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0 replies. Sorry bro, everyone here is too uneducated to understand why this is outrageous.
http://www.propublica.org/article/fe...tside-spendingFEC Data Show Big Jump in Spending by Super PACs and Outside Groups
(Photo by Robert George Young/Getty Images)
by Marian Wang
ProPublica, Nov. 9, 2011, 2:26 p.m.
As we reported earlier this week, the Federal Election Commission, which regulates the flow of political cash, has been plagued by persistent gridlock on some key areas of campaign finance.
Why’s that important? Because, as we explain, more money is coming in and much of it is flowing in through new and barely regulated groups.
Take a look at these graphs — found in a report [PDF] recently posted by the commission — that shine a spotlight on independent spending, or spending that’s technically not coordinated with candidates and their campaigns:
What’s striking here is that independent spending by “PACs, Groups and Individuals” more than quadrupled. Similar spending by parties stayed roughly the same. The data, compiled by the commission, are just another indication that the significance of traditional party committees is shrinking in the rapidly changing campaign-finance landscape, eclipsed by new groups that can take in unlimited amounts to fund ads. (The other category in the chart, “electioneering communications,” represents what are known as “issue ads” that don’t explicitly endorse or oppose candidates. Spending on those ads stayed at about $80 million, compared to its 2008 level.)
Another FEC graph breaks down spending a little further. Setting aside the party committees that cut back on their independent spending in 2010, it shows that while traditional PACs have increased their independent spending somewhat, a more substantial increase came from other groups and the rise of Super PACs, which started forming in 2010 after several court rulings opened the door to unlimited corporate and union donations.
Super PACs, as we’ve noted, can take unlimited donations so long as they’re not coordinating their spending with campaigns. Though these groups have grown in number and influence since the last election cycle, the FEC has yet to issue any rules that specifically address them and has only issued advisory opinions — which don't have the force of law or regulation — giving guidance on what they’re allowed to do.
Individual donors and other groups — nonprofit 501(c)s ranging from unions to so-called social welfare groups like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS — can also make independent, noncoordinated expenditures. They took full advantage of this last cycle, spending more than $70 million.
Campaign-finance watchers estimate that independent spending in the 2012 cycle will blow away what was seen in 2010, especially since it’s also a presidential election year. If the FEC’s data are any indication, the Super PACs and other nonprofit groups will be the ones to watch.
0 replies. Sorry bro, everyone here is too uneducated to understand why this is outrageous.
And you people think I'm cynical!
Some background about how the VRWC has packed and perverted the legal system to protect and enrich itself, with the insane travesty of a ruling that insults and ridicules Human-Americans' mythical sense of what America is, ie, the Citizens United decision.
Bought Justice and The Supreme Court
http://www.readersupportednews.org/o...6-bought-justi
Anyone who's been watching Colbert Report this season knows plenty about SuperPACs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colbert_Super_PAC
I can't believe anyone would be okay with any of this if they knew about it.
The people that are okay with it are the people who use the system to leverage their interests to the government.
Money is vastly more important to any political cause than is public opinion or voting.
Do Super PACs ever have to report what they've raised and what they are spending?
How are they different in impact that organizations like Move-On?
On September 29, Colbert consulted his lawyer and they set up his own 501(c)(4) organization, similar to American Crossroads.[10] Colbert will serve as president, secretary, and treasurer of his new organization and its stated purpose will be to educate the public.[10] However, the organization may legally donate to his Super PAC, lobby for legislation, and participate in political campaigns and elections, as long as campaigning is not the organization's primary purpose. Colbert's organization may legally accept unlimited funds which may be donated by anonymous donors. Since the Federal Election Commission doesn't require full disclosure, Colbert likens his 501 (c)(4) to a "Campaign finance glory hole": "You stick your money in the hole, the other person accepts your donation, and because it's happening anonymously, no one feels dirty!"
Thanks. I am curious about disclosure mostly because I'm curious how much money Colbert can raise.
I read that already Grey.
The FEC isn't enforcing disclosure requirements even though they were upheld in Citizen's United, so basically, no.
The difference is that now they can spend unlimitedly and (for the most part) without donor disclosure. Like Mark Hanna once said, there are three important things in politics. Money, money and I forget what the third thing is. We no longer have the right to know who's trying to influence elections or to limit that influence.
From second strip was from yesterday's Sunday Comics (ironically the only section of my paper that gets it:
Yeah I already explained that with this quote:
WC just didn't get it.Colbert's organization may legally accept unlimited funds which may be donated by anonymous donors.
Super PAC Man Gobbles Up Regulators’ Time, Patience
In the peculiar post-Citizens United world of political money, Josue Larose has assumed a new alter-ego: Super PAC man.
Since the Supreme Court ruling paved the way for groups to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on behalf of candidates, 240 so-called Super PACs have registered with the Federal Election Commission. Larose -- purported millionaire, alleged economist and general man of mystery -- has formed 60 of them, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group that tracks money in politics.
Among Larose's creations, all registered as Super PACs last month: the Bloomingdale's Department Store Customers Super PAC, the NFL Sport Players Super PAC, the United Nations Diplomats Super PAC, the Yale University Graduates Super PAC, the IRS Employees Super PAC, and the Costco Store Customers Super PAC.
His intentions in manufacturing these committees are unclear. The 30-year-old from Deerfield Beach, Fla., doesn't appear to have raised or spent a single dollar for his federal political committees, at least in the past three years. Larose, who's also won some attention for his Super PACs from the Sunlight Foundation, didn't respond to calls or emails from ProPublica.
But his actions show how easy it is to form Super PACs, which, unlike conventional PACs, can raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals and corporations and make unlimited expenditures on behalf of candidates, as long as they don't donate to candidates directly and don't coordinate with candidates or political parties. Larose's moves also highlight the lack of rules governing Super PACs. The FEC has issued general guidance on how to form a Super PAC, but the six commissioners have so far done little to restrict what a Super PAC can do.
http://www.propublica.org/article/su...-time-patience
http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-...al-110364.htmlThe century-old ban on corporate donations to federal political campaigns should be junked as uncons utional, the Republican National Committee argued in a legal brief filed Tuesday that could lead to new attacks on the GOP as beholden to corporate money.
The GOP brief filed with a federal appeals court contends that the ban which became law back in 1908 violates the First Amendment in light of recent Supreme Court rulings, including the 2010 Citizens United decision which allowed unlimited donations to independent-expenditure groups.
Republican National Committee Chief Counsel John R. Phillippe, Jr., and RNC lawyer Gary Lawkowski contend that the only legitimate rationale for the corporate donation ban now is to prevent an end-run around individual donation limits and that's not an adequate basis to uphold the ban.
"The complete ban both is over-inclusive to this aim and artificially disadvantages political party and candidate committees. It is over-inclusive because it bans all corporate donations without regard to the ability of corporate donors to attribute their donations to individuals. It artificially disadvantages political party and candidate committees by forcing them to rely on aggregating small-dollar donations from individuals while allowing other political actors, such as independent-expenditure-only political action committees, to receive unlimited corporate donations," the GOP lawyers wrote.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...nal_races.htmlThis group, and others like it, are on course to rival the fundraising of national party committees for congressional races -- or even exceed it. They raise money more quickly and spend it earlier than the parties can, and in doing so, are grabbing the steering wheel from those national bodies.
"What's basically happening is candidates and parties are losing control of messaging," says former Virginia Rep. Tom Davis, who served as National Republican Congressional Committee chairman. "It's the law of unintended consequences on steroids. It has heightened the ideological polarization of the parties."
Sorry, this news report is dog bites man; not the other way around.
Hence the notable absence of anger over it. Americans seem fairly complacent about getting screwed.
What do you plan to do? Write your congressman so he can cut off the source that makes him easily electable?
Hawaii and New Mexico have called for an amendment to the Cons ution overturning Citizens' United. Hopefully a lot more states will join that effort.
Complacent or over powered?
chicken/egg, but you make a good point.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politic...ors/53196658/1Five wealthy people, led by Dallas industrialist Harold Simmons and Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, have donated nearly $1 of every $4 flowing to the super PACs raising unlimited money in this year's presidential race, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
Those donations have helped new Republican-leaning outside groups swamp Democratic-friendly super PACs in fundraising — money that is used largely for attack ads. The large sums also have rejuvenated the underfunded campaigns of principal challengers to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in the race for the Repulican nomination.
"Without the flow of super PAC money, the Republican race would be over," said Anthony Corrado, a campaign-finance expert at Colby College in Maine. "Super PACs have become a vehicle for a very small number of millionaires and billionaires who are willing to spend large sums in pursuit of their political agenda."
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