Outside groups aligned with Republicans are dominating spending on independent expenditures in the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections. As... View Article
Continue readingCitizens United: Before, After, What’s Next?
The Citizens United case was a game changer in terms of money being spent by outside groups on the 2010... View Article
Continue readingRight-leaning outside groups outspending opposition by $40.8 million
Republican-leaning Super PACs and non-party political organizations have reported spending $40.8 million more on mid-term elections than those supporting Democrats, an analysis of Federal Election Commission data shows.
Overall, there are 202 organizations spending money to influence the 2010 mid-terms, of which only 93 have disclosed their donors to the Federal Election Commission so far. Additional groups may disclose donors later this week, and some organizations known as 527 committees after the section of the tax code under which they are organized might disclose their donors to the Internal Revenue Service.
The top spenders are three party committees--the National ...
Continue readingCourt rulings change elections, independent spending dwarfs party spending in midterm
Outside spending by independent groups is dramatically changing the face and shape of elections in the United States in the... View Article
Continue readingDaily disclosures
A round up of what we’re seeing in online disclosures: Tops: National Republican Congressional Committee ($13,979,025) and the Democratic Senatorial... View Article
Continue readingCrowdsourcing Your Way to a More Open Election
Crowdsourcing makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Think about it: tapping into the ingenuity of your peers to... View Article
Continue readingSuper PACs: Track (and read all about) them on the Reporting Group site
The Washington Post weighs in on the growth of “Super Pacs,” organizations that can take unlimited funds from any source... View Article
Continue readingOutside groups spending record amounts on mid-term elections
Since January 2010, spending by outside organizations to influence congressional elections totals some $57 million--up more than $20 million from a comparable time period in 2006, the most recent non-presidential election cycle--according to reports collected by the Federal Election Commission.
Though the rising independent expenditures--money spent by outside groups on anything from phone banks and mailing lists to negative political ads to influence a federal election--come after the Supreme Court decisions that weakened campaign finance laws, it's unclear whether those rulings are fueling the boom.
While some labor unions have taken advantage of the rulings to directly make independent ...
Continue readingBecome a Sunlight Campaign Ad Monitor
In January, I noted that the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case would open the “floodgates... View Article
Continue readingPost-Citizens United disclosure is down significantly
The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling opened up a massive hole in the disclosure regime governing campaign spending. According to... View Article
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