Tag: Citizens United v. FEC

More public corporations are disclosing how much they are spending in political campaigns and are adopting policies for greater oversight and accountability, the annual CPA-Zicklin Index, released Tuesday, found. The bottom line: The debate over election-related spending by public corporations has mounted following the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United ruling in 2010, which relaxed restrictions on corporate political expenditures. But accountability efforts like this index seek to serve as a nongovernmental check on such efforts. Key findings: The report, complied by the Center for Political Accountability and researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research, said that 57 companies in the S&P 500 have put political contributions under direct review. That's up from 50 last year and double the number of companies (28) identified in 2015. Companies are being more accountable of their political spending amid countervailing pressures from Washington. The country's largest corporations across the S&P 500 have voluntarily disclosed 720-million-dollars in corporate political spending between 2015-2017. During 2017, 160-million was voluntarily disclosed. Bruce Freed, CPA president, said in a statement: “The new Index shows how companies are managing the risk through a voluntary approach to corporate political disclosure, or in some instances, they’re abstaining from spending political dollars,"

Here are 10 companies that are influencing politics by donating huge amounts of money to political groups in 2018. Campaign contributions directly to political candidates are limited for individuals and companies alike. But since 2010, companies can pour millions of unregulated and uncapped "soft money" into independent Super Political Action Committees (PACs) to influence the outcomes of federal elections without contributing to an individual candidate. Open Secrets has compiled a list of the largest organizational political contributors to Democratic and Republican or liberal and conservative outside groups. According to Bloomberg, Sheldon Adelson has contributed over $200 million to conservative candidates and causes in recent years. Uline has donated $31.7 million so far in 2018, more than it spent for the 2016 cycle, according to Open Secrets. According to Open Secrets, Fahr LLC has donated $29.4 million to the current election cycle so far, and that may be just the beginning, since the corporation's 2016 contributions topped $90 million. In 2016, the hedge fund donated $59 million, giving slightly more to Democrats than Republicans. Through nonprofit Americans for Prosperity (which also donates millions to further Republican causes), the Koch brothers have organized to defeat transit projects in several cities, according to the New York Times. The company's donors gave more to Democrats in 2016, but favor Republicans so far this year.

As politically active nonprofits scramble to figure out the implications of a recent court decision requiring them to disclose some of their donors, experts said one thing is clear: There will be ways around the new rules. Groups could accept money through shell corporations, said campaign finance lawyers and advocates of more regulation of money in politics. But last month, in response to a long-running lawsuit from transparency advocates, a federal judge threw out a decades-old rule that allowed the groups to withhold donors’ identities, broadening the type of donors who would now be subject to disclosure. The ruling is under appeal, but Howell’s decision went into effect immediately. “Ultimately, this ruling will result in fewer voices, less diversity of viewpoints and a chilling effect in political dialogue — weakening our democracy, not protecting it,” he said. [Political nonprofits must now name many of their donors under federal court ruling after Supreme Court declines to intervene] Despite the expected efforts to protect donors’ identities, the decision will no doubt shed more light on the contributors to politically active nonprofits, although exactly how much is uncertain as groups and federal officials take stock of the decision. “The bottom line is, we do not know yet how much disclosure we’re going to get,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a group that advocates for reducing the role of big money in politics. Another technique could be to accept donations and then give them to a connected super PAC. Others are suggesting that donors give instead to an affiliated super PACso that there is less confusion about the rules, even though it means their names will be publicly disclosed. Donors are starting to ask how closely the public will follow their contributions and how often super PACs will be reporting their names, according to one GOP strategist who raises money for nonprofits and super PACs, and requested anonymity to speak about private donor conversations.

Washington (CNN)A Supreme Court move on Tuesday could mean that so-called "dark money" groups would have to disclose the names of their donors, potentially chipping away at a longstanding shroud of secrecy surrounding money in politics. It means nonprofit groups like Crossroads GPS could face new requirements to reveal their donors before November's midterm elections. Crossroads GPS is the No. 2 "dark money" spender since the 2010 Citizens United vs. FEC ruling, according to a recent report by the nonprofit campaign finance group Issue One. Hunter did not respond to CNN's request for comment. There are other loopholes -- particularly for nonprofit groups that don't advocate for candidates themselves, but send money to super PACs that do -- that can also help shield the identities of groups' donors. "This is a real victory for transparency. As a result, the American people will be better informed about who's paying for the ads they're seeing this election season," tweeted Democratic FEC commissioner Ellen Weintraub. Advocates for stronger donor disclosure requirements in politics, including the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which challenged the decades-old FEC rule that the federal judge threw out, celebrated the decision. "This is a great day for transparency and democracy," CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said.

“Norbert?” he asked on the doorstep of a man who’d donated $25 to his campaign. A handful of candidates, including Phillips, are going a step further and refusing to take any PAC money at all, even if it comes from labor unions or fellow Democrats. In Minnesota, Phillips, a Democrat, has raised more than $2.3 million, 99 percent of it from individuals, and has used his no-PAC-money pledge to mount a formidable challenge in a district that Republicans have held since 1961. Trump also made corruption in Washington a central theme of his campaign and promised to “drain the swamp” of politicians who only do the bidding of their wealthy donors. The cycle perpetuates itself, he wrote, as members of Congress who serve on powerful committees attract more donations for their re-election campaigns. And Trump routinely endorses candidates who accept large amounts of money from corporate PACs. In 2016, only three of the 41 candidates on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s “red-to-blue” list of the most competitive races made the no-corporate-PAC pledge, according to Adam Bozzi, communications director at End Citizens United, a group that supports an overhaul of campaign finance laws. In the last midterm election year, 2014, some 1.5 million small donors contributed a total of $335 million to Democratic campaigns across the country through ActBlue, an online platform that raises money for Democrats. Paulsen’s campaign has tried to make an issue of Phillips’ wealth. “He said, ‘I’m not taking any PAC money.

Montana voted in laws to disclose donors because they really don't like "Dark Money" in their politics. Every state should follow their example! Kimberly Reed’s new project “Dark Money” pulls off what so many campaign reformers have trouble doing: She captures the personal impact of the flood of cash that has flowed into elections following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. So much focus on money in politics is on Senate and House races; “Dark Money,” which opens this weekend, looks at state lawmakers in Montana who found themselves driven from office by a flood of pre-election day attack ads. The sources were opaque groups, financed by out-of-state corporate money, often with the message that the incumbents are too moderate. “The characters I ran into were really heroic, everyday characters, and most of them were Republicans who were being attacked by their own party, by the far right-wing of their own party,” Reed said. What makes “Dark Money” work is that it traces what has happened in the state over several election cycles, as she followed political figures and journalists over the course of five years. She also digs into the state’s tradition of clean politics, which at times is threatened by corporate interests. “As a native Montanan, I know how to talk to these people. I knew how to get the access that I needed, and also because of that, I had a sense that you really needed to stick to this tale,” she said.