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Tag Archive: Investigations

New Super PAC seeks expansion of role for corporate, connected PACs

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Dan Backer, the attorney behind the hybrid super PAC rule that allows political action committees contributing to members of Congress and other candidates to also accept unlimited contributions to make independent expenditures, is trying to extend the favor to political action committees tied to corporate entities.

In a new Advisory Opinion Request filed with the Federal Election Commission, Backer asks the commission to allow Stop This Insanity Employee Leadership Fund, a new independent expenditure-only committee attached to the nonprofit Stop This Insanity organization, to be permitted to have separate accounts to contribute to candidates and make independent expenditures.

MORE: See ...

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Futures industry nabs former government regulator as new leader

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In the latest example of a former financial regulator finding employment in the industry, the Futures Industry Association (FIA) has announced that its new president will be a former leader at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Walter Lukken was nominated to the commission by former President George W. Bush and chaired the agency's global markets advisory committee while there. From 2007-2008, when the financial crisis was at its height, he served as its acting chairman. Lukken resigned when President Obama took office in 2009.

In his current role as chief executive officer for New York Portfolio Clearing, he ...

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Super PAC Profile: Endorse Liberty helps Ron Paul — and a founder’s company

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In the three weeks since Endorse Liberty Inc. formed as a super PAC with the Federal Election Commission, the group has spent nearly $1 million on ads supporting Ron Paul, $151,000 of which went to a media company owned by one of the founders of the group.

The group was put together by four businessmen. According to the group’s treasurer Abe Niederhauser, none have ties to the GOP presidential candidate.

The other three founders are Jeffrey Harmon, Ladd Christensen and Stephen Oskoui. Oskoui is the owner of Smiley Media—an Austin-based company that has made a series of ...

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Super PAC profile: Obama supported by Priorities USA Action

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Priorities USA Action defines its mission as "committed to the reelection of President Obama." The group is currently opposing Mitt Romney with media ad buys.

The following ad uses Romney quotes, mostly out of context, and the tone of an apocalyptic movie trailer to suggest that a Romney presidency that "is not a pretty picture."

The people behind Priorities USA Action are well connected to Obama and the Democratic party. The political strategist for the organization, Bill Burton, formerly served as the president's deputy White House press secretary. Before that, he was a spokesman for Obama's 2008 campagn ...

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Super PAC profile: Former Gingrich aides—and maybe donors—behind Winning Our Future

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Even before it formally registered with the Federal Election Commission in mid-December, Winning Our Future, the leading super PAC backing Newt Gingrich, raised more than $2 million, according to founder and president Becky Burkett. That includes “a few” donations above the $100,000 mark, she said.

The haul is far less than that of the super PACs backing Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, and even below what's been spent so far by a pro-Jon Huntsman super PAC. But the money was amassed in a much shorter time. Burkett’s past fundraising success with a now-defunct nonprofit led by Gingrich ...

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Super PAC profile: Red White and Blue for Santorum

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Before the Iowa contest that catapulted Rick Santorum to front-runner status, the patriotically-named Red White and Blue PAC spent $537,200 and produced two television ads touting the former Pennsylvania senator's conservatism and electability. Borrowing a word from the organizers of a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, the ad above urged Iowans to "Restore America's greatness."

The PAC is a relatively new one, registering with the Federal Electoral Commission in October 2011. Like most super PACs, Red, White and Blue has yet to disclose its financial backers, but MSNBC identified one of its donors as Foster Friess, president ...

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Super PAC profile: Pro-Perry Make Us Great Again has ties to former staff, major donor

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One of the highest spending super PACs so far, the pro-Rick Perry Make Us Great Again is headed by the Texas governor’s former chief of staff Mike Toomey.   A Texas lobbyist, Toomey is a longtime friend and confidant of Perry's who was behind Perry’s switch in party affiliation in 1985 after he was elected to the Texas legislature. He has a reputation of being Perry's “enforcer.”

The ads run by the super PAC portray Perry as an anti-Washington candidate, with energy and tax reforms as his leading campaign mantra.  The video and radio ads feature Perry ...

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Super PAC profile: Revolution PAC launches NH ad campaign touting Ron Paul’s ‘compassion’ toward interracial couple

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A super PAC supporting Ron Paul's bid for the presidency plans to begin airing a television commercial in New Hampshire this weekend  that describes how the GOP presidential candidate helped an interracial couple in Texas, where Paul worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist.

Gary Franchi, treasurer of Revolution PAC, said the group has invested $100,000 to put the commercial on major TV networks in the Granite State in advance of Tuesday's first-in-the-nation primary. Franchi said the video was not produced in response to the controversy that has arisen around a newsletter published under his name in the late 1980s ...

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Super PAC spending: $13 million and counting

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As the voting for the Republican presidential nomination gets underway, super PACs have already emerged as a big factor, spending more than $13 million so far in Iowa and other early-voting states. Yet a growing number of the independent expenditure groups active on behalf of presidential candidates has made moves to ensure that information on their donors will likely remain hidden until votes are cast in three more states.

Four of the biggest spenders—the pro-Romney Restore our Future PAC, the pro-Santorum Red, White & Blue Fund, the pro-Huntsman Our Destiny PAC, and the pro-Gingrich Winning Our Future, recently changed their ...

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Santorum’s not-so-populist side

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With his penchant for sweater vests and stories about his coal miner grandfather, former Sen. Rick Santorum is setting himself up as the populist conservative alternative to Mitt Romney, the millionaire GOP presidential frontrunner who bested him by a mere eight votes in Tuesday's Iowa caucuses.

"I share the values of the working people," Santorum said in his speech to Iowa supporters as the caucus results were being tabulated.

But while Santorum has crafted a folksy image for his presidential campaign, the Sunlight Foundation's Influence Explorer suggests a different picture. Retirees make up the largest sector of ...

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