In the final weeks leading up to Election Day, an outside spending group with ties to two infamous negative campaigns against Democrats has launched efforts to rescue two Republican Party outcasts.
Freedom's Defense Fund is an independent political action committee advocating for limited government with a consultant connected to both the discredited "birther" rumor questioning President Barack Obama's citizenship and the 2004 Swift Boat campaign questioning the Vietnam combat credentials of that year's Democratic presidential candidate, Massachusetts' Sen. John Kerry. Recently, the group poured $312,589 into two states:
- Missouri to support Rep. Todd Akin in his ...
Mystery PAC drops $1.7 million before revealing Adelson connection
A super PAC that deliberately disguised its connection to Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson emerged from the shadows to drop nearly $1.7 million in a single day this week to oppose President Barack Obama's reelection, one of a series of money bombs in a week where outside spending threatens to top $200 million.
On the same day it filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission declaring the expenditure, Republicans for Prosperous America also announced it was changing its name to the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund, thereby revealing its ties to the Republican Jewish Coalition, a politically active nonprofit ...
Continue readingHalloween special: Scary super PACs and America’s zombie apocalypse
While browsing our super PAC database in the days leading up to Halloween, Sunlight reporters couldn't help but notice the number of committee names that were creepy--even scary. On the other hand, perhaps it's not so surprising given how many operate in shadowy fashion.
Continue readingAmericans for Tax Reform spends big on House races
The nonprofit group Americans for Tax Reform is flooding several House races with more than $14 million in independent expenditures this month.
The 501(c)4 lobbying group run by prominent conservative Grover Norquist has spent $1 million in six Senate contests, but its primary focus has been on bolstering Republican candidates for the House. Recent activity by ATR has made it one of the top spenders in a number of tight races, and in some districts the huge purchases have dwarfed all previous outside spending, according to Sunlight's Follow the Unlimited Money tracker.
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 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 readingCensored? Information goes missing from political ad files
The Federal Communication Commission's online political ad database is supposed to make information about heavy political hitters more accessible, but a lack of clarity in the rules has resulted in some stations effectively censoring what the public is permitted to see.
An analysis using Sunlight's Political Ad Sleuth, a project to organize and expand the FCC database, shows that of the more than 220 stations that are required to post their political files online, more than half have removed documents since the process began Aug. 2. More than 2,100 of the total 35,400 records appear to ...
Continue readingPro-gay marriage group pushes for ad removal
A gay marriage referendum on Maryland ballots Nov. 6 has set off a behind-the-scenes fight over a television advertisement, a dispute uncovered by Sunlight's Political Ad Sleuth.
A letter discovered on the database, which tracks political ad filings that local stations are required to post with the Federal Communications Commission, reveals that Marylanders for Marriage Equality has been pressing station managers to take down "Question 6 Doesn't," an ad produced by the Maryland Marriage Alliance, a group on the other side of the debate over same-sex marriage.
Marylanders for Marriage Equality raised a number of complaints about the ...
Continue readingOutside political spending continues to skyrocket
Of the $810 million in outside spending that Sunlight's Follow the Unlimited Money has tracked since the beginning of the campaign cycle, more than half has been laid out in the last six weeks.
Continue readingDavis deletes 13 consecutive tweets following debate
Republican Rodney Davis, in a tight race with Democrat David Gill for Illinois' 13th Congressional District, deleted 13 consecutive posts from his Twitter account Thursday, hours after they were posted to his account during the congressional candidates' only debate of the campaign.
The debate highlighted many of the candidates' differences and provided insight into many of their positions including...their stance on Twitter? Both candidates' teams were actively tweeting during the debate; however Team Davis, which posted 17 tweets during the course of the debate, deleted 13 consecutive posts less than a day later. Politwoops, the Sunlight Foundation's database ...
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