Election season has almost reached its costly, bitter end, but the spigot of money that runs from PACs and special interests to federal campaigns is still running.
Continue readingPolitical ad watch: 48 new commercials in one day
The deluge of ads gives us an insight in to where the smart money is spending. And reminds us the smart money believes that going negative works.
Continue readingParty committees on top, dark money still flowing FEC filings show
Monthly fundraising figures have landed at the Sunlight Foundation's Real-Time FEC tracker, and our tool shows national party committees leading the pack as well as dark money pouring into primaries.
Continue readingNo sequester for political ads
In honor of the snowquester, as the Washington Post's cheeky Weather Gang has dubbed the spring storm that so far has proven more effective than the Tea Party in reining in government, Sunlight has decided to take a look at the efforts getting underway by various groups to keep the actual sequester at bay.
Like the Atlantic snowstorm, this effort is starting slowly but likely to build.
The Sunlight Reporting Group is using two of our foundation's tools, Ad Hawk and Political Ad Sleuth, to keep an eye on this year's political ads. We'll be updating ...
Continue readingWeb of union giving
To view a larger version, click here or the image.
Deep-pocketed corporate moguls have captured most of the headlines this year when it comes to creative campaign giving, but the working class is showing it can play the same game.
The Supreme Court's landmark 2010 decision in Citizens United gave unions, as well as corporations, the right to spend money directly from their treasuries to influence elections. An examination of independent expenditures by labor unions, captured by Sunlight's Follow the Unlimited Money, reveals an interlocking web of donations to a plethora of super PACs, some of them clearly ...
Continue readingPolitical big bucks in paradise: Hawaii Senate race draws outside donors
Hawaii's first open Senate seat in more than three decades has attracted two high-profile women candidates and lots of outside money.
The race, which guarantees that Hawaii will elect its first woman senator in the state's 53-year history, represents a rematch between Republican Linda Lingle, below left, and the Democratic congresswoman Mazie Hirono, at right. Lingle beat Hirono in a 2002 race for governor. Both women have attracted considerable support from inside and outside their state, as well as from a host of interest groups, which have pumped more than $1 million into the race.
Early on, Lingle ...
The black hole of political disclosure
Our Sunlight Foundation colleague, Lee Drutman, has written elsewhere about the amount of dark money -- political donations that come without donors attached -- flowing into this year's campaign. But what about the conduits? As the Senate debates the DISCLOSE Act this week, a measure that would take modest steps towards adding a little transparency back into the campaign finance system, it's worth taking a look at the entities that are taking advantage of the loopholes that allow them to avoid disclosing -- sometimes just donors, sometimes just about everything.
The groups run the gamut from long established organizations with a ...
Continue readingIs AFSCME or the Chamber the top political spender?
The Wall Street Journal brings an apple to the orange convention, writing that, “The American Federation of State, County and... View Article
Continue readingLabor, Enviro Groups Use Arkansas Senate Primary As Citizens United Testing Ground
The Arkansas Senate primary between Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Lt. Gov. Bill Halter is acting as a testing ground for... View Article
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