• Lax state rules provide cover for sponsors of attack ads

    By Alan Suderman
    The Center for Public Integrity

    While much criticism has been lobbed at the federal system for failing to adequately identify who is spending money to influence campaigns, 35 states have independent spending disclosure laws that are less stringent than federal election law.

    In fact, in 30 states it’s impossible to total how much money outside groups are spending on campaigns, information that is mostly available when it comes to federal contests.

    That’s according to a new 50-state analysis by the National Institute on Money in State Politics, which graded the states on disclosure requirements for super PACs, nonprofits and other outside spending groups.

    Fifteen states — Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin — received an “A” grade, meaning the states’ laws were at least as robust as federal independent spending requirements.


    New Jersey and Virginia, states where residents will be casting votes for governor and state legislature this year, were among 26 states that received a failing grade in the analysis  by the nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that focuses on the influence of campaign money on state-level elections and public policy in all 50 states.

    The others were Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wyoming.

    States were graded on a 100-point scale, based on how much information is provided to the public about non-candidate organizations that buy ads, often negative and misleading, just before an election. Six states — Alabama, Indiana, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota and South Carolina — didn’t garner a single point in the survey.

    Independent super PACs and nonprofits intent on influencing campaigns proliferated in the wake of the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, adding about $1 billion in spending  in federal races in the 2012 election cycle.

    At the state level, lavish spending by outside groups often faces weaker disclosure rules than federal contests and receives far less media attention.

    The result is a mishmash of rules, with some states scrambling to pass legislation in the wake of the high court decision while others show little interest in enacting any changes.

    In South Carolina, for example, outside groups paid for ads attacking several state and local politicians in 2012 but were not required to report the spending.

    Two federal court decisions have left the state without “any rules” related to outside groups’ spending, according to Cathy L. Hazelwood, deputy director of the state Ethics Commission.

    State Sen. Wes Hayes, a Republican from Rock Hill, estimates that an anonymous group called Conservative GOP PAC, which despite its name has no apparent affiliation with the state’s Republican party, spent at least $100,000 on campaign fliers in an unsuccessful effort to unseat him.

    He concedes that’s just a guess.

    “I’ll never know the amount, just like I’ll never know who spent it,” Hayes says. Efforts to contact Conservative GOP PAC were unsuccessful, as the group has no office, no phone number, no website, did not file incorporation records with the state and no individuals have claimed membership in the organization.

    Non-candidate, independent spending on elections can be broken into two general categories: “independent expenditures” and “electioneering.” With independent expenditures, potential voters are asked to back or oppose a candidate. With electioneering, a candidate is named, but there’s no explicit request for support or opposition.

    In 25 of 50 states, electioneering advertisements are not required to be reported, according to the analysis by the National Institute.

    The term “electioneering communications” came to be with the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002. The federal law requires such expenditures be reported, but it applies only to television and radio ads that air shortly before an election.

    In a few states, however, the definition of electioneering communications is broader than at the federal level, and may include non-broadcast expenditures like direct mail and print advertising. Independent expenditures refer to all expenditures used to support or oppose a candidate, including non-advertising costs like polling and yard signs.

    Points were withheld in the survey based on the level of disclosure and whether disclosure forms differentiate between independent spending and other types of campaign expenditures.

    While North Dakota scored a zero, the state passed legislation this year that will beef up disclosure requirements for outside groups once the law goes into effect Aug. 1.

    The National Institute’s rankings focus solely on spending and not on donors to the groups that are doing the spending. Increasingly, “social welfare” nonprofits — currently at the center of a scandal involving the IRS — and trade associations are being used to hide donors’ identities in both federal and state races.

    In New Mexico, outside political action groups spent heavily on races for the state Legislature, races that typically attract fewer than 20,000 voters. Once sleepy contests have become bruising battles fought through statewide television ads, said state Sen. Peter Wirth, a Democrat from Santa Fe.

    He’s pushed a bill requiring greater disclosure by outside groups through the Senate three times (twice with unanimous approval) only to see it die in the state House after frenetic lobbying by “very powerful special interests” from both parties, he says.

    “It’s bipartisan support in the open, and then behind the scenes it’s full-on bipartisan opposition,” Wirth says.

    But several states have enacted disclosure requirements that go beyond federal requirements.

    •In Maryland, corporations are required to alert shareholders about a company’s independent political spending;

    •A “stand by your ad” provision in a 2010 Massachusetts law requires that in corporate-funded ads, the CEO appear in the spot;

    •Alaska, California and North Carolina require independent expenditure groups to list their top donors in political ads.

    The National Institute’s rankings also factor whether states require independent spending groups to disclose which candidate they are targeting.

    Two states, Florida and Delaware, require that spending be made public but not the targets or the purpose of the spending. The result: It’s virtually impossible to track how much was spent by outside groups trying to hurt or help a particular candidate.

    Thirty-six states will elect governors in 2014. Edwin Bender, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics, said he hopes states with poor grades will strengthen their reporting requirements.

    “The majority of states will elect their governors and other major statewide offices in 2014,” he said. “We think the public should know how much money is spent on these races, and by whom.” 

    John Dunbar contributed to this report.

    The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit, non-partisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C. For more of its stories on this to go publicintegrity.org.

    For more information about money in state politics, visit www.followthemoney.org.

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  • Obama campaign gives database of millions of supporters to new advocacy group

    /

    Obama supporters like this woman who showed up to cheer at a campaign event in Melbourne, Fla., on Sept. 9, may not realize how much personal data the organization collected, or what it's doing with it now.

    By Michael Isikoff, National Investigative Correspondent, NBC News

    President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign has turned over its most valuable asset — a massive computer database containing personal data on millions of American voters — to a new advocacy group created to advance the White House agenda on issues ranging from gun control to immigration reform. 

    Organizing For Action (OFA), the advocacy group set up in recent weeks by the president’s top political aides, has already acquired access to the database under a leasing agreement with the Obama campaign, Katie Hogan, a former Obama campaign aide who is now serving as spokeswoman for the lobbying group, told NBC News. The information will be used to unleash an “army of the door knockers” to back the president’s legislative agenda as well as raise money for “issue ads” – particularly in crucial congressional districts, she said.  

    As an opening salvo, the group on Friday urged the president’s supporters to call members of Congress in support of Obama’s gun control proposals, even offering a sample script of what they should say.

    The creation of OFA, which is being chaired by former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, is stirring controversy – both among public interest groups over the group’s plans to accept unlimited corporate donations, and among privacy advocates over the transfer of the database.

    “It’s extremely worrisome,” said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, noting that Obama campaign supporters likely have no idea that personal data they voluntarily shared with the campaign has now been transferred and is being used for purposes beyond the election.

    Dubbed the “nuclear codes” by campaign aides, the Obama campaign database is widely described as one of the most powerful tools ever developed in American politics. According to published reports, it contains the names of at least 4 million Obama donors – as well as millions of others (the campaign has consistently refused to say how many) compiled from voter registration rolls and other public databases. In addition, the campaign used sophisticated computer programs — with code names like “Narwhal” — to collect information through social media: Anybody who contacted the campaign through Facebook had their friends and “likes” downloaded. If they contacted  the campaign website through mobile apps, cellphone numbers and address books were downloaded. Computer “cookies” captured Web browsing and online spending habits.

    “I can’t think of anything that rivals this data,” said Coney, noting that much of the data was voluntarily supplied by voters, something that consumers are often reluctant to do when dealing with commercial companies. “The private sector would love to be able to do what the (Obama) campaign was able to do.”  

    OFA spokeswoman Hogan said that Obama supporters have the option in emails they receive of opting out — or unsubscribing — from the list, as required by federal law. But critics say that is not necessarily an option for information collected about voters through other means (such as public databases) and note that many on the list likely don’t notice the “unsubscribe” fine print on the emails.

    At the same time, OFA’s plans for corporate-backed lobbying of Congress have spurred sharp criticism from campaign reformers — a cause the president once championed. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a leading reform group, called OFA “dangerous and unprecedented,” noting that it has been set up under the same section of the tax code used by controversial GOP advocacy groups, such as Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS (as a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” nonprofit organization). This will allow the group to accept unlimited donations from wealthy individuals and corporations.

    “With his decision to allow corporations to fund the new organizations that will operate as an arm of his presidency, President Obama has ‘given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money,’” said Wertheimer in a statement that quoted Obama’s own words two years ago to denounce the Citizens United Supreme Court decision striking down  many campaign finance limits. “This would take President Obama about as far away as he could possibly get from the goal he set in 2008 to change the way business is done in Washington.” 

    Related: Nonprofit spends big on politics despite IRS limitation

    In response to a request for comment, a White House spokesman emailed recent comments by top Obama political adviser David Plouffe to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos: “Yes, we will voluntarily disclose all of our donors,” Plouffe said. “And we're very excited. The people who actually made the president's campaign in both '08 and '12, our great grassroots volunteers, were pretty clear after the election they wanted to stay with it and they want to be out there organizing, driving message, holding people accountable on issues like immigration, you know, the deficit and jobs, gun safety.”

    But how much the group will disclose about the source of its money is still unclear. There is no legal requirement for a 501(c)(4) group like OFA to do so. Hogan, the OFA spokeswoman, declined to say how often the group will make disclosures or whether it will report amounts that donors give or simply provide a list of contributors. (Such a list -- without amounts detailed -- was recently released by the Presidential Inaugural Committee.) “That’s still being worked out,” she said.

    As if to underscore the role of major corporations in helping to underwrite OFA, the unveiling of the group came at a special invitation-only event on inaugural weekend at the Newseum, sponsored by Business Forward, a corporate-backed trade group close to the White House, according to a Politico account. Business Forward -- whose charter members include Citi, Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Ford, Google and Comcast, majority-owner of NBCUniversal, parent company of NBC News -- had lobbied for the White House-backed fiscal cliff deal, specifically touting its tax breaks for businesses, such as write-offs for new capital investment and research and development credits, according to a statement on the group’s website.

    “We need you. This president needs you,” Messina said at the launch event, according to the Politico account, adding that the national advisory board of OFA will be “filled with people in this room.”  

    One corporate executive who attended the event told NBC News the roll out -- which featured a spirited talk by former President Bill Clinton on gun control -- drew numerous major Obama campaign bundlers and fundraisers, such as Obama campaign finance chairman Mathew Barzun (now reportedly a front-runner to be tapped for ambassador to the Court of St. James) and finance director Rufus Gifford.

    “My takeaway from this was that they set this up to take advantage of the Citizens United decision and operate this outside the Democratic National Committee so they won’t have to file (election) reports,” said the executive, who asked not to be identified.

    Hogan, the OFA spokeswoman, said that OFA will not run campaign ads — only “issue” ads that do not fall under the election laws.

    But the underlying political purpose of the group is not disputed. “The way it’s organized, we legally can’t participate in elections,” Stephanie Cutter, a top Obama campaign official who now serves on the board of OFA, said at a recent Politico-sponsored inaugural event. “But that doesn’t mean the issues we’re organizing around won’t mobilize the American people to vote for things — to vote for that economy we’ve been working for, to vote for immigration reform, to vote for common sense gun reforms. I think we can affect elections, we just can’t legally be involved in them — for this particular organization.”

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  • Citizen United ruling opened door to $933 million in new election spending

    Shawn Thew / EPA

    Occupy D.C. protesters link arms on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 20, 2012, during protest on the two-year anniversary of the high court's Citizens United ruling.

    By Reity O’Brien and Andrea Fuller, The Center for Public Integrity

    The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision unleashed nearly $1 billion in new political spending in the 2012 election, with media outlets and a small number of political consulting firms raking in the bulk of the proceeds.

    Spending records released by the Federal Election Commission show that throughout the 2012 election, corporations, unions and individuals that could take advantage of the high court’s ruling were responsible for about $933 million of the estimated $6 billion spent during the contest.

    Nearly two-thirds of the new money — about $611 million — went to 10 political consulting firms, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis. All but one of the top 10 recipients bought advertising in various media markets on behalf of super PACs and nonprofits. Eighty-nine percent of the expenditures made to the top 10 went to spots attacking candidates, the data show.

    “For some in the industry, it has been a definite boon,” said Dale Emmons, president of the American Association of Political Consultants. “This election appears to have set a new benchmark on the amount of money that could be spent, because there were no limits on what could be spent.”

    The 2010 Citizens United decision and a lower-court ruling allowed unlimited donations to super PACs and nonprofits, independent groups that used the funds primarily to fund ad campaigns.

    Media buyers keep only a fraction of the total spending — usually 15 percent, according to Federal Communications Commission records, with the rest going to media outlets.

    The winners
    The top recipient of independent spending among media buyers was Mentzer Media Services, the Towson, Md.-based media placement firm run by longtime GOP consultant Bruce Mentzer.

    Mentzer attracted nearly $204 million from conservative super PACs and other outside groups. In a tough year for Republicans, only 26 percent of the candidates who were supposed to benefit from the ads won their races, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis.

    The firm was the preferred vendor for the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future, which paid Mentzer nearly $132 million to purchase air time in presidential battleground states.

    A Mentzer employee who answered the phone declined to comment on the firm’s involvement in the 2012 election.

    Second was Crossroads Media, which was paid about $163 million to buy media time for conservative super PACs and nonprofits in 2012. The firm is run by Michael Dubke, the former president of Americans for Job Security — a pro-Republican nonprofit and one of Crossroads’ top clients.

    Waterfront Strategies, which worked for Democratic groups, ranked third, at $81 million.

    Democratic-aligned Mundy Katowitz Media, fourth on the list, was the preferred vendor for the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action, placing more than $57 million in television ads for the group.

    American Media & Advocacy Group, a favorite of conservative groups, ranked No. 5 at $27 million.

    Target Enterprises — a Los Angeles-based media buyer for conservative super PACs — was paid $17 million, ranking it No. 6. The firm had a dismal success rate, coming in dead last among firms catering to super PACs and nonprofits. Seven percent of its preferred candidates won on Nov. 6.

    A woman who answered the phone at Target Enterprises Tuesday said both principals of the company were “mid-flight” and unavailable for comment.

    The Center analyzed FEC data compiled by the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics. The $933 million in spending came from super PACs, nonprofits and, to a lesser extent, “527” organizations that were the favorite independent spending vehicle in past elections.

    FEC coordination law a ‘joke’
    The Citizens United decision opened a huge new potential market for consultants, but there was a catch. Consultants who work for candidates — but also work for “independent” groups that support those same candidates — have to be careful.

    The high court’s decision did not affect the ban on donations to candidates from corporations and unions, nor did it affect contribution limits from individuals. Instead, it focused on spending by independent groups, unaffiliated with candidates.

    As long as super PACs act independently of the candidate, there is no danger of corruption, the high court reasoned.

    But sometimes the separation between the campaign and the like-minded super PAC or nonprofit can be hard to discern.

    Waterfront Strategies, for example, in its FEC filings lists the same address as GMMB — a well-known Democratic media consulting firm and the preferred vendor for President Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns.

    Waterfront was the beneficiary of $81 million paid by some of the biggest Democratic outside spending groups — including Majority PAC, a super PAC backing Democrats running for Senate, and the League of Conservation Voters.

    The Huffington Post reported that Waterfront is an internal branch of GMMB. It was incorporated in Delaware, and its president is listed as Raelynn Olson, GMMB's managing partner.

    Both Waterfront and its parent company, GMMB, worked to elect Democrat Richard Carmona in his unsuccessful bid for Arizona’s open U.S. Senate seat. Majority PAC hired Waterfront to purchase airtime for ads supporting Carmona and attacking his Republican opponent, then-Rep. and now Sen. Jeff Flake. Carmona’s campaign hired GMMB for its ad buys in the same race.

    One Majority PAC ad used the same childhood photo of Carmona that was featured in an official Carmona campaign ad.

    GMMB did not reply to requests for comment.

    Setting up spinoffs is more about “optics” than skirting coordination rules, said Paul S. Ryan, senior counsel for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.

    Under current law, as long as a firm assigns each client separate consultants — and those two don’t coordinate their activities — that constitutes a satisfactory firewall, according to Ryan.

    “That’s a pretty ridiculous and modest constraint on campaign coordination,” Ryan said.

    Texas two-step
    American Media & Advocacy, which also has no website, received nearly $27 million to buy media for super PACs and other outside groups.

    The organization worked for the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC that paid for ads attacking Pete Gallego, a Democrat who defeated Republican Francisco Canseco in the race for U.S. House of Representatives in Texas’ 23rd District. The firm also worked for Canseco’s campaign.

    Records show that at least one of American Media’s buyers purchased media in the San Antonio market for both the Congressional Leadership Fund and the Canseco campaign.

    Records show that American Media shares an Alexandria address with the high-profile, bipartisan consulting group Purple Strategies. Purple Strategies failed to respond to the Center’s repeated inquiries about any affiliation that it might have with American Media & Advocacy Group.

    American Media and Advocacy is “well aware of the FEC coordination rules, including the common vendor rules,” said Jim Kahl, the group’s attorney, “and they have procedures in place to comply with them.”

    In Ohio, American Media & Advocacy Group was paid by the Congressional Leadership Fund to purchase ads slamming Democrat Betty Sutton in the House race for District 16. American Media was also working for Sutton’s Republican opponent, Rep. Jim Renacci.

    The same person was listed in records as buying media in the Cleveland market — at the same TV station in at least one case — for both the Renacci campaign and the Congressional Leadership Fund.

    Candidates and super PACs can avoid charges of coordination altogether by sending up smoke signals in cyberspace.

    For example, one of Target Enterprise’s top clients was Freedom PAC, a super PAC that paid the firm nearly $3.4 million for ad buys supporting Rep. Connie Mack, the unsuccessful Republican candidate in the Florida Senate race.

    Freedom PAC released an ad containing some of the same footage that was on the Mack campaign’s YouTube channel.

    Under FEC coordination rules, campaign committees and the outside groups that boost their candidates may share material as long as it is publicly available.

    The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit independent investigative news outlet. To read more of its stories on this topic go to publicintegrity.org

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  • How outside money was poured into governors' races

    By Paul Abowd and Andrea Fuller
    The Center for Public Integrity

    Despite outraising its Democratic counterpart by a 2-to-1 margin, the Republican Governors Association won only four of 11 races in the 2012 election, a far cry from the success it enjoyed two years ago.

    The Washington D.C.-based political organization raised almost $100 million, according to recently released Internal Revenue Service data. The group targeted six states it considered winnable, losing five of them. Democrats won seven of the 11 contests, but the GOP managed to pick up one seat in North Carolina, long held by Democrats.

    The top donors to the so-called “527” organization, which can accept unlimited contributions from billionaires, corporations and unions, are familiar Republican Party patrons — No. 1 is Bob Perry, a Texas homebuilder and perennial RGA supporter, who gave $3.25 million. That’s a little more than half of what he gave in 2010.

    Billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is No. 2, with $3 million in donations between him and his wife. According to the latest Federal Election Commission reports, Adelson is the top donor to super PACs in 2012, doling out more than $93 million along with his family.

    Conservative billionaire David Koch — who has not made any contributions to super PACs — was the organization’s third-highest donor, writing two checks totaling $2 million. Koch is co-owner of the second-largest privately held company in America, Koch Industries, an energy conglomerate.

    Seven of the RGA’s top 10 donors are corporate executives who gave at least $1 million. Two of them, Paul Singer and Kenneth Griffin, are hedge fund managers.

    Six of the Democratic Governors Association's top donors were unions. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees topped the DGA donors list, giving about $1.3 million. The Service Employees International Union gave about $1.1 million, while the American Federation of Teachers gave at least $772,000.

    Top corporate donors to the DGA included pharmaceutical giants Pfizer, which gave almost $700,000, and AstraZeneca, which contributed nearly $600,000. The companies also gave comparable sums to the RGA. The DGA also got corporate support from health insurer United Healthcare Services Inc., and AT&T.

    The DGA raised nearly $50 million, the organization's "strongest fundraising year ever," according to spokeswoman Kate Hansen. 

    'Enormous impact on state elections'
    The DGA and RGA have devised national strategies for collecting unlimited funds from unions, corporations, and wealthy individuals, and funneling the money into state races. Both have used networks of state-based PACs to maneuver around various state limits on campaign giving.

    “They’ve had an enormous impact on state elections across the nation,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an election law expert at Stetson Law School. “In many states they were consistently a top spender.”

    The circuitous methods used by both organizations to inject corporate and union cash into state races and mask the identity of its donors have raised legal questions, prompted lawsuits, and tested the capacity of state election boards to enforce limits on outside spending.

    Both organizations have told the Center for Public Integrity that they fully comply with campaign finance laws, and that they report their donors and spending to the IRS.

    The RGA set up a federal super PAC called RGA Right Direction, and fed it with $9.8 million in contributions. The super PAC — another type of organization that can accept unlimited donations from individuals and corporations — then made a large contribution to Indiana Republican candidate Mike Pence, and bought ads in tight state races in Montana, Washington, New Hampshire, and West Virginia.

    Super PACs are normally used to spend money on federal campaigns. By passing the funds through the super PAC, which reported its sole donor as the RGA, the association effectively shielded the identities of the donors who paid for ads in the state races.

    In North Carolina, the RGA spent millions of dollars, directly from corporate treasuries to win in a state long led by Democratic governors. The unlimited contributions from dozens of corporations across the country went toward ads supporting Republican candidate Pat McCrory, who won convincingly over Democratic Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton.

    The DGA, too, used a network of state-affiliated PACs, to fund ad campaigns in battleground states like Montana and North Carolina. It was the primary funder of a PAC called North Carolina Citizens for Progress, which purchased ads attacking McCrory.

    While America’s wealthiest corporate executives tend to prefer the RGA, and unions give almost exclusively to the DGA, some donors played both sides this election.

    Agricultural giant Monsanto, credit card company Visa and health insurance company Humana were large donors to both the RGA and DGA — each giving about $100,000 to both groups.

    Despite the Republicans' win-loss record, RGA spokesman Michael Schrimpf called 2012 "a successful year by any standard" with Republicans now in control of governorships in 30 states. Most of those gains, however, came in 2010. The North Carolina win and the failed effort to recall Scott Walker, Wisconsin's Republican governor, in June, were high points for the GOP this year.

    In addition, in five states targeted by the RGA where it lost, the Democrats held advantages unrelated to fundraising. 

    Missouri and West Virginia featured Democratic incumbents. Three other states — Montana, Washington and New Hampshire — had open seats where a Democrat had previously been in power.

    The two organizations will put their fundraising powers to the test again in 2013, when Virginia and New Jersey choose their next governors.

    Michael Beckel contributed to this report.

    The Center for Public Integrity is a non-profit independent investigative news outlet.  For more of its stories go to publicintegrity.org

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  • Adelson, other big super PAC donors continued spending in race's final days

    Nicholas Kamm / AFP - Getty Images

    Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson continued to pour money into the 2012 campaign right up until the last minute, new campaign records show.

    By Michael Beckel
    The Center for Public Integrity

    Billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson gave $1 million to a super PAC active in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race during the campaign’s final days, a fact unknown to voters until long after polls closed.

    Adelson supplied the bulk of funding for the “Hardworking Americans Committee” with the Oct. 19 donation, Federal Election Commission records show.

    The super PAC spent more than $1 million on ads in a futile, last-minute attempt to boost former Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra in his bid to oust incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Democrat.

    Liberal super PACs spent little – just $1,700 -- attacking Hoekstra,  according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

    The deadline for reporting donations made since Oct. 17 was Thursday.

    Last-minute contributions are not unusual in politics, but thanks to the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and a lower court ruling, the amount a donor can give to outside groups’ electoral efforts is unlimited. Furthermore, donations to political action committees during the final three weeks of the election need not be reported until December.

    The reporting gap should be closed, say watchdogs.

    “Congress should amend our disclosure laws to give voters the information they need to make informed decisions on Election Day,” said Paul S. Ryan, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center. “With current technology, disclosure is easier than ever for super PACs and other political players.”

    Adelson, the top donor to super PACs in the 2012 election by a large margin, along with wife Miriam, also provided all $2 million of Republican Jewish Coalition Victory Fund’s war chest. The super PAC, which did not report any receipts before Election Day, pumped more than $1.7 million into advertising opposing President Barack Obama.

    The Republican Jewish Coalition is a lobbying organization that seeks to “foster and enhance ties between the American Jewish community and Republican decision makers,” according to its website. It was started in 1985 and Adelson serves on the group’s board of directors

    Similarly, “Freedom Fund North America,” a GOP-aligned super PAC established on Oct. 15, spent $990,000 in the final weeks of the 2012 race, mostly attacking incumbent Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and former North Dakota Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp.

    Both Democrats prevailed in their hotly contested races.

    Adelson did not return a call seeking comment.

    The entirety of Freedom Fund's $1 million budget came from Texas businessman and Republican mega-donor Bob Perry, according to FEC reports.

    New records further show that billionaire New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg provided nearly $10 million to the “Independence USA PAC,” whose priorities include gun control, marriage equality for same-sex couples and education issues. It was launched on Oct. 18 and reported spending $8.2 million on five House races.

    Two of its favored candidates — Democrat Gloria McLeod of California and Democrat Dan Maffei of California — won.

    Super PACs can accept donations of unlimited amounts from corporations, unions and individuals.

    FEC Vice Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub, a Democrat, stressed the importance of people having such information before they cast their votes.

    “I always think the public benefits from and is entitled to transparency about the sources of political funds,” she said. “As the Supreme Court said in Citizens United, ‘The public has an interest in knowing who is speaking about a candidate shortly before an election.’”

    Republican attorney Brad Smith, a former FEC chairman who founded the Center for Competitive Politics, however, argues that the lack of disclosure of last-minute super PAC donations is not a "real catastrophe or something that is harmful to the election process."

    The government's interest in “preventing corruption or its appearance” is served just as well "if information is released afterward," he said.

    The only other large contributions that went to the anti-Stabenow super PAC came from Amway President Doug DeVos and Michael Jandernoa, former president and CEO of pharmaceutical company Perrigo, who each donated $100,000 to the group in October.

    Ads from the super PAC accused her of dodging taxes on her “ritzy Washington, D.C., home,” voting for tax increases and “failing Michigan for years.”

    Despite the spending, Stabenow easily captured nearly 60 percent of the vote. Yet the last-minute deluge earned ire from her campaign.

    “The fact that secret money can be dumped into races like this, with no one knowing where the money came from until a month after the election, is awful for our democracy,”  said Stabenow spokesman Cullen Schwarz.

    Hoekstra did not return a call seeking comment about the super PAC spending on his behalf.

    The Center for Public integrity is a non-profit, independent investigative news outlet.  To read more of its stories go to publicintegrity.org.

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  • See which industries funneled the most cash into presidential race

    Charles Dharapak / AP

    Casino owner Sheldon Adelson attends a Mitt Romney fundraising event at the Red Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on Sept. 21.

    By Rachel Marcus and Andrea Fuller, The Center for Public Integrity

    Despite his vast wealth, Sheldon Adelson was not exactly a household name when the Republican presidential primary campaign got under way. But the casino magnate’s multimillion-dollar contributions to a pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC ended that.

    Adelson’s support was linked to a shared stance with Gingrich as staunch supporters of Israel. Not quite so well publicized was Adelson’s financial stake in who wins the presidency.

    A second Obama term, thanks to the incumbent’s proposed tax policies — could cost Adelson billions if he brought home profits earned at his overseas casinos, according to tax experts.

    Since Gingrich flamed out in the primaries, Adelson and his wife Miriam have shifted their allegiance to GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, giving the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future $20 million.

    With Romney as president, Adelson, the billionaire chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., could bring his profits home tax-free.

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    The Las Vegas Sands’ overseas operations account for 86 percent of its revenue from casinos, hotels and shopping, according to its 2011 annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Sands’ most lucrative holdings are in Macau, a special administrative region in China.

    Super PACs like Restore Our Future can accept unlimited contributions from billionaires, corporations and unions and spend the money on ads helping their favorite candidates, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.

    Adelson and family’s nearly $54 million in contributions through Oct. 17 to conservative super PACs  puts the gambling industry at second place among super PAC donors’ corporate interests, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis of data from the Center for Responsive Politics and the Federal Election Commission.

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    Reuters, Getty Images

    In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

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    With no limits on giving, economic analysis of donations to super PACs are more about a few wealthy individuals’ interests than fulfilling an industry’s legislative goals.

    Adelson and family are responsible for more than 98 percent of all casino industry contributions to super PACs — or $53.7 million out of $54.6 million — but his legislative agenda does not necessarily reflect that of the American Gaming Association, which lists as major issues online gambling and visa reform to allow more high rollers to come to American casinos.

    Finance industry tops list
    The top industry-donor to super PACs in the 2012 election cycle by far has been securities and investments at roughly $94 million, according to records.


    The list of donors is dominated by a relatively small number of extremely wealthy hedge fund and private equity millionaires and billionaires. The top 10 individual donors to this industry are responsible for almost half of its super PAC contributions. Twenty-one people and two corporations have given $1 million or more.

    The average itemized individual contribution to all super PACs is a little more than $23,000, according to the Center’s analysis. The average contribution to a super PAC from the investment industry is more than $96,000.

    The third-leading industry-donor, chemicals and related manufacturing, accounts for $31 million of all super PAC contributions, and almost $27 million comes from Harold Simmons, his wife Annette and his company. Contran Corp. controls several subsidiaries involved in chemical manufacturing, waste disposal and other businesses.

    Topping Simmons’ agenda is minimizing the regulatory reach of government, according to an interview he gave to The Wall Street Journal in March. Many of Contran’s subsidiaries are subject to environmental regulations that cut into profits.

    The fourth-leading donor by industry is real estate at about $23 million thanks to seven-figure donations from the National Association of Realtors and Harlan Crow and Crow Holdings. The NAR favors access to credit and tax breaks so more people can afford to buy homes.

    Election's enigmatic biggest corporate donor has contributed $5.3 million

    Fifth is the homebuilding industry with about $22 million, again a category dominated by a single wealthy individual — Texan Bob Perry. He has given $21.5 million to conservative super PACs to date.

    Perry is perhaps best known for financing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads during the 2004 election that helped sink John Kerry’s presidential campaign, but he has been a major donor to Texas political campaigns since the 1980s. He favors limiting damages a jury can award plaintiffs in civil suits.

    Romney is ‘one of them’
    The largest donors from the investment industry are not investment banks but an exclusive sub-group known as “alternative investing” — hedge funds and private equity firms.

    Among the 26 donors to Restore Our Future who have given $1 million or more, 11 are in the hedge fund or private equity business.

    Among the alternative investment industry’s top donors are Robert Mercer, a co-CEO of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, who gave $1 million to Restore Our Future and $600,000 to Club for Growth Action, which favors eliminating the capital gains tax.

    Full election coverage on NBCPolitics.com

    Other top donors include TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who now runs an investment firm, Paul Singer of Elliott Management, Wyoming investor Foster Friess and John Childs, chairman and CEO of a private equity firm.

    Eighty percent of super PAC contributions from the investment community have gone to conservative super PACs, according to the Center's analysis.

    James Simons, the founder of Renaissance Technologies, and George Soros*, the chairman of the hedge fund Soros Fund Management, have given a combined $10.1 million to pro-Obama and pro-Democratic super PACs.

    Romney himself was a private equity man in his days at Bain Capital, which he co-founded.

    “They view (Romney) as one of them,” said David Kautter, the director of the Kogod Tax Center at American University. “They tend to view him as someone who accumulated substantial wealth doing what they do, someone who understands what they do and someone who believes that what they do provides substantial value to the economy.”

    Romney has said he would maintain, lower or eliminate the capital gains rate at various points during the race. Low rates benefit hedge fund and private equity managers, whose compensation comes primarily from investment returns.

    Obama supports treating this type of compensation as regular income and subject to income tax rates up to 39.6 percent. In addition, Obama advocates raising the capital gains rate to 20 percent.

    Adelson’s gamble on Romney
    Romney was not Adelson’s top choice. Adelson invested $16.5 million in former House Speaker Gingrich via Winning Our Future, the primary pro-Gingrich super PAC, before the candidate dropped out May 2.

    Now the top supporter of Restore Our Future, Adelson has said he is willing to spend $100 million electing Romney and a Republican Congress. The spending has made him newsworthy.

    Adelson’s steadfast and occasionally controversial positions on Israel’s national security have also increased his profile in the national media and provided fodder for the opposition.

    President Obama and Mitt Romney's travel schedules reveal the states that would help them attain the necessary amount of electoral votes to take the White House. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.

    He opposes a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, once calling it a “stepping stone for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.”

    He was also once one of the biggest backers of AIPAC — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. But Adelson broke off relations with the group in 2007, when it supported increasing U.S. economic aid to Palestinians.

    Adelson shifted his financial support to the Republican Jewish Coalition, where he sits on the board. The politically active nonprofit has reported spending $4.6 million on ads attacking Obama.

    In an op-ed for the JNS News Service, Adelson wrote that American Jews should not trust Obama when it comes to Israel.

    “For Obama, the issue is only political; for Israel, it’s existential — a matter of survival,” he wrote.

    On paper, both Obama and Romney have similar positions on Israel — they both are committed to having a “special relationship” with the nation.

    “Where they differ is in the way the current president perceives Israel,” said Aaron David Miller, an Israel expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center. “Israel is more of a matter of national security interest than it is a values argument.”

    While Romney has a more “spontaneous, emotional instinct” to identify with Israel, Miller said, Obama seems less emotionally connected.

    “In part it’s a generational thing,” Miller said — Obama came of age after the Israeli occupation. “And in part it’s a matter of temperament.”

    Idealism or self-interest?
    It is impossible to say for certain whether Adelson’s support of Romney is based on idealism or self-interest or both. Adelson’s spokesman refused to comment for this report.

    Romney’s tax policies and Adelson’s financial interests are aligned, especially when it comes to tax treatment of overseas profits.

    The Romney-backed “territorial tax system” would allow the Sands to bring its future foreign profits back to the U.S. free from U.S. income tax. Romney’s plan also calls for a “tax holiday” that would allow American companies with profits stashed abroad to repatriate them tax-free.

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    A 2004 tax holiday resulted in the repatriation of one-third of all offshore earnings, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.

    Experts predict a territorial system would have a similar effect.

    “I think it is very likely that more foreign earnings will end up back in the U.S. than we would have under the current worldwide system,” said Kautter.

    Obama opposes the territorial tax system and has proposed a minimum tax for multinational corporations’ overseas earnings.

    Under the current system, American companies that have operations abroad pay income tax to the country in which they earn the money then pay U.S. income tax when they bring profits home. Income taxes paid to the foreign government are deducted from the U.S. income tax when the money is repatriated; earnings left abroad are not subject to U.S. taxes.

    Will McBride, the chief economist at the conservative Tax Foundation, calls the U.S. income tax on foreign profits a “repatriation tax.”

    “Naturally that discourages business from bringing that money back home,” he said.

    Obama and others argue that a territorial tax system would encourage American businesses to move overseas.

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    The Sands holds $5.6 billion in in overseas profits, according to its 2011 annual report. Under Romney’s policy, Adelson and his company could repatriate it all for free.

    The tax holiday combined with a switch to a territorial tax system would potentially provide a $1.8 billion tax break to the Sands the first year, according to a study from a liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress.

    Adelson himself, as majority owner, stands to benefit.

    “By a reasonable but conservative estimate, the tax cut he stands to get from Romney’s tax policies over a four-year term would be well over $2 billion,” said Seth Hanlon, the author of the study. “When you consider he’s going to spend $100 million on the presidential race, the return on investment is more than 2000 percent.”

    *George Soros is the chairman of the Open Society Foundation, which provides funding for the Center for Public Integrity. For a list of Center donors, visit the website.

    The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit, independent investigative news outlet.  For more of its stories go to publicintegrity.org.

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  • Election's enigmatic biggest corporate donor has contributed $5.3 million

    In the campaign's closing weekend, President Obama and Governor raced across several battleground states to rally supporters as voters get ready to head to the polls in less than 24 hours. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.

    By Michael Beckel and Reity O’Brien, The Center for Public Integrity

    Updated 5:20 p.m. ET -- The biggest corporate contributor in the 2012 election so far doesn’t appear to make anything — other than very large contributions to a conservative super PAC.

    Specialty Group Inc., of Knoxville, Tenn., donated nearly $5.3 million between Oct. 1 and Oct. 11 to FreedomWorks for America, which is affiliated with former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

    FreedomWorks’ super PAC has spent more than $19 million on political advertising, including $1.7 million on Oct. 29 opposing Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat running for Congress in Illinois against Tea Party favorite Joe Walsh, a first-term incumbent.

    The buy was more than four times greater than the group’s previous largest single expenditure.

    Specialty was formed only a month ago. Its “principal office” is a private home in Knoxville. It has no website. And the only name associated with it is that of its registered agent, William S. Rose Jr., a lawyer whose phone number, listed in a legal directory, is disconnected.

    Rose released a press release Monday saying the company was created to "buy, sell, develop and invest in a variety of real estate ventures and investments." 

    In the six-page statement, Rose said he was a "disappointed, yet staunchly patriotic, baby boomer" with concerns about the administration's handling of the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, as well as the Department of Justice's botched "Operation Fast and Furious" gun-walking program. 

    Specialty is the biggest and most mysterious corporate donor to super PACs, but it is not unique.

    A new analysis by the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics shows that companies have contributed roughly $75 million to super PACs in the 2012 election cycle.

    Super PACs, which were created in the wake of the controversial U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, can accept donations of unlimited size from corporations, unions and individuals. They spend the funds mostly on negative advertising.

    The centers’ analysis found that 85 percent of money from companies flowed to GOP-aligned groups, 11 percent went to Democratic groups and the remainder went to organizations not aligned with either party.

    First Read: Full coverage on the campaign trail

    Prior to Citizens United, corporate spending on candidate advertising was not allowed. The decision raised fears that massive donations from corporate treasuries would flood the election in 2012.

    In fact, the largest amounts have come from wealthy businessmen. However, about 11 percent of the $660 million raised by all super PACs through mid-October has come from company treasuries — mostly privately held businesses, sometimes organized as limited partnerships or limited liability companies.

    High-profile donors
    Yet a few high-profile companies haven’t been afraid to jump into the partisan fray.

    In mid-October, oil and gas giant Chevron donated $2.5 million to a super PAC close to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the Congressional Leadership Fund, which has aired a bevy of ads attacking Democratic House candidates.

    Oxbow Carbon, the energy company owned by billionaire William Koch, the lesser-known brother of conservative industrialists David and Charles Koch, and Contran Corp., the business of Republican super donor Harold Simmons of Texas, have both steered significant sums to the coffers of super PACs.

    With polls showing a neck-and-neck presidential race, NBC's Chuck Todd runs through some potential paths to presidential victory, including how it might go if President Obama won the Electoral College vote and Governor Romney won the popular vote.

    Oxbow Carbon has donated $4.25 million to GOP super PACs, making it the No. 2 corporate donor to super PACs, while Contran, No. 3, has donated more than $3 million to Republican-aligned groups.

    Another top corporate donor is a retirement community in central Florida known as The Villages — a Republican stronghold where Paul Ryan held his first campaign rally the day after GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney named him as his running mate.

    Developer H. Gary Morse created The Villages more than 50 years ago, and this election cycle, more than a dozen companies connected to Morse and The Villages have collectively steered $1.6 million to GOP super PACs. That’s in addition to the $450,000 that Morse and his wife, Renee, have donated from their personal funds.

    Notably, Morse is also the Florida co-chairman of the Romney campaign, and during the Republican National Convention, Morse’s Cayman Island-flagged yacht, named “Cracker Bay,” was the site of a soiree for some of Romney’s top donors and fundraisers.

    Other high-profile corporate donors include:

    • The Apollo Group, a for-profit education company, which gave $75,000 to the pro-Romney Restore Our Future and another $5,000 to JAN PAC, the super PAC of Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer;
    • Convenience store giant 7-Eleven, which donated $25,000 to Hoosiers for Jobs, a super PAC that supported Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., during his failed primary campaign;
    • Hamburger chain White Castle, which gave $25,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund;
    • Defense contractor B/E Aerospace, which gave $50,000 to Restore Our Future;
    • Payday lender QC Holdings, which gave $25,000 to Restore Our Future; and
    • Weaver Holdings, the parent company of the Indiana-popcorn company known for its brands “Pop Weaver” and “Trail’s End,” sold by Boy Scouts across the country, which has donated $2.4 million to American Crossroads, the super PAC founded by GOP strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie.

    Only a few other Fortune 500 companies have joined Chevron, which ranks third on the elite list behind only Exxon Mobil and Walmart, in making contributions to super PACs, and none has given as much as the energy giant.

    Caesar’s Entertainment Corp., for instance, ranked by Fortune at No. 288, has given $150,000 to Majority PAC, a group that is spending to help Democrats retain the majority in the U.S. Senate.

    “Fortune 500 companies are the least likely to be the ones who will be out in front giving publicly,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California-Irvine. “They want to have influence over elections and elected officials, but they don't want to alienate customers.”

    By category, companies in the finance, insurance and real estate sector donated more than $15 million, “general business sector” firms gave about $14 million and energy sector companies contributed more than $11 million, according to the analysis.

    Unions, by contrast, have donated about $60 million to super PACs, from their treasuries or political action committees.

    The top union donors include the National Education Association ($9 million), the United Auto Workers ($8.6 million) and the AFL-CIO ($6.4 million). All of these groups have spent heavily on Democratic candidates.

    Money 'hiding in plain sight'
    Additional corporate money may be flowing through politically active nonprofits that don’t disclose their funders.

    “I strongly suspect that most of the corporate money is hiding in plain sight in trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor at the Stetson University College of Law.

    For its part, the Chamber — which collects dues from companies such as Aetna, Chevron, Dow Chemical and Microsoft — has reported spending more than $35 million on political ads, which have overwhelmingly favored Republican politicians.

    Facts about Specialty Group Inc. are scant.

    Records filed with the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office show it registered on Sept. 26, listing 61-year-old attorney William S. Rose, Jr., as its agent. Rose’s $634,000 home — about a 30-minute drive from downtown Knoxville — is listed as its “principal office.”

    Yet the company’s money has made a huge impact.

    TODAY's Matt Lauer speaks with Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen and Republican strategist  Mike Murphy on Ohio's influence on the presidential race. They also offer opinions on what each candidate can do to seal the deal.

    After the cash infusion from Specialty, FreedomWorks produced numerous advertisements, including one that blasts Duckworth as a crony of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached and sentenced to 14 years in federal prison following a corruption scandal.

    Duckworth is a double amputee and Iraq War veteran. She headed Illinois’ Department of Veteran Affairs and later served in President Barack Obama’s U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

    FreedomWorks’ new ad features grainy footage of Duckworth and audio of her saying, “Gov. Blagojevich has charged me with the mission of taking care of my buddies, and that is what I’m doing.” But it leaves out the fact that when she said “buddies,” she was referring to other veterans and members of the military.

    FreedomWorks for America treasurer and legal counsel Ryan Hecker says the organization only supports candidates who are “ethically right.”

    Anton Becker, Duckworth's campaign press secretary, says it’s conservative outside groups who are peddling "lies."

    When asked for details about Specialty Group and the source of its contributions, Hecker expressed ignorance, and doubted that voters care about where the money came from.

    “We are in compliance with the law, and we are doing what we can to report to the Federal Election Commission,” he said. “If there’s an issue with Specialty, it’s their issue. It’s not our issue.”

    Andrea Fuller of the Center for Public Integrity contributed to this report.

    This story is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics. For up-to-date news on outside spending in the 2012 election, follow our Source2012 Tumblr and the hashtag #Source2012 on Twitter.

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  • Wisconsin objects to Romney training manual urging incognito poll watchers

    By Michael Isikoff
    NBC News

    The Wisconsin agency that oversees elections is objecting to an internal training handbook distributed by Mitt Romney’s campaign that appears to instruct volunteer poll observers in the state to conceal their ties to the GOP candidate when they show up at polling stations on Election Day, a state official tells NBC News.

    "Our plan is to contact the Romney campaign and tell them there are issues" with the material, said Reid Magney, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board, which supervises elections in the state and enforces state election laws.

    Magney said some of the training material -- obtained by the liberal Democratic blog Think Progress and posted on its website on Wednesday is either incomplete or misleading. The directive to observers, not to mention their connections to the Romney campaign, also conflicts with official Wisconsin Government Accountability Board guidance to all poll observers,  publicly posted on the agency's website, instructing that they sign in and  identify "the name of the organization or candidate the observer represents," he said. 

    “We stand by our training materials, but we are always happy to answer any questions that the Government Accountability Board may have,” Ryan Williams, a spokesman for the Romney campaign, said in an email to NBC News.

    A campaign official also noted that the Romney campaign has tangled with the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board's interpretation of election law on other matters. Just last week, the Romney campaign settled a lawsuit it filed against the board over military and overseas ballots, resulting in the state extending the deadline for those ballots to be returned. 

    The Romney campaign document, which was specifically prepared for use in Wisconsin, gives detailed instructions to volunteer election observers, calling them "the first line of defense"  to insure a fair election and advising them to be on the lookout for voters who seek to cast ineligible ballots.

    Under a section entitled "If you See Something, Say Something," it tells Romney campaign poll watchers to alert an official  Chief Election Inspector (CEI) at polling booths if they identify a potential voting irregularity. If the CEI does not "resolve it quickly," they should call "the Command Center," it says.

    The training document  appears to instruct observers to hide their  connection to the Romney campaign from the election inspectors at polling booths. While the observers should introduce themselves to the inspectors, they should "sign in as a 'concerned citizen' and obtain a name tag," according to the document, which bears the official insignia of the Romney campaign and is entitled "Volunteer Observer Training."

    The Think Progress blog also posted an audio recording it said it obtained from a Romney campaign training session in which Kristina Sesek, a lawyer for the Wisconsin Republican Party, states:  "We're going to have you sign in this election cycle as a 'concerned citizen.' We've just trying to alleviate some of the  animosity of being a Republican observer up front."

    A senior Romney campaign official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said the directive advising that campaign poll watchers sign in as "concerned citizens" was inserted at the urging of the Wisconsin Republican Party because of recent incidents in which GOP poll watchers faced intimidation or threats at polling stations. The official said the directive was specific to Wisconsin and has not been repeated in Romney campaign  training material for poll watchers in other states.

    But the official defended the language in the Wisconsin campaign document,  saying that signing in as a "concerned citizen" conforms to the "spirit" of Wisconsin law because the training material also instructs them not to interfere or communicate with voters seeking to cast their ballots.

    The Romney campaign training handbook states that "we do not and will not tolerate any voter intimidation or suppression" and "No person should interfere with any indvidual's right to legally cast a ballot."

    "There is nothing to prevent a concerned citizen from signing in as a concerned citizen," said the senior campaign official. "They're not talking to voters, they're not challenging somebody." The apparent conflict between the Romney campaign document and the official Wisconsin Government Accountability Board instructions to poll watchers to identify their campaign ties is a "distinction without a difference," the campaign official added.

    Board spokesman Magney acknowledged the campaign document probably can’t be challenged as a legal matter. The official state guidance -- which explicitly states that poll watchers identify what campaign they are working for -- was issued under an emergency rule issued by the board in 2010. That rule has since expired and the board, swamped with other issues because of this year's Wisconsin recall votes, hasn't had the opportunity to officially renew it. "It fell through the cracks," Magney said.

    But he noted board's website states that it has directed local officials to "continue applying the  emergency rules" governing poll observers from 2010. Therefore, as far as the board is concerned, the directive that poll watchers identify themselves is still in effect, he said. He said this could be an issue in case there are post-election problems or disputes about challenges made by the poll watchers.

    Magney said there were other problems with the training handbook, including its definition of ineligible voters--  whose ballots could be questioned -- as a "person who has been convicted of treason, a felony or bribery." Magney noted that under Wisconsin law, convicted felons who have served their sentences can have their civil rights restored and are eligible to vote.

    The Romney campaign handbook also lists "The ONLY Acceptable Forms of 'Proof of Residency'" for voters -- and then mentions a number of items, such as current and valid drivers’ licenses, photo identification cards from employers, real estate tax bills and college IDs. But Magney said the list is incomplete, failing to mention other forms of proof, including any communication from a government  agency, such as student loan documents or vehicle registration cards.

    In defending the accuracy of the document, the Romney campaign official pointed to other pages of the training document. For example, the official said, on a later page, under a section titled "Cause for Challenge," the handbook instructs poll watchers that they may challenge  a voter if they have knowledge that he or she "is a felon who has not been restored his/her civil rights." And on another page, it states poll watchers looking to check the proof of residency of a voter can accept a "check or other document issued by a unit of government."

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  • Super PACs, nonprofits helped Romney narrow Obama fundraising edge

    By Michael Beckel and Russ Choma
    Center The Center for Public Integrity/The Center for Responsive Politics

    Super PACs and nonprofits unleashed by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision have spent more than $840 million on the 2012 election, with the overwhelming majority favoring Republicans, particularly GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

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    An estimated $577 million, or roughly 69 percent, was spent by conservative groups, compared with $237 million spent by liberal groups, or about 28 percent, with the remainder expended by other organizations.

    Of all outside spending in the 2012 election, more than $450 million was dedicated to the presidential election with more than $350 million spent helping Romney and about $100 million spent to help President Barack Obama.

    The spending helped close the gap on Obama’s considerable fundraising advantage over Romney. As Election Day approaches, Romney and Obama are neck-and-neck in national polls.

    The totals are from a joint analysis of Federal Election Commission data by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public Integrity. The analysis covers the period from Jan. 1, 2011, through Oct. 28, 2012, and does not include independent spending by the political party committees.

    The final tally will be higher as spending continues to accelerate before Election Day.

    Obama's campaign raised more than $632 million in the 2012 election, 62 percent more than Romney's $389 million. Even when including money raised by the Democratic and Republican National Committees, Obama still has an edge of more than $166 million: $924 million for the president’s re-election team vs. $758 million for Romney and the GOP.

    The president’s campaign committee was bankrolled to a great degree by money from grassroots supporters, while Romney relied more heavily on larger donors. Individuals who gave $200 or less accounted for 34 percent of Obama’s war chest. Meanwhile, such small-dollar donors were responsible for only 18 percent of the Romney campaign’s haul.

    The deluge of outside spending was made possible by the 2010 Citizens United decision and a lower court ruling that allowed individuals, labor unions and corporations to give money to outside spending groups — mostly nonprofits and super PACs — to buy advertising attacking or supporting candidates.

    Super PACs were generally backed by super donors. Billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his family, for example, gave $54 million to Republican super PACs as of mid-October, far more than any other donor this election cycle.

    Nonprofit “social welfare” groups and trade associations can raise just as much money, but are not required to report their donors. The lack of transparency sparked legislation to require disclosure, but it was defeated.

    Nonprofits were responsible for more than $245 million, or about 30 percent, of the $840 million in total outside spending. That’s about $100 million more than they spent in 2010.

    Spending surge helps Romney
    During the week of Sept. 30, about $16.5 million was spent by outside groups benefiting Romney, mostly on ads attacking Obama. Three weeks later, the seven-day total jumped to more than $55 million, according to FEC filings.

    Outside spending benefiting Obama over the same period never exceeded $14 million, records show.

    The GOP candidate, facing the Obama fundraising juggernaut, needed the help of outside groups to keep pace.

    The Obama campaign aired nearly three times as many ads as the Romney campaign between late April and late October, according to a recent study by the Wesleyan Media Project.

    Wesleyan found that the 460,500 ads aired by the Obama campaign in the presidential election was more than the Romney campaign, the RNC and seven other Republican-aligned outside spending groups combined — including the top GOP super PACs Restore Our Future and American Crossroads and conservative nonprofits Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity.

    Super PACs in the 2012 election raised about $660 million.

    Restore Our Future alone accounted for about $1 out of every $5 of all super PAC donations received. The pro-Romney group raised more than $130 million, much of which was spent decimating Romney’s rivals during the GOP primaries.

    The Obama-backing Priorities USA Action, by contrast, raised $64 million.

    In 2010, during their first year of existence, all super PACs combined raised just $85 million.

    The top 149 individual super PAC donors — each of whom has contributed at least $500,000 — are responsible for $290 million of funds raised.

    And 858 individuals who contributed at least $50,000 to super PACs accounted for nearly 60 percent of all money the groups collected in the 2012 election. The median household income in 2011, by way of comparison, was $50,054, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    Donations from large, publicly traded corporations have been relatively rare, but in the waning weeks of the campaign, oil and gas giant Chevron wrote a $2.5 million check to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC backing Republican candidates that is closely associated with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

    The emergence of super PACs has been heralded by some, such as Republican lawyer Brad Smith, the former chairman of the Federal Election Commission who co-founded the conservative Center for Competitive Politics.

    “(Super PACs) have helped to level the playing field between Romney and Obama, whereas otherwise Obama’s spending advantage would have been substantial,” said Smith. “And in some cases they have raised issues that concern voters that the candidates have chosen to avoid.”

    Others disagree.

    “When elected officials rely on the most-wealthy of wealthy Americans, it means the voices of everyday people lose out,” said Nick Nyhart, president of the advocacy group Public Campaign, which favors publicly financed elections.

    Unlike traditional political action committees, super PACs have no contribution limits and the funds they raise can't be directly donated to candidates. Instead, the money they raise has primarily been used to fund attack ads.

    Prior to Citizens United, groups that wanted to expressly advocate for or against a candidate were limited to receiving no more than $5,000 per donor per calendar year.

    Donations shrouded in secrecy
    As important as super PACs were in the 2012 election, the loosening of political spending rules for non-disclosing, nonprofit organizations was also a key development following the Citizens United decision.

    GOP-aligned nonprofits have outspent their Democratic counterparts by a ratio of more than 8 to 1.

    Notably, this figure represents a conservative tally of nonprofits’ political spending.

    Federal law requires spending to be reported only if a group's advertisements encourage viewers to vote for or against a candidate, or if they mention a candidate shortly before a political convention or election.

    Justice Anthony Kennedy, the author of the Court's Citizens United 5-4 opinion, made a point of saying that disclosure was a key part of the court’s rationale. Disclosure would allow citizens to monitor the new political activity.

    "This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages," he wrote.

    But the tax-exempt groups — some of which clearly exist for no other reason than to elect favored candidates — are spared by Internal Revenue Service and FEC rules from having to publicly reveal their donors.

    Crossroads GPS, co-founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove, claims in press releases to have spent more than $120 million since January 2011, of which only $57 million has been reported to the FEC. At least $12 million has been spent attacking Obama, according to FEC records.

    Voters watching its ads have no idea where the money is coming from. Nor do they know who is funding the work of liberal organizations doing the same thing, albeit with a lot less money.

    Patriot Majority has reported spending $6.5 million on ads, more than half of which has opposed Rep. Dean Heller, the Republican who is running for U.S. Senate in Nevada.

    Not all secret money is coming from nonprofits. Throughout the election season, mystery corporations have popped up, spending huge sums.

    Specialty Group Inc. of Knoxville, Tenn., wrote seven checks totaling $5.2 million to pro-Tea Party super PAC FreedomWorks for America in early October. The corporation was created on Sept. 26. The name and address listed on incorporation records are those of a Knoxville, Tenn., area attorney. His published phone line has been disconnected.

    The source of the funds, as of this writing, is unknown.

    Meanwhile, more than $10 million in funds given to super PACs, which disclose donors regularly, have come from nonprofits, showing that even the groups required to be transparent about their funding sources can still shield the names of donors.

    Going negative

    The explosion in outside spending has coarsened the political debate, flooding the airwaves in Ohio, Florida, Virginia and other battleground states with negative, often inaccurate ads.

    Roughly 80 percent of all spending by both conservative groups and liberal groups has been negative, FEC records indicate.

    Fully 100 percent of the nearly $57 million Priorities USA Action reported spending has been on negative ads.

    The group, which coined the slogan “If Mitt Romney wins, the middle class loses,” linked Romney to the death of a woman who lost her battle with cancer.

    Another of the super PAC’s most memorable ads featured a worker describing how building the stage on which officials announced the plant’s closure, after it was bought by Bain Capital, was like building his “own coffin” and made him “sick.”

    Eighty-eight percent of Restore Our Future's spending went toward negative ads, as did 95 percent of American Crossroads' expenditures.

    Many of these ads have criticized Obama’s handling of the economy, arguing that the country “can’t afford” four more years of Obama’s policies. One spot features a small-business owner saying, “We can’t create more jobs until Obama loses his.”

    Others ads have featured disillusioned Obama supporters from 2008 expressing disappointment with the president.

    The winners in the post-Citizens United campaign finance regime won’t be known for certain until after Election Day. But Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an assistant professor of law at Stetson University's law school who previously worked as an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice, said it won’t be the voters.

    “I fear that we have lost elections on a human scale with post-Citizens United spending by super PACs” and non-disclosing groups, she said. “The losers here are voters who get carpet bombed with political ads full of half-truths and distortions.”

    Researchers Robert Maguire of the Center for Responsive Politics and Alexandra Duszak of the Center for Public Integrity contributed to this report. 

    This story is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics. For up-to-date news on outside spending in the 2012 election, follow our Source2012 Tumblr and the hashtag #Source2012 on Twitter.

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  • The mega donors behind the pro-Obama, Romney Super PACs

    Who are the mega donors giving millions to pro-Obama and pro-Romney Super PACS to help pay for a negative ad blitz in the closing days of the campaign. NBC's National Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff reports on some big donors you've likely never heard of who have some specific agendas. 

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  • Hurricane tort king wires another $1 million to pro-Obama Super PAC

    AP

    Steve Mostyn, 41, a Houston-based personal injury attorney, said he was inspired by President Barack Obama's performance in the Oct. 16 debate to donate another $1 million to a Democratic Super PAC run by former White House aides.

    By Michael Isikoff
    NBC News

    A wealthy Texas trial lawyer -- known as the king of hurricane torts -- wired $1 million to the main Super PAC backing President Barack Obama late last week, solidifying his standing as one of the chief bankrollers of Democratic causes in this year’s election.

    With his latest seven figure donation, Houston personal injury lawyer Steve Mostyn -- an ardent foe of tort reform -- has now contributed $3 million to Priorities USA Action, a Super PAC run by two former White House aides. His latest contribution -- in addition to another $500,000  given by his wife to an allied group -- underscores the heavy reliance of Democratic Super PACs on a small number of mega donors. (Super PACs are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money from corporations, unions and individuals.)  

    Mostyn told NBC News that he agreed to wire the additional $1 million last week after watching the second debate at Hofstra University on Long Island and getting energized by the president’s more forceful performance than during the first debate.

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    “I needed to see some fight,” he said of the president’s performance. He also said he expects the Super PAC to use his cash to help fund more attack ads hammering Republican rival Mitt Romney over his Bain Capital past, portraying him as a heartless executive who destroys jobs rather than creates them. Although Priorities USA Action ads (and Obama campaign ads) hit that theme hard over the summer, now is when “you’re speaking to low-information voters,” Mostyn said.

    New campaign finance reports filed over the weekend show the Obama Super PAC is in relatively good shape to send the message. The group reported that it collected $15.2 million in September – outraising Restore Our Future, the main pro-Romney Super PAC, for the second month in a row. (This figure predates Mostyn’s latest cash infusion.)

    While GOP Super PACs have still outraised and so far outspent their Democratic counterparts, the combined total of $31.4 million raised by Priorities USA and its two allies (Majority PAC and House Majority PAC) shows they are now fully armed to compete against an expected pro-GOP ad blitz in the last two weeks.

    But while the Obama campaign has touted its reliance on small donors, the most striking feature of the latest Democratic Super PAC numbers is the outsized role played by just a handful of super-rich mega donors in funding the group.

    Of the $52 million that Priorities USA Action has raised for the entire election cycle, $19 million (or nearly 40) percent came from just six individuals. Besides Mostyn, these include: Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of Dreamworks Animation, who has given $3 million;  Fred Eychaner, a Chicago based media mogul whose print empire includes the Chicago Reader, who has given $3.5 million;  James  Simons, the hedge fund billionaire founder of Renaissance Technologies, who has given $3.5 million;  Irwin Jacobs, a San Diego billionaire and the founder and former CEO of Qualcomm ($2 million); and  Jon Stryker, a philanthropist and gay rights activist ($2 million.) Other big donations to Priorities USA Action last month included $1 million from director Steven Spielberg, $1 million from famed trial lawyer David Boies (who argued for Al Gore in the 2000 Florida recount case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court) and $300,000 from Sam Walton, the chairman of Walmart.   

    The mega donor phenomenon is hardly unique to the Democrats, of course. These donations still pale next to the $40 million that Las Vegas gambling magnate Sheldon Adelson has funneled this cycle into GOP Super PACs, including $10 million to the pro-Romney Restore Our Future. And the Romney Super PAC reported that Bob Perry, the publicity shy Texas homebuilder best known for helping fund the Swift Boat ads against John Kerry in 2004, gave another $2 million last month, bringing his total donations to $9 million. That means that Perry and Adelson alone have accounted for nearly 20 percent of the Restore Our Future’s total $111 million haul. 

    Twinned with Perry’s cash, the Mostyn donations to Priorities USA Action gives the presidential contest the flavor of a Texas grudge match. The two men have been among the major funders of the years-long fight in Texas over tort reform. Perry (whose home-building company has been hit with massive multimillion-dollar lawsuits brought by trial lawyers) has helped bankroll Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a pro-business group that has fought to rein in lawsuits.  Mostyn, who has specialized in mass class-action lawsuits brought by hurricane victims, has been a major financier of the opposition.

    A past president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, Mostyn has also been a somewhat controversial figure in state legal circles. He’s known as “Hurricane Mostyn” due to the class-action lawsuit he brought against the Texas Wind Insurance Association (TWIA) on behalf of the victims of  Hurricane Ike, which devastated the Texas coast in 2008. The lawsuit, alleging the mishandling of insurance claims, led to a $189 million settlement -- $86 million of which reportedly went in fees to his law firm. That, in turn, triggered an increase in premium payments by the TWIA and calls by Republicans in the state Legislature to curb what were called the association’s “out-of-control legal expenses.”

    Like most big donors, Mostyn tells NBC News that his main concern is good government, not any special benefits he might receive from the White House (such as his private meeting with the president last spring at the W Hotel after he gave his first $2 million to Priorities USA Action.) He said he shares the general liberal distaste for Super PACs, but given the vast amounts flowing into the GOP Super PACs, he was persuaded to contribute to Priorities USA Action by Paul Begala and Bill Burton during a meeting aboard his yacht last spring: “You don’t bring a knife to a gun fight,” he said.

    Michael Isikoff is a national investigative correspondent for NBC News.

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  • Help 'Free the Files' on election TV ad spending

    By Amanda Zamora
    ProPublica

    Outside groups are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on campaign advertisements to influence the coming elections—money that has long been hard to track.

    This summer, the Federal Communications Commission ordered TV stations to pull back the curtain a bit, requiring them to publish online detailed records of political ad buys. Before, these records were only available by visiting stations in person, an issue ProPublica spotlighted in our Free The Files coverage. So far the new rule only covers the top 50 markets, and it's impossible to search these files by candidate or political group—meaning it’s impossible to get a full picture of the spending. 

    We want to change that. That’s where you come in.

    Use the Free the Files widget at right to help detail campaign ad filings in 33 swing markets. To participate, use the drop-down menu to pick a market, click on the “Give me a file!” bar, create a log-in or sign in via Facebook, then pick from a list of recent ad contracts. Fill in the blanks on the form, then click “Submit file,” and you’re done.

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    Every day, we’ll be pulling fresh files from the FCC website, and asking for your help extracting key data points that will help uncover outside spending in the final days of the campaign.

    Every file you help free will be added to our page, so we’ll all be able to get a better picture of the outside groups’ spending.   

    Read ProPublica’s reporting on “dark money” campaign ad spending

    What do we expect to find in the FCC filings? A range of information – from identifying which outside groups are buying ads and where, to finding new groups that enter the fray late in the game, to details on who is behind opaque nonprofits that are playing a larger role in the election. That’s how ProPublica’s Justin Elliott found the players behind the Government Integrity Fund, a little-known nonprofit that has spent big money to unseat Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio. 

    Get started

    We have less than three weeks to go before the election. Log in now to help us start freeing the files!

    You can keep track of our progress by joining our Facebook group – tell us what you’ve learned from the documents, get updates from our reporters, or ask questions about the documents.

    You can also follow #FreetheFiles on Twitter.

    ProPublica is an independent, nonprofit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest.

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