Though pollsters see campaign finance reform as a nonstarter on the campaign trail. A proposed rulemaking in the wake of the Supreme Court's McCutcheon decision sparked an outpouring of public interest as letter-writing campaigns drew thousands of comments.
Continue readingLobby-a-palooza! New year brings new turn of the revolving door
It's a happy and potentially lucrative New Year for many former Capitol Hill denizens, as the turn of the calendar also brings a turn of Washington's revolving door.
Continue readingThe case of the mystery texter
This Halloween mystery all began on a dark and stormy night, when unsuspecting phones were attacked by political ads via text message. What made this message so scary is that when people went to “unwrap” the text, they realized the organization had no face. When they went searching for the sender’s website, it was dead.
Not until the wee hours of the morning, was the privacy of the sender revoked for violating spamming rules. The Atlantic connected the texts to Jason Flanary and ccAdvertising.
This spooky spending looks like it is taking advantage of a legal loophole by emailing ...
Continue readingNo close call here: NFL’s political donations tilt Republican
The NFL bigwigs who early this morning conceded defeat in an ongoing labor dispute like to play politics themselves, and tend to favor the party with the most adversarial relationship with unions.
Continue readingGOP convention through the eyes of Sunlight Live
If you missed Sunlight Live's coverage of the Republican National Convention in Tampa last night, you missed a lot. A Wordle cloud of most-used terms from the speeches is above; below, a synopsis of some of Sunlight's observations, data and analysis, which our Sunlight Live tool allows us to provide to you on the same computer screen where you are watching a video stream of the convention proceedings.
Be sure to tune in tonight for our coverage of the second night. A few highlights from last night, whose theme was alternately you didn't build that, we did ...
Continue readingCollege Republican doubles down on super PAC
The college student whose super PAC helped propel a little-known Kentucky Republican to victory with $600,000 in outside spending has doubled down -- and then some.
John Ramsey, a 21-year-old devotee of Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, gave just over $1.7 million to the super PAC he founded, Liberty for All, in the second quarter, according to campaign finance records filed Sunday. That brings Ramsey's total contributions to about $1.9 million--meaning that the economics and finance major at Stephen F. Austin State College in Nacogdoches, Texas is the source of all but about $10,000 of the super ...
Super PACs spent almost $1 million in Tuesday’s primaries
Super PACs and other independent groups spent almost $1 million in Kentucky and Arkansas, the two states that held primaries on Tuesday.
So far this year, super PACs have spent at least $16 million on congressional races, a fraction of what they've pumped into the presidential campaign. But the smaller amounts spent in congressional races have sometimes produced big results, pushing a few candidates to primary victories. So far, super PACs and other independent group have spent on 88 races.
In Kentucky the big spender was the Liberty for All super PAC,which run by a few twenty-something supporters ...
Facebook in Washington: Baby steps of a giant
Facebook, which has set off a frenzy of market speculation with its plans go public as early as Friday, isn't just raising its profile on Wall Street. As the social networking giant prepares for its initial stock offering, Sunlight decided to take a look at how Facebook is doing when it comes to political networking. Our finding: The company with the famously hoodied CEO is beginning to grow up, at least in the ways of Washington.
In the first quarter of this year, Facebook spent $650,000 lobbying Congress, according to a report filed with the Senate Office of ...
Continue readingSuper PAC profile: Twenty-something Ron Paul supporters found Liberty for All
A new super PAC funded almost entirely by a 21-year-old Ron Paul supporter and run by a 24-year-old political consultant is putting big bucks behind a tea party candidate running in a Kentucky congressional race.
So far, the group -- Liberty for All -- has spent $542,600 on campaign ads supporting Thomas Massie in a seven-way battle for the Republican nomination in the northern Kentucky district currently represented by retiring Rep. Geoff Davis, R-Ky. In addition to backing congressional candidates the new super PAC has pledged to help Paul in his effort to amass delegates to the Republican convention -- an effort ...
Continue readingSuper PACs first quarter haul: More than $100 million in political contributions
Super PACs raised more in the first three months of 2012 than they did in all of 2011, and after just two years of existence have emerged as a financial force that rivals the political parties and candidates' campaign committees.
An unusual conjunction of Federal Election Committee filing deadlines -- reports from campaign committees that file quarterly were due at midnight Sunday while those that file monthly were due Friday -- has given us the first comprehensive look at the impact of super PACs in the first presidential campaign year where they've been a factor.
An analysis of data gathered by ...
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