Trying to get FCC records at Cleveland TV Stations from Karl Idsvoog on Vimeo.
Days before the Federal Communication Commission's closely-watched Friday vote on requiring local television stations to put political advertising information online, a group of Ohio college students made a powerful argument for why the commissioners should buck the pressure from the broadcasting industry and vote aye. Just look at the above video.
At issue is whether the stations should post online detailed information on political ad buys. Such information is currently available only in paper files that must be accessed in person and under supervision from ...
Continue readingPennsylvania Rep. Tim Holden is a magnet for outside spending
Tuesday's battle for the Democratic nomination in Pennsylvania's newly-redrawn 17th Congressional District has emerged as the biggest money magnet so far for outside groups spending on House primaries, data compiled by the Sunlight Foundation's Follow the Unlimited Money tracker shows.
Outside groups have spent more than $572,000 in the semi-rural central Pennsylvania district, most of it to defeat Rep. Tim Holden. The only other House races that have drawn more outside spending so far have been special elections in which Democrats and Republicans were competing.
By contrast, the Pennsylvania race is a Democrat-on-Democrat affair: Holden, a ...
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 ...
Continue readingTea Party standout joins leadership of disruptive super PAC
Tea Party activist Mark Meckler has joined the leadership of the Campaign for Primary Accountability (CPA), a disruptive super PAC aimed at ousting long-term incumbents from Congress. He has become part of a four-person, conservative leadership team of a group that says its aims are nonpartisan.
Meckler officially joined the $2.5 million super PAC, one of the outside groups spending the most in congressional primaries, as a senior advisor earlier this week but said he has been friends with its founders for quite some time and got to know them through the Tea Party movement. He resigned from the ...
Continue readingWith merger, expect airline lobbying to take off
American Airlines and US Airways, the fourth and fifth biggest domestic airlines that took another step towards merger Friday, are also high fliers when it comes to political influence.
Any marriage of the two carriers would require government approval, and both airlines have been active lobbying Congress -- which controls the budgets of the federal agencies that would review the merger's impact on the market, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.
American Airlines has spent $3.8 million on lobbying in the first three quarters of 2011 and has hired 10 lobbying firms during that period.
Although US ...
Continue readingWho funded pro-Romney ad in South Carolina? We may never know
The ever-hard to track Citizens for a Working America, last seen in Iowa making a big Christmas Eve ad buy on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has resurfaced in a new-old incarnation.
Confused? So were we, when we last wrote about this shadowy organization. No wonder.
Turns out that the name Citizens for a Working America is shared by two linked but distinct entities:
- Citizens for a Working America PAC, a super PAC that first surfaced in 2010 when it helped defeat veteran Democratic Rep. John Spratt, a South Carolina Democrat who chaired the House Budget Committee, and ...
The X-factors? Lesser-known super PACs could have big impact in fall congressional races
While the super PACs supporting presidential candidates have been in the spotlight in the early months of the campaign season, a number of lesser-known -- but potentially as influential -- super PACs are emerging. Filings that came in over the weekend at the Federal Election Commission featured a number of heretofore unsung super PACs, many formed for the purpose of influencing a specific House or Senate election.
Though they are smaller than their presidential counterparts, some of the groups benefit fromt he same big-name donors. While some super PACs are new, others appear to be gearing up for an encore after playing ...
Continue readingStealthy Wealthy: Did Katzenberg’s support for Obama fast-track movie deal with China?
It's not every businessman who has the vice president of China personally sign off on his latest venture, but then Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of Dreamworks Animation and a prolific Democratic donor, isn't every businessman.
The Hollywood titan is also a prolific Democratic donor, who has introduced President Barack Obama at fundraisers in tony locations, bundled at least $500,000 for Obama's 2008 campaign and promised to bundle as much in 2012, and, after contributing $30,8000--the maximum he's allowed to give--to the Obama Victory Fund, he wrote a $2 million check to the super PAC ...
Continue readingAs Renco’s lobbying drive fades, so does congressional support in its dispute with Peru
A group of lawmakers is urging Obama administration officials to oppose a multinational U.S. company's efforts to sue Peru in a mining dispute, citing the company's environmental and health record.
The request, made in a letter last month to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, pits the lawmakers against a secretive billionaire and big U.S. political donor—and, in some cases, against themselves.
Four of the letter-signers—Reps. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., Ed Towns, D-N.Y., and Danny K. Davis, D-Ill.—have switched sides in a controversy involving Doe Run ...
Continue readingDemocrat, Republican political collectors ask FEC to OK texted contributions
The economy may be largely lackluster but the political sector is so flush with cash it appears on the verge of creating a whole new profession: Campaign contribution brokers.
That would be the result if the Federal Election Commission approves a bipartisan request that it made public late Wednesday afternoon. Filing on behalf of two campaign consulting groups, one Democrat and one Republican, the blue-chip Washington law firm Arendt Fox urges the FEC to approve a system for texting small contributions to political campaigns that would allow middlemen to collect as much as 50 cents on every donated dollar.
The ...
Continue reading
59063
