million, the bulk of it--some 98 percent--in chunks of $250 or less. That brings Obama's overall total to a staggering $925 million in the current election cycle, including money raised by his joint fundraising committees, the Obama Victory Fund and the Swing State Victory Fund, and the Democratic National Committee.
Romney and his surrogates have ...
Continue readingBuzzfeed’s five surprising charts show impact of Citizens United
Buzzfeed offers five surprising charts about political money in the 2012 election cycle, feeding off of this recent release from the Federal Election Commission tallying up contributions and spending through June 2012. What they show--by omission--is how much Citizens United and subsequent court decisions and FEC rulings have changed the way campaigns raise and spend money. A few examples:
The first chart shows fundraising by presidential candidates in the first 18 months of each election cycle going back to 2000. Buzzfeed notes, "...presidential candidates spent more money through the second quarter in 2008 and 2004 — also an election with a ...
Continue readingGross Political Product: Outside campaign spending tops 2010 total
In a campaign that's supposed to be about an ailing economy, there's just one financial indicator that remains consistently robust: Call it the Gross Political Product.
The latest signal of just how profitable a business politics remains is available on Sunlight's Follow the Unlimited Money, which shows outside spending at nearly $465 million as of Sunday evening. That's more than the total for the entire 2010 campaign, the first that took place following the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United decision, which allowed corporations and unions to give in unlimited amounts.
This cycle's outside spending ...
Continue readingOne Step Forward Two Steps Back
Transparency advocates suffered a setback today, when the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Van Hollen v.... View Article
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 readingLibertarian think tank: Get behind DISCLOSE (or something like it)
A bill requiring super PACs and other outside political groups to include the names of top donors on their ads will hit the Senate floor next month, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said Friday. Meanwhile, an unlikely source warned the Republicans who are expected to filibuster it that they are standing in the way of the inevitable.
Whitehouse's comments came in his home state at a conference of liberal bloggers, where he was on a panel about the effects of Citizens United, a 2010 Supreme Court case that opened the door for unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions ...
Continue readingFEC adds RSS feed of campaign finance filings
Harried campaign finance dorks who spend the 20th of each month huddled over a terminal window hoping the next 43,558-page... View Article
Continue reading
59063
