Leadership Pac Bak

7 26 text

rr https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8b7i0UAx2w

SEE LEADERSHIP SUPERPACS DARK $ PLUTO- [SOME SUPERPAC BELOW]

SEE MCCONNELL ~ CAMPAIGN FINANCE

aka slush fund, trump 1/2 BILLION $ AFTER election for legal def fund?!

os 2024 chevron

GGL 7 26 AI Overview

FanDuel and DraftKings are pouring tens of millions into lobbying and super PACs, including the $41 million sports betting Win for America super PAC. Both companies donated heavily to Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, with DraftKings giving $502,000 and FanDuel contributing $482,000. [1, 2]

An overview of their political contributions and lobbying efforts reveals:

Win for America Super PAC: DraftKings and FanDuel are the primary funders of this super PAC, directing millions toward state legislative races to protect and expand online sports betting. [1]

Bipartisan Congressional Influence: FanDuel gave $500,000 each to the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund and Congressional Leadership Fund. On the same day, the company donated $500,000 each to their Democratic equivalents, the Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC. [1]

Trump Inauguration Donations: Both platforms made six-figure in-kind donations to support President Donald Trump’s inaugural festivities, using the event to connect with state lawmakers. [1]

Federal Lobbying Expenditures: Both companies have rapidly expanded their direct federal lobbying in Washington, with FanDuel and DraftKings spending nearly $2 million combined on lobbying disclosures through OpenSecrets. [1, 2]

Track official spending disclosures and recipient committees through the OpenSecrets Lobbying Profile and the Federal Election Commission. [1, 2, 3, 4]

HE OFFERS JUNKETS?!

an 5 24

alternet-no lnx

Read this powerful Republican's 'benefits package' for lobbyists

Mark Alesiaand Raw StoryMay 05, 2024

Are you a lobbyist itching for a fishing trip with Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), the top Republican on the powerful Senate Finance Committee?

How about skiing and face time with Crapo?

For years, Crapo has brazenly given donors to his political action committee a veritable menu for the access that their money can buy.

READ: Here are 17 worthless things Trump will give you for your money

This year, according to a flier obtained by Raw Story, $5,000 given to the Crapo Victory Committee buys donors one of the following:

Annual Ski Fest at Sun Valley, Idaho (last February).

Fishing on the Chesapeake at Solomons Island, Md., in June.

25th Annual Hook ‘n Bullet at Sun Valley, Idaho, in August.

12th Annual Greenbrier Resort Retreat at White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., in November.

What the committee calls the “Max Out Benefits Package” — a reference to donations reaching the legal limits — also includes the Holiday Potato Fest Reception in Washington, D.C, in December and a “donor or industry event.”

In case that’s not enough flexibility, there is another option for donors of $5,000. They can get a “DC Luncheon” in addition to the Potato Fest and donor or industry event.

Crapo, 72, who was elected to his fourth term in the senate in 2022, used to be even more aggressive in marketing his “Max Out Package.” He had gold, silver, and bronze levels of donating, all of which included “quarterly virtual calls or briefings” and a “reception or Zoom” with the senator, Business Insider reported..

Crapo’s office did not immediately respond to Raw Story’s questions.

In a 2019 article in the Idaho Statesman, former Illinois Lt. Gov. and former Boise State University President Bob Kustra criticized Crapo’s fundraising methods.

“The issue here is not whether a law was violated, but how the influence of campaign contributions from special interests affects the behavior of our elected officials when performing their official duties,” Kustra wrote. “Money might not always talk, but, at the very least, it whispers in cases like this, and aids and abets the interests of those who have the most cash to supply.”

The Crapo Victory Committee raises money for his election committee, Mike Crapo for U.S. Senate, and the Freedom Fund, a leadership PAC that Crapo operates.

While Crapo aggressively courts contributions from corporate PACs, some members of Congress, from both parties, have sworn off that particular kind of cash.

Election law limits individuals from contributing more than $3,300 per election to candidate committees and $5,000 per year to PACs.

PACs may contribute up to $5,000 per election to candidate committees and $5,000 per year to other PACs.

Crapo appears to have been successful in encouraging donors to “max out.”

His campaign committee reported $2.3 million in cash on hand at the end of March.

NOW READ: ‘Lord of the Flies’: Inside Marjorie Taylor Greene's effort to oust Mike Johnson

https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-letting-trumps-pac-run-ads-implying-he-true-president

Less than nine months into his suspension on Facebook, former President Donald Trump is using his political action committee to run ads on the platform containing election misinformation, including claiming “the election was tainted” and implying that Trump is “the true president.”

In June, Facebook announced Trump’s suspension from the platform for at least two years, citing his “acts of incitement” and claiming the suspension would “be significant enough to be a deterrent to Mr. Trump and others from committing such severe violations in future.” That same month, Trump’s Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, a joint venture between his Make America Great Again PAC and his newer Save America leadership PAC, started sponsoring Facebook ads.

Kyle Tharp’s newsletter FWIW, which tracks digital spending and strategy in politics, reported on September 24 that the latest ads from Trump’s PAC attempt to undermine the U.S. election process and contain misinformation about the 2020 election, even suggesting that Trump is “the true president.”...

steven law gps georgia

ref2

no lnx

cnn

Pop-up super PACs flood Georgia runoff: 'It's about the big message'

By Kim Berryman and Kyung Lah, CNN

Updated , Mon December 21, 2020

PAC money pours into Georgia Senate runoff races

Atlanta (CNN)The message on the two trucks with the blue electronic billboards was hardly subtle and impossible to miss as they rolled through the busy streets of Atlanta.

Drivers paused at lights, pulled out their cell phones to take pictures and watched the bright lights pass by. The backs and sides of each truck were outfitted with flashing LED lit political ads measuring roughly 10-feet wide by 6-feet tall. Their message, "Vote Democrat, Get $1200," was very big indeed.

"This story isn't so much about the big money, it's about the big message" said Jon Jones as he tailed his two electronic billboard trucks.

Why Georgia's Senate runoffs are too close to call

Jones is the man behind "Relation PAC" a new and relatively small super PAC, or political action committee, entering the fray ahead of Georgia's Senate runoff races on January 5. While personal donations to political campaigns are capped at $2,800, PACs can receive unlimited funding from individuals, corporations, unions and other groups. In other words, they're a good way to get lots of money without naming names.

With control of the US Senate at stake, Georgia's two senate races are seeing a deluge of money, both campaign and outside money, flood in. Republican Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are defending their seats against their respective Democratic challengers, Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock.

More money, more PAC ads

Since November 10, super PACs have put upwards of $226 million into Peach state politics, mostly in the form of omnipresent advertising.

The Peachtree PAC, a committee affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is due to deliver $43 million in TV and radio marketing ahead of election day. Despite the name suggesting homegrown roots, Peachtree PAC is an arm of the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC affiliated with McConnell, a Kentucky Republican.

Obama appears in three digital campaign ads for Georgia's Raphael Warnock

"The most concerning (PACs) are those that pop up, just before a hotly contested election, like the ones we're seeing in Georgia," explained Brendan Fischer, federal reform director at the Campaign Legal Center. Those PACs "create the appearance of having local roots, but in reality, are financed by or affiliated with national party interests."

Jones followed his rolling billboard campaign around Georgia from the seat of a rental car. He lives primarily in New York.

"I would prefer for the super PAC to not exist," he said of his own group. "Personally, I don't think PAC money should exist this way. I wish they would reform these campaign finance laws. It's kind of a shame that people can do this and that there can be so much money and dark money in our politics."

But, he added, "These are the rules that we were given. This is the playing field that we're on." So he kept following his large, flickering and fully financed advertisements.

As for who financed them?

"We'll be disclosing that at the end of the month like we're required to do," he said. "But honestly, if we wanted to hide who our donors were, we could. Just put a corporation in between your donor and the FEC and you can do that. It's a shame that that's possible to do. It's very easy. It's a couple of hours of paperwork from your lawyer, and you're good to go."

Breaking through to voters

Jones' Relation PAC opted for "guerilla marketing" by rolling hard-to-miss billboards through neighborhoods and congested traffic. The extra-large lettering reads "Don't let David Perdue Steal Your Check. Vote Democrat. Get $1200." The slogan refers to the Covid-19 stimulus checks that the Democratic candidates are pushing for.

Others, such as the Republican-backed Club for Growth Action Committee is using television ads to promote the unfounded belief that Democrats rigged the presidential election. "They can't steal this election if we all show up!" the PAC's television commercial chimes.

Fact check: Breaking down attack ads in the Perdue vs. Ossoff Georgia Senate race

Humor is the chosen route for Democrat-backed Meidas Touch. Their television ads show Perdue and Loeffler with green faces and Grinch-like features. A nursery rhyme narration includes the verse, "Their stockings were stuffed from the stocks that were sold, when they heard Covid was coming, before we were told."

Attack ads from the right include the GOP group American Crossroads PAC,which produced a commercial falsely claiming that Warnock is "in bed with defund the police radicals."

False, inflammatory or funny, the idea is the same: the more ads, the more likely the victory.

"Money matters because the candidate with the most money usually wins," says Fischer. "Money matters because the wealthy donors who can afford to write six figure super PAC checks have their voices heard louder than anybody else."

Sick of it

"Enough is enough!" said Georgian Mark Giuliani (no relation to the President's lawyer), who recently spoke with CNN at a local sports bar filled with TVs. "I get tired of seeing people bashing people. We're supposed to be getting along and we just can't."

Giuliani felt similarly to many other Georgians and is sick of being inundated with political ads.

In a state with more than 10 million people, nearly $500 million has been spent in political advertising since early November. That's equivalent to around $50 per person statewide, and the money keeps coming.

"Part of the problem is our campaign finance rules and laws are a bit out of whack," Jones explained. "It's kind of a shame that you can have all this money come into a race like this and not even know where its coming from, just to push special interests. The truth is, most special interests aren't pushing for every day Americans. They're pushing for corporate interests and it shows."

an 1120

robt r

Joe Biden has decisively won the presidency. There is no way for Trump to overturn the results of the election, and his campaign's post-election lawsuits have gotten dismissed left and right.

That hasn't stopped him from launching an "Official Election Defense Fund" and bombarding his supporters with fundraising appeals to supposedly finance the campaign's ongoing litigation.

But the fine print tells a very different story.

60 percent of a donation to Trump's "Official Election Defense Fund" goes to Save America, Trump's new leadership Political Action Committee that he set up less than a week after the election. The other 40 percent goes to the Republican National Committee.

So if someone donates $500, Trump's PAC gets $300, the RNC gets the other $200, and not a cent actually goes to the election defense fund.

Donations only start going to that fund once Trump's PAC reaches the legal contribution limit of $5,000 – and the RNC gets $3,000.

This means a supporter would have to donate over $8,000 before any money goes to the fund they think they're supporting.

Apparently enriching himself on the taxpayer dime for the past four years wasn't enough for Trump. Now he's lining his pockets by attacking our elections and undermining our democracy – and swindling his supporters every step of the way.

Is this just a final grift before Trump leaves office? Or is there more at stake?

Trump certainly wants to keep the money flowing, and a leadership PAC is an easy way to do it. Trump's PAC can be used to fund a lavish post-presidency lifestyle,as leadership PACs can use donors' funds for personal expenses, like personal travel and events at Trump properties, while campaign committees cannot.

But there's more at stake than just Trump's personal greed. Creating a PAC solidifies Trump's grip on the GOP, as he can distribute the funds to GOP candidates. It helps keep his base whipped up ahead of the Georgia runoffs. And the PAC allows him to start preparing for a potential 2024 run, an idea he's already floated to his inner circle.

In the grand scheme of things, Trump's PAC also fuels the GOP's cynical strategy to maintain power. The GOP has a permanent stake in stoking a cold civil war.

A deeply divided nation serves the party's biggest patrons, giving them unfettered access to the economy's gains while the bottom 90% of Americans fight each other for crumbs. That division will persist even with Trump out of the White House, thanks to his bonkers claim of a stolen election, and a base more riled up from racist appeals than ever.

We may have defeated Trump, but we haven't defeated Trumpism. We must work to push the Biden administration to tackle the systemic conditions that allowed Trump to seize power in the first place.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trump-michigan-2648986286/

amanda

If you want proof that Donald Trump is not an anomaly, but rather a symptom of the racism and anti-democratic yearning that define the modern Republican Party, look no further than what's going on in Wayne County, Michigan. It's the county that encompasses the majority-Black city of Detroit as well as many of its majority-white suburbs, and the normally staid process of certifying an election there has gone badly off the rails.

This situation starkly illustrates how Trump's long-shot coup attempt — which is more a money-grabbing con job at this point — relies heavily on everyday Republicans being too blinded by their own racism and hatred for democracy to really grasp the ways Trump is using them, as he uses everyone.

To recap what happened for those who didn't get embroiled in the blow-by-blow drama of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers this week: On Tuesday, the board, which certifies local election results before sending them along to the state board, held a public meeting. By any reasonable measure, this should have been a quick vote to certify the results, as usually happens after such a clean and relatively smooth election. Instead, the two Republican members of the board — who are both white — refused to certify the vote count, angering and bewildering the two Democratic members, who are both Black.

Their formal excuse for this refusal to was that the vote count apparently included a few minor mistakes and anomalies, of the sort that occur in any election, in the precinct counting reports. This would, at most, affect a few hundred votes in a county where Joe Biden won by 350,000 votes.

The real reasons, of course, were racism and a desire to steal the election for Trump. The two Republicans, Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, were making a last-ditch attempt to keep the votes of Detroit, a city whose population is nearly 80% Black, out of the final Michigan vote count. It was a temper tantrum based on the longstanding, but usually better-concealed Republican belief that there's something not quite right about letting Black people have the same right to vote as white people.

After being the target of the wrath of the citizens of Wayne County for the next two hours, Palmer and Hartmann cracked and voted to certify the election. But after talking on the phone with Trump himself later on Tuesday night, the two circled around again, demanding a chance to rescind their votes. They are continuing to push baseless conspiracy theories clearly meant to imply that there's something shady about the very concept of treating Detroit's election the same way elections everywhere els are treated.

Sean Hannity, of course, protested on Fox News that it was a set of "truly vile smears" to suggest that racism was to blame for Republicans' singling out Detroit's election results for unnecessary delays. Of course, the racism here is self-evident. During deliberations, Palmer said, "I would be open to a motion to certify communities other than the city of Detroit." In case there's any lingering doubt, journalistDel Quentin Wilber was able to remove it with a cursory Facebook search[twt pix BO racist memes]

trump's efforts to steal this election are, it must be reiterated, a long shot. Democratic strategist Chris Marshall has argued otherwise here at Salon, suggesting that those of us who believe this are being too sanguine about the Republican eagerness to end democracy.

But the belief that Trump will fail is not based on any faith that Republicans will do the right thing. As this Wayne County situation shows, the entire Republican Party is rotten to the core, ready to throw out democracy rather than accept that people of color have equal rights to vote. Rather we are assuming, as has proven correct so far, that Trump and his minions are too disorganized and incompetent to pull off a coup, especially in the making-it-up-as-they-go-along fashion evident in the repeatedly failed lawsuits of the past couple of weeks.

Indeed, the weirdest aspect of Trump's ongoing litigation efforts is that the most immediate victims of his conspiracy are his fellow Republicans: They're the fools who keep responding to Trump's emails begging for cash. But the money Trump's fans donate, believing it may help Trump's electoral Hail Mary, is mostly going toward his "Save America" leadership PAC, not to his legal efforts.

These "leadership PACs" rose up after the Supreme Court forcibly deregulated campaign finance law in Citizens United vs. FEC, and they are often total scams. The people who run them often treat them like slush funds, using them to pay for personal expenses and luxury vacations, as well as lining the pockets of various consultants. For instance, former Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin started a PAC in 2009, which she promised would be dedicated to funding Republican candidates. Palin raised millions of dollars for her PAC, but only gave 5% to 8% of the money to candidates in any given election cycle. Instead, most of the of the money was spent on travel, media and mailing groups whose job was to promote Palin's brand under the umbrella of "fundraising."

Trump will almost certainly find even more creative ways to pocket the money, probably by having his PAC hold "fundraising" events at Trump properties. His team of lawyers is getting whittled down quickly to Rudy Giuliani, who is trying to wet his own beak by demanding $20,000 a day to waste the court's time with incoherent conspiracy theories.

Who is bankrolling all this chicanery? Ordinary Republican voters, who foolishly open Trump fundraising emails and keep hitting that "donate" button. And their foolishness is driven by bone-deep racism.

Trump and his allies haven't been subtle about their race-baiting, repeatedly attacking Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Atlanta, all cities where white residents are a minority. The lawsuits have targeted cities with large Black populations. These suits are failing in court, but succeeding at the main goal of stirring up racist hysterics in the GOP base and turning those hysterics into cash.

Trump's message to his voters is clear: The votes of people of color are inherently "corrupt" and shouldn't be counted. Sadly, that's a message that's causing GOP wallets across the country to fly open. Republican racism is so strong it trumps the common-sense understanding that it's unwise to hand over money to an obvious con artist like Trump.

It might be funny to watch fools parted from their money like this, except for the fact that the very fabric of our democracy is being torn asunder. Fully half of Republicans reportedly believe that Trump "rightfully" won the election, which is to say, they're embracing conspiracy theories that allow them to believe that white votes are the only legitimate votes. Trump will soon be leaving office and finding creative ways to pocket his PAC money, but the poison he's pumped into the system by telling millions of white Americans that their racism is righteous will linger on for decades.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/05/mitch-mcconnell-wants-to-get-rid-of-the-governing-process-and-right-wing-media-is-helping-him

no lnx

mitch McConnell wants to get rid of the governing process — and right-wing media is helping him

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / The Washington Monthly May 16, 2020

If Joe Biden wins the election in November, he will face the same thing every Democratic president has faced since Bill Clinton: a country broken by Republican policies (or the lack thereof). While it’s true that Biden isn’t likely to have to deal with two endless wars in the Middle East, we don’t yet know the lengths to which Trump will go to rescue his narcissistic ego from the prospect of being a “loser.” But we do know that he has decimated the entire federal bureaucracy and will leave the country in the worst economic shape since the Great Depression.

In light of that, our friend Ed Kilgore writes that Biden will need to avoid the mistakes of the Obama presidency.

But there’s a major problem with Biden winning the presidency and partying like it’s 2009: Obama’s record in dealing with that crisis was mixed at best, even though he had political assets that Biden will not enjoy (e.g., big majorities in both congressional chambers) and faced conditions that were bad but nothing like today’s…Does Joe Biden have the rhetorical chops to overwhelm Republican opposition in a way that Obama could not?

That last question is what caught my eye. The “rhetorical chops” Kilgore refers to are often captured by the term “bully pulpit.” The assumption is that if a president can use superior rhetoric to convince enough voters to support his agenda, Republican opposition will give way. The comparison is often made to FDR.

The New Republic’s Osita Nwanevu cites Biden’s expressed determination to reshape America like FDR did and sensibly notes that he “would have to unite an extraordinary proportion of the American public — not only in support of his agenda but in support of him, personally, as a political leader, just as Roosevelt did.”

But there are a couple of political dynamics that have changed since those days. First of all, Mitch McConnell has demonstrated that he doesn’t care what the majority of American voters think. He has not only promised to return to his mode of total obstruction if a Democrat is elected president, but Republicans have also developed a strategy to maintain their power—even as they slide into a minority.

The perfect example of how Republicans dismiss what voters want came in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting when it became clear that over 90 percent of the public supported common-sense gun safety measures—including a majority of Republicans. But McConnell and his cohorts simply obstructed that legislation as well. They have no reason to care what voters think because they are never held accountable.

The other dynamic that has changed since Roosevelt was president is that Republicans are more than happy to lie with abandon, knowing that right-wing media—led by Fox News—will buttress those lies. That nullifies the use of the bully pulpit to unite Americans behind a president’s agenda.

We saw how that worked when, during negotiations over Obamacare, a provision that would have allowed Medicare to bill for end-of-life planning was turned into “death panels.” Given that their base has been convinced that they can only believe what right-wing media tells them and everything else is “fake news,” they buy into the lies.

That is not only the challenge Obama faced, it is also the one that will confront Democrats if Biden is elected. It is true that, as Kilgore suggests, it could be mitigated with the abolition of the filibuster in the Senate if Democrats win a majority in that body. At this point, the biggest obstacle to that happening isn’t that Biden opposes it. A majority of Senate Democrats do as well.

It is also possible that the effectiveness of total obstruction could be minimized if McConnell loses his bid for re-election in Kentucky. On the one hand, his successor is likely to maintain a strategy that has worked so well for their party in the past. But McConnell has been extremely successful at keeping his troops in line—primarily through the use of his coffers of campaign cash. It is possible that the next Republican leader could experience some defectors.

All of this is why it is so important for Democrats and mainstream media to focus on challenging the way that Mitch McConnell and right-wing media have been so successful in subverting the entire governing process. The first step in correcting the problem is to accurately name it.

might not fit?

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/08/anti-establishment-conservative-pac-weighs-in-on-senate-primaries

conservative PAC known for challenging establishment Republicans from the right is backing several Senate candidates in three open primaries that will likely be closely watched in the coming year.

The Senate Conservatives Fund has already spent more than $176,000 on independent expenditures supporting businessman John James, state Rep. Arnold Mooney and retired General Don Bolduc, three Republicans aiming to take on vulnerable Democratic senators in 2020.

James, who narrowly lost a Senate race in 2018, is the only major candidate currently challenging Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), while Mooney and Bolduc will compete in primaries for the chance to take on Sens. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), respectively. All three seats are Republican targets next year as the party fights to keep its Senate majority.

Mooney, who describes himself as “a conservative and an outsider,” is competing in a crowded Alabama primary that includes Judge Roy Moore, who lost to Jones in a 2017 special election. Also in the race are former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville, Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) and Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill.

Mooney raised $298,314 through the end of the second quarter, putting him well behind both Byrne and Tuberville but significantly ahead of Moore, who raised less than $17,000. Mooney has picked up endorsements from Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).

The Senate Conservatives Fund, which backed Moore over incumbent Sen. Luther Strange during a primary runoff in 2017, has dropped more than $87,000 in independent expenditures to support Mooney so far, most of which has gone to direct mail and email marketing. It also gave Mooney’s campaign $10,000.

The eventual winner of the Alabama primary will have to raise significant cash to catch up with Jones. The Democratic incumbent continues to receive support from his party nationally and has already raised more than $3.6 million this year.

In New Hampshire, Bolduc is currently in a three-way primary with state Rep. Bill O’Brien and army veteran Corky Messner. A potential wildcard in the race later this fall is President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski,who the president all but endorsed at a Manchester, N.H., rally earlier this month.

Lewandoski told the Washington Examiner last week that he would wait to see other candidates’ third-quarter fundraising numbers before deciding on his own run. None of the Republican Senate candidates in New Hampshire formally filed to run until July, so early fundraising numbers are not yet available for the race. The Senate Conservatives Fund has dished out $26,239 on independent expenditures supporting Bolduc so far.

Shaheen, who was first elected in 2008, had a comfortable $2.8 million cash on hand as of June 30.

The Senate Conservatives Fund, founded by former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) in 2008, has often been at odds with mainstream Republican leadership in recent primary elections. A nonconnected PAC, it is allowed to carry out independent expenditures and make limited contributions to federal candidates.

Much of the antagonism with national Republicans occurred under the leadership of Ken Cuccinelli, who was the PAC’s president from 2014 until he was named acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services this past June. The former Virginia attorney general was appointed acting director — rather than offered the position permanently — in part because he faced little chance of Senate confirmation given the PAC’s history of challenging establishment senators.

In 2017, the Senate Conservatives Fund briefly backed Brooks during the Republican primary to replace former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. After Brooks was eliminated in the first round of the primary, the PAC backed Moore in his runoff against Strange, who had been appointed to fill Sessions’ seat and had the backing of establishment Republicans. Moore ultimately won the runoff but fell in the general election amid allegations of predatory behavior toward teenage girls.

In 2014, the PAC backed Matt Bevin in his primary challenge to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell won the primary handedly with 60 percent of the vote, and Bevin was elected governor of Kentucky the following year.

This cycle, the Senate Conservatives Fund has raised nearly $948,534 so far. The PAC had $488,963 in cash on hand at the end of July.

2018 midterms

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2019/01/dark-money

no lnx graph

Dark money’ groups funneled millions to powerful super PACs during 2018 midterms

By Karl Evers-Hillstrom

January 3, 2019

(AP Photo/Jon Elswick, File)

Even in the most expensive midterm election cycle ever, outside spending reported by “dark money” 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) nonprofits was surprisingly sparse, falling to $126 million from $161 million in 2014.

Don’t let that fool you. Rather than spend it themselves, dark money groups instead chose to funnel their funds through super PACs, with which they are often closely linked or directly connected.

Groups that do not disclose their donors and shell corporations gave more than $176 million to super PACs and outside spending hybrid PACs during the 2018 election cycle, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

The surge in dark money giving came as super PACs spent nearly $818 million in the 2018 elections, a monumental increase from the $345 million they spent in the previous midterm cycle.

The top outside spending super PAC this cycle, Congressional Leadership Fund,also got the most dark money, receiving more than $26 million from the closely-linked American Action Network. The same officials run the two conservative groups and share a Washington, D.C. office.

Similarly, conservative dark money groupOne Nationgave more than $18.5 million to the neighboring Senate Leadership Fund, with which it shares an office and president.

The Democrat-aligned Senate Majority PAC, the second-largest outside spending group this cycle, got $6.8 million from dark money sources, including $4.5 million from the Greater New York Hospital Association, a trade association that does not disclose its donors. The super PAC also took in $1.4 million from the closely-tied Majority Forward, by far the top dark money spender this cycle.

Looking beyond the biggest political players, several super PACs directly connected with political nonprofits got significant funds, if not all their money, from the corresponding non-disclosing nonprofit.

One prominent example of this isDemocrat-supporting Environment America Action Fund, which got pretty much all of its money from dark money sources and more than $14 million from its own subsidiaries.

Even super PACs supporting single candidates get in on the dark money action. Hometown Freedom Action Network, a single-candidate super PAC supporting Tommy Pope — a Republican who lost the primary in South Carolina’s 5th District race — got nearly all of its $3.4 million fromCitizens for A Working America,a non-disclosing group.

Change Now PAC emerged as a large spender seemingly out of nowhere, shelling out $7.9 million to aid House Democrats despite popping up a few months before the election. The group took nearly $3 million from dark money group Sixteen Thirty Fund and another $1.8 million from partially-disclosing groups, which include fellow super PACs that accept dark money.

In total, 33 super PACs and hybrid PACs received more than $1 million from dark money sources.

These groups are allowed to spend unlimited sums on advertisements and other literature supporting or opposing candidates. Super PACs must disclose their donors, but large givers can shield their identities by contributing to dark money nonprofits that funnel the funds to super PACs. Those super PACs then identify the respective dark money group as the donor.

“It is clear that any long-term solution to the dark money problem will require addressing transfers between groups,” said Tyler Cole, legislative director at Issue One, a cross-partisan Washington, D.C. group that aims to reduce the influence of big money on politics. “Real disclosure requires identifying what individual donors are behind the groups that spend millions to influence American elections.”

It’s possible dark money’s influence is greater than CRP’s numbers convey, as super PACs also accept funds from fellow partially-disclosing groups — groups that take money from dark money sources. Contributions from these groups could be dark money, but it’s nearly impossible to tell.

Additionally, dark money groups have been known to spend funds on issue advocacy advertisements that they do not register with the FEC.

Though not considered dark money in CRP data, “Pop-up PACs” are a new kind of strategy to dodge donor disclosure. These super PACs waited until Oct. 18 to spend for or against candidates, allowing them to hide their donors until after election day.

“The American public is fed up with our broken political system and their anger is starting to boil over,” Cole said. “Political consultants and dark money groups know this, but they are still not willing to engage in meaningful disclosure.”

2016

Adelson – Estimated worth: $30.4 billion. Contributions (with wife Miriam) since 1989: $190.4 million

Sheldon and Miriam Adelson spent $82.5 million last cycle, coming in at No. 2 after opening the spigots late in the election season to douse GOP outside groups with cash: the Congressional and Senate Leadership Funds, pro-Trump super PAC Future45 and Granite State Solutions, which worked against Democrat Maggie Hassan’s bid to win a New Hampshire Senate seat. The casino magnate couple topped our list in 2012, donating $93.2 million to Republicans and super PACs like Restore Our Future ($15 million), which was devoted to helping elect Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.=

list

https://www.legistorm.com/score/viewPressRelease/id/6884.html

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/11/13173/fracking-special-interests-spent-big-2016-elections

Corporations that profit from fracking funneled millions to PACs for "independent expenditures" in the 2016 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

For example, the fracking giant Devon Energy gave $500,000 to the "Congressional Leadership Fund," a Super PAC "exclusively dedicated to protecting and strengthening the Republican Majority in the House of Representatives." Devon is notorious for helping to bankroll the fight against citizens in Denton, Texas, who won a bid to ban fracking in 2014 . The Denton ban passed with 59% of the vote, but Texas state legislators and members of the American Legislative Exchange Council nullified that local initiative and pre-empted. Devon spent $195,000 in disclosed spending in the local battle and has spent an untold sum to influence the results local and in the state capitol.

Another corporation with a big interest in fracking gave an additional $500,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund. That half million dollar donation came from Hushang Ansary, the Chairman of Stewart & Stevenson, a manufacturer and distributor of well-stimulation equipment like fracking blenders, fracking pumps, and chemical additive units.

Fracking special interests also gave at least $3.35 million to the "Senate Leadership Fund," a Super PAC with "one goal: to protect and expand the Republican Senate Majority." That sum includes $250,000 from Continental Resources, a self-described "leader" in fracking and a $250,000 check from Hushang Ansary, the Chairman of Stewart & Stevenson.

The outside spending equivalents that support Democrats--the House Majority PAC and Senate Majority PAC--received no comparable reported donations from the fracking industry.

Fracking companies also gave overwhelmingly to the GOP through corporate PACs that include donations from executives and other employees.

For example, according to Open Secrets, the Devon Energy PAC directly contributed $263,625 this election cycle to 44 federal candidates, 43 of whom were Republican. Continental Resources' PAC gave $118,400 to 31 federal candidates, 27 of whom were Republican. Meanwhile, global oil corporations like ExxonMobil, which now invests significantly in fracking, gave $1,555,000 to candidates, with 90% going to Republicans.

When the 115th Congress convenes in January 2017, fracking interests will be well-positioned toplay with federal legislation after spending so much to help Members of Congress elected. The Republican Party is firmly in the hands of fossil fuel interests including the fracking industry.

(There is no reported figure for how much such corporations spent on groups that are registered as 501(c)(4) non-profit organizations that do not disclose donors and which have grown dramatically since the Citizens United decision. Unlike Super PACs, so-called social welfare organizations like Karl Rove's "One Nation" do not disclose their donors but sometimes play an influential role in the elections. It is not known how much money they may have received from fracking interests but they have received such funding in the past, according to the limited information available.)

Fracking Interests Buy the States

The fracking industry also played big in 2016 in state elections, particularly in states that have shale gas formations and tight oil deposits.

In Pennsylvania, where the bulk of the Marcellus Shale formation lies, fracking interests contributed at least $700,000 this election cycle. Amongst those interests was Chesapeake Energy,a company that spent $111,800 this cycle. Its former CEO, Aubrey McClendon, once wrote a contribution check to then-Governor Corbett that "arguably changed not just the history but also the political direction of the state."

The second largest overall spender in state's 2016 elections was the Senate Republican Campaign Committee of PA. State filings show the committee was financially supported by Consol Energy, Range Resources, Southwestern Energy Company, and Marathon Petroleum Corporation, all of whom are major players in the fracking industry.

In North Dakota, the home of the Bakken Formation, fracking interests like Continental Resourcescontributed roughly $100,000, a significant amount in a small state.

In Texas, a state with colossal shale gas and shale oil reserves, fracking interests contributed $1.22 million, with all the usual suspects writing checks: Devon Energy, Chesapeake, Pioneer Natural Resources, and Exxon.

These numbers are by no means a final tally. There are simply too many campaign spending vehicles to account for, from the "dark money" groups to national organizations like the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) that funnel corporate money into state races.

The RSLC, for example, received at least $200,000 from Devon Energy, $201,000 from Marathon Petroleum, and $150,000 from Noble Energy–all of whom operate fracking wells–yet state campaign finance filings only show the Republican State Leadership Committee's name when the committee makes a disbursement, if the name is mentioned at all.

Fracking Interests Fight Democracy

There is a reason why fracking special interests sometimes hide their election activities: the fracking process is so intrusive and damaging, it is leading to popular revolt through local democratic initiatives by Americans affected by the process.

Communities that have been fracked are torn apart – physically, metaphorically, ideologically–in a process that shakes them to their core.

Although it is particularly salient with fracking, this "popular revolt" phenomenon extends to a host of public policy issues. Repressive workplace conditions, hazardous levels of gun violence, and the unjust deportation of migrant workers have led many municipalities to democratically take action by raising the minimum wage, establishing gun safety measures, and enacting sanctuary city policies.

Local governments can right these wrongs, and can ban invasive and harmful practices like fracking, which is why local democracy is seen by corporate interests as a threat. As CMD has documented, ALEC corporations, including fracking operators, have worked through ALEC and state legislatures to try to supplant local democracy and preempt/prevent cities from regulating corporate activities.

ALEC legislators who are members of the GOP have spearheaded state efforts to preempt local democracy. November 8th's election results will likely worsen the situation. The GOP did not just win Washington D.C. on election night; thanks in part to a deluge of corporate-funded outside spending, the party made gains in statehouses across the country.

As a result, half of all U.S. states will be under Republican trifectas in 2017, with GOP control of governorships and both houses of state legislatures (including the unicameral Nebraska).

For example, in Iowa, a state that just elected a GOP trifecta to office, local bans on fracking sand mining operations could be targeted for preempting by ALEC state lawmakers. The Democrats lost majority control of the state senate in November.

Yet not all legislative bodies are willing to preempt local democracy, which is why, as CMDdocumented, after a flurry of anti-fracking measures nearly missed being placed on the November ballot in Colorado, fossil fuel interests funded Amendment 71, a ballot initiative designed to make it harder for Coloradans to petition their government and amend the state Constitution.

Amendment 71's primary financial support came from the "Protecting Colorado's Environment, Economy, and Energy Independence" PAC, which received $5.38 million from Noble Energy, a fracking operator responsible for 358 oil spills between 2009 and 2011, the most of any oil company operating in the state. It received an additional $6.7 million from Anadarko Petroleum, a fracking company that spent 2016 sending "brand ambassadors" to high schools to speak on the benefits of fracking.

In the end, Amendment 71–a ballot initiative which on its face dealt only with governing process and not energy policy–passed with 55% of the vote after the fracking industry poured millions into the campaign.

Which is why Amendment 71 serves as a perfect symbol of the 2016 elections. As Michael Klare predicted, in order to frack the nation, Big Oil must first buy it.

Klare has detailed what he calls the fossil fuel-funded "third-worldification" of the United States.

Klare warned that the "resource curse" theory, which had been used by academics to describe the political conditions of far-off locales like Nigeria, was coming home to the U.S. with the fracking revolution, and that as a consequence, "the rights and wellbeing of local citizens will be trampled underfoot."

That political transition would not, however, be self-enacting. Klare proposed that to succeed, "Big Oil will have to overcome a host of regulatory and environmental obstacles. It will, in other words, have to use its version of deep-pocket persuasion to convert the United States into the functional equivalent of a Third World petro-state."

The 2016 election was a concrete example of how, as Klare predicted, fracking interests have invested in the state in order to minimize it.

Has American democracy been bought by the frackers? Maybe. At the least, fracking interests appear to be renting it for 2017, and with the prospect of Trump in the White House it remains to be seen what national parks or other resources the regularly bankrupt businessman will seek to sell off to a fracking industry intent on currying favor with him.

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/background.php?ind=Q03++

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?cycle=2016&ind=Q03

2015-6

:{Majority Cmte PAC $1,035,000

Freedom Project $699,250}:

Off The Sidelines $575,000

AmeriPAC: The Fund for a Greater America $486,899

:{Prosperity Action $441,067

Eye of the Tiger PAC $406,985}:

America Works $334,000

Right To Rise PAC $303,800

Bluegrass Cmte $297,500

CMR PAC $278,500

BRIDGE PAC $269,000

Jobs, Opportunities & Education PAC $260,500

Common Ground PAC $237,000

Pioneer PAC $235,582

More Conservatives PAC $235,500

OrrinPAC $235,000

Prairie PAC $233,500

Jobs, Economy & Budget Fund $230,000

Holding Onto Oregon's Priorities $227,500

Impact $220,275

2014 61 million

see new $ trace

ENDING SPENDING ACTION FUND

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/lookup2.php?cycle=2014&strID=C00489856

run by ex-staffers?

The Supreme Court majority’s casual dismissal of the possibility that the Citizens United ruling could lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption was necessary from a judicial perspective. Citizens United and a subsequent lower court ruling essentially hold that the First Amendment prevents the government from restricting political spending independent of the candidates and parties. Yet the courts had long recognized Congress’ authority to regulate the financing of campaigns and the lobbying process in order to maintain the citizens’ trust in a democratic government. Where the choice had been between the sanctity of elections on the one hand and an unfettered interpretation of the First Amendment on the other, the courts chose to protect elections -- because without a trusted government, there is no First Amendment to speak of.

Kennedy and the other four justices, therefore, had to insist that independent political spending could not lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption -- no threat of corruption meant no congressional authority to regulate that spending.

It is difficult, however, to look closely at the way laws are being made today without acknowledging at least an appearance of corruption. Congressional aides to whom HuffPost spoke all said that their own members of Congress were certainly not influenced in an untoward way by the corporate funds pumped into efforts to re-elect them, but that it was easy to see why the public might assume that to be the case. Five years later, the judicial logic of Citizens United has unraveled.

Political advisers closely associated with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) serve as both operatives on their behalf and lobbyists for corporate clients with business before Congress. The clients are encouraged to give generously to super PACs associated with the respective lawmakers, according to lobbyists familiar with the widespread strategy.

Trevor Potter, one of the top election lawyers in the country whose clients include Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and comedian Stephen Colbert, warns that this arrangement creates exactly the appearance of corruption that courts have used to justify campaign finance limits.

“It does make a significant difference to have lobbyists involved because then you have the very lobbyists who seek official action from the members being the conduits to the money,” Potter said. “It makes them valuable to their clients because they have a good relationship with the member, and they have a tight relationship with the member because they have access to the money from their clients.”

They're making use of the opportunity. A connected super PAC and nonprofit manned by lobbyists tied to Boehner have collectively received millions from interests in the insurance, drug, energy and other industries. Big-money groups associated with McConnell have been funded by coal companies, insurers and hospitals. Mining and gambling businesses have given directly to the super PAC associated with Reid, which is staffed by two Reid confidantes, one of whom advises the lobby shop that represents those companies while she also prepares to run the senator's 2016 re-election bid. All these companies have hired lobbyists who are connected to those same lawmakers as well as to the big-money groups and who are also working on issues over which Congress has much sway. The groups they fund have spent big to put and keep Boehner, McConnell and Reid in the driver’s seat.

Tony Podesta, a Democratic super lobbyist with the Podesta Group, told HuffPost that he has encouraged his corporate clients to give to super PACs and dark money nonprofits. “It’s unfortunate that we have the decision Citizens United, but as long as that’s the law of the land, then Democrats and Republicans are both active in these kinds of endeavors,” he said.

Speaker John Boehner has close ties to the American Action Network, a dark money nonprofit, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC. These groups raise funds from clients of lobbyists looking to increase their own influence.

In the House of Representatives, Speaker Boehner maintains a tight network of former aides who have decamped to K Street. Through these aides, he is tied to a dark money nonprofit and related super PAC that have spent millions to help him become speaker and to maintain and expand his GOP majority. The House leadership's agenda regularly aligns with that of the clients of the lobbyists who give to these groups.

The two outside groups in the middle of Boehner’s web are the American Action Network, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC operating under AAN’s umbrella.

The board of directors of AAN and Congressional Leadership Fund is lined with lobbyists and influencers including Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck strategic adviser Barry Jackson, a former chief of staff to Boehner who left his office in 2012. Brownstein’s profile of Jackson, who is not registered to lobby, focuses heavily on his congressional and executive branch connections and experience without mention of any particular policy expertise.

Also, Brownstein Hyatt employed former Boehner aide Marc Lampkin as managing director of its Washington lobbying office. His firm bio declares him to be a proud member of “Team Boehner," and he is widely seen as one of the speaker's closest advisers. He is also a lobbyist for a number of interests that contribute to super PACs and nonprofits that help Republicans in elections.

The Apollo Education Group, which owns and operates the for-profit University of Phoenix, has donated $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund since 2012 while employing Lampkin to lobby on behalf of such schools. Boehner and his House Republicans have long been staunch supporters of for-profit universities. In recent years, they have fought back against federal regulations to rein in that industry, which relies hugely on its students receiving federal grants and taxpayer-backed loans while it fails to graduate those same students.

The CEO of pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories, another Lampkin client, gave $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund in 2012. Boehner recently inaugurated a new Abbott factory in his congressional district while opposing changes to tax laws that allowed Abbott to purchase an overseas competitor in 2014 and turn itself into a multinational corporation to avoid U.S. tax payments (the tactic, known as an inversion, has come under increasing scrutiny).

Lampkin and another former Boehner aide, Sam Geduldig, have both registered to lobby for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, a trade group for large insurance companies that has given $185,000 to outside groups supporting Republicans since 2012. PCI’s contributions include $25,000 each to the Congressional Leadership Fund and AAN.

The insurers group also pumped funds into the dark money network run by Steven Law, a member of McConnell’s inner circle and a former general counsel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. PCI gave $75,000 to Crossroads GPS and $25,000 to the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition. Both groups are run by Law and spent millions to re-elect McConnell in 2014. PCI also put money into super PACs supporting two Republicans first elected to the Senate this past November: Joni Ernst of Iowa and David Perdue of Georgia. Their seats were among the handful McConnell needed his party to win in order for him to take the Senate’s top spot.

"PCI participates in the political process like many others and supports pro business and pro property & casualty organizations,” Marguerite Tortorello, PCI's senior vice president for public affairs, said in a statement.

Shortly after the 2014 election, the two top priorities of the insurers group and the broaderinsurance industrywere rolled into one: A provision to roll back capital standards placed on insurance companies by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law was attached to the reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. Although that bill stalled last year, the new Congress in January passed a terrorism insurance reauthorization with the capital standards rollback attached -- with bipartisan support. An amendment from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to strip the rollback measure failed.

The inability to pass legislation was a hallmark of the last Congress. But one area where lawmakers forced swift action wound up being profitable for the super PACs and nonprofits that support them.

In April 2013, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that it would be furloughing air traffic controllers throughout the year due to the automatic budget cuts brought about by sequestration. This would have led to flight delays, lost profits for the airline industry and lost wages for controllers and pilots. Within a week of the announcement, Congress passed legislation to ease the sequester cuts at the FAA.

...

DELTA?

The inability to pass legislation was a hallmark of the last Congress. But one area where lawmakers forced swift action wound up being profitable for the super PACs and nonprofits that support them.

Lobbying players who pushed Congress to act on the FAA also sent contributions to various outside groups connected to congressional GOP leaders. Airlines for America, the industry’s main trade group, gave $150,000 to theCongressional Leadership Fund, $35,000 to the pro-McConnell super PAC Kentuckians for Strong Leadership and $40,000 to Defending Main Street SuperPAC, a group backing moderate Republicans in fights with tea party candidates.

“You can’t have good policy without good candidates and legislation, which is why it’s important to the 2 million people we fly every day and the nearly 600,000 people we employ that we be involved,” Airlines for America spokesman Vaughn Jennings said in a statement.

The lobby group is headed by Nick Calio, a veteran of both Bush administrations, who expressed an interest in increasing the airline industry’s political giving upon taking the helm in 2010.

“You’ve got to be part of the political process, and contributions and political support are part of the political process,” Calio told Politico in 2010. “When you have people who consistently support you on policy issues, they expect you to be part of their political life support system. It’s just that simple.”

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a labor union, also gave $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund and $150,000 to Defending Main Street after Congress ended the sequester-related furloughs. Those contributions were out of the ordinary for the union, which had been a major supporter of Democrats alone. It has given $3.9 million to super PACs backing Democrats.

Calio is deeply enmeshed in the political party machinery, and his group rewards congressional action by making huge contributions to outside groups that directly support lawmakers. What he does not have is a direct relationship with an outside spending group. Other major lobbyists, including heads of trade associations, do.

TakeMike Duncan, who served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2007 to 2009. Following the Citizens United decision, he joined with Karl Rove and other GOP operatives to form the super PAC American Crossroads and the nonprofit Crossroads GPS. He still sits on the board of American Crossroads.

But Duncan is not just a party operative. In 2012, he became head of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a major Washington lobbying arm of the coal and railroad industry. The coalition was in the midst of a massive advertising and pressure campaign in Washington as the Obama administration pushed for new regulations on coal-fired power plants to reduce their pollution.

To further increase its GOP connection, the coal coalition signed up Boehner’s former aide Lampkin to lobby in 2013.

Coal industry companies and executives on the board of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricityhave contributed more than $10 million to Republican outside groups. Joe Craft and his company Alliance Resource Partners have provided most of this money with contributions totaling nearly $9.4 million. Alpha Natural Resources, Consol Energy and Murray Energy have also chipped in. Additionally, Matthew Rose, the CEO of Burlington North Santa Fe and a member of the coal coalition’s board, gave $25,000 to the super PAC supporting McConnell in 2014. (This is all aside from the hundreds of millions in political spending by the Koch brothers, fossil fuel magnates.)

Republicans have, in turn, become increasingly vocal in their support for the coal industry and their opposition to any rule, regulation or idea -- including belief in climate change driven by human action -- that could harm the industry.

A spokeswoman for the coal coalition said that Duncan separates his work at American Crossroads from that at the lobbying group and does not solicit the latter’s members to give to the former.

The pro-Boehner AAN, the nonprofit parent of the Congressional Leadership Fund, is a hotbed of lobbyist activity. The board currently boasts four registered lobbyists -- former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), former Reps. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) and Vin Weber (R-Minn.), and former RNC official Maria Cino -- and two other employees of lobbying firms -- former Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno and former Boehner aide Barry Jackson.

Past AAN board members include major GOP fundraiser and previously registered lobbyist C. Boyden Gray and former Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Iowa), who is the head of the Credit Union National Association.

“We’re proud to have a distinguished board from business executives to policy leaders to former elected officials -- they’ve been successful in all walks of life and they’re critical to our success,” Dan Conston, spokesman for both AAN and the Congressional Leadership Fund, said in an email. “Do they fundraise for us? Of course. Do they uphold their fiduciary responsibility to us as board members? Of course.”

Crossroads GPS, like its sister super PAC, also maintains connections to K Street through its board. Crossroads board member Sally Vastola, a former staffer for Rep. Reynolds, decamped with her old boss to the law and lobbying firm of Nixon Peabody, where she lobbies for pharmaceutical companies and the student loan giant Sallie Mae.

"Both American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have separate and independent boards whose members do not fundraise for either organization and have a range of work outside their board positions," said Paul Lindsay, communications director for the Crossroads duo.

Lobbyists straddling the party operative-influence peddling line have themselves given more than $1 million to super PACs and nonprofits since the Citizens United decision.

The top lobbyist donor to these groups is Boyden Gray, a top-shelf GOP fundraiser and former AAN board member,whose contributions total $390,000. Gray made contributions to such super PACs as American Crossroads, Freedom PAC and Kentuckians for Strong Leadership. According to lobbyist contribution disclosures, he also gave to dark money groups: $50,000 to Crossroads GPS and $15,000 to Wisconsin Club for Growth as it worked incredibly closely with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) to help him survive a recall election.

"The vast majority of our donors give on the basis of broad philosophical conviction," said Crossroads' Lindsay. "The fact that some have various policy interests should come as no surprise, but those interests have no effect on our activities."

The full record of lobbyists and their clients funding outside groups connected to party leadership is almost certainly obscured by the fact that many of these groups are not required to disclose their donors. Dark money nonprofits like AAN, Crossroads GPS and the Democratic Party group Patriot Majority USA spend huge sums on elections and on attack ads masquerading as issue advocacy. Few of their donors have materialized, but what little has leaked indicates that contributions from clients of party-linked lobbyists and trade associations actively lobbying Congress are common.

AAN has sucked in millions from Washington-based corporate trade groups and corporations with major interests in Congress. Those donations include $6 million from Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and $3.3 million from pharmaceutical giant Aetna. The Alliance for Quality Home Nursing Care chipped in $250,000. Additional funds came from America’s Natural Gas Alliance, the Motion Picture Association of America and the top lobbyist for Health Care Service Corporation.

The Alliance for Quality Home Nursing Care and its affiliated group, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare, have given $2.9 million to outside groups as part of their lobbying campaign to restore Medicare reimbursements for home and hospice care that were cut by the Affordable Care Act. The two groups have hired top lobbyists to help direct their efforts, including Democrat Tony Podesta and Republican Haley Barbour.

Barbour, a former two-term governor of Mississippi and a onetime RNC chairman, is the personification of this cross-pollinating age. He is a powerhouse lobbyist running the BGR Group who is also an adviser to political campaigns and a past fundraiser for American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. One client, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare, gave $500,000 to Crossroads GPS in 2012.

In 2014, Barbour joined hands with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to beat back a tea party primary challenge to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). Cochran had attracted the ire of tea party activists for his support of immigration reform and his long history of earmarking funds to build projects in his impoverished state. To save the six-term senator’s seat, Barbour helped launch the super PAC Mississippi Conservatives with the backing of the chamber and Republican Senate leadership. He chipped in $35,000 of his own money, and Crest Investment Company, one of his clients, sent an additional $50,000. The chamber gave $100,000 to the super PAC and directly spent another $1.2 million to help re-elect Cochran.

Cochran’s eventual victory in a run-off election was a triumphant moment for Barbour, the chamber and Republican leadership. They had beaten back a potential stumbling block to capturing the Senate majority.

The chamber didn’t just support an establishment Republican in Mississippi last year. The larger anti-tea party campaign was chiefly its work. The chamber ran hard against tea party candidates in Kentucky and North Carolina while scaring off potential challengers in West Virginia before they could materialize. In Iowa and Colorado, it found common ground on candidates with national tea party groups.

Of course, beyond being a funder of election ads, the Chamber of Commerce is also the nation’s largest business lobby, generously funded by corporations across America. It employs dozens of Washington lobbyists, including top former staffers for McConnell. And it does not shy away from the implication that its campaign spending is part of its lobbying operation.

"Our deal is to have a political program so that there is a hammer, and there is a consequence, and there is leverage and it's aggressive," Rob Engstrom, the chamber’s national political director, told CNN in 2014.

Once Republicans won the majority in the Senate, they immediately talked up the chamber’s priorities, from the Keystone XL pipeline to tax reform and pro-corporate trade policies. Newly elected Republican senators backed by the chamber announced their support for immigration reform, which the chamber strongly favors, and increased transportation and infrastructure spending, a major chamber wish opposed by the GOP’s tea party wing.

As noted, a former general counsel for the Chamber of Commerce and McConnell insider, Law, now runs American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. For his own re-election, the new Senate majority leader is tightly bound to the Crossroads duo and two state groups, Kentuckians for Strong Leadership and Kentucky Opportunity Coalition. Former McConnell aide Scott Jennings operates as the public face of the latter two organizations, which are also headed by Law.

Soon after the 2014 victory, McConnell and Law announced the creation of yet another super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, which will raise funds to maintain the new GOP majority. The formation of the group echoes the big-money strategy used by now-Minority Leader Reid to keep Senate Democrats in power for the previous four years....

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staffer revolv door:

2/15

mcconnell staff network

When Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy cast the deciding vote to gut a century of campaign finance law, he assured the public that the unlimited corporate spending he was ushering in would “not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” Because those authorized to give and spend unlimited amounts were legally required to remain independent of the politicians themselves, Kennedy reasoned, there was no cause for concern.

Just five years later, in a development that may be surprising only to Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision is reshaping how, how much and to whom money flows in Washington.

How the flood of money released by Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has changed elections has been the subject of much discussion, but the decision’s role in allowing that same money to soak the legislative process has largely gone unreported. According to an extensive review of public documents held by the FEC, the U.S. Senate and the Internal Revenue Service, as well as interviews with lobbyists and policymakers, Kennedy's allegedly independent spending has become increasingly intertwined with lobbying and legislation -- the precise appearance of corruption campaign finance laws were meant to curb.

Politically active nonprofits, known as "dark money" groups for their ability to shield the identity of donors, and super PACs, which take unlimited sums of money but must disclose donors, have become dominated by lobbyists and other political operatives with close ties to leaders in Congress. Meanwhile, businesses with issues before Congress are pumping increasingly more money into the lobbyist-connected organizations.

The Supreme Court initially established a narrow definition of corruption in the 1970s, but Citizens United used it to blow open the gates that had been holding back corporate money. The 2010 decision came as the U.S. legislative system had evolved into a near parliamentary system of party-line voting and expansive party networks extending seamlessly from the Capitol to party headquarters to lobbying firms to outside political groups. Most top congressional legislators now have "leadership teams" -- informal but internally recognized groups of aides-turned-lobbyists who help raise funds.

To the lobbyists working in the system he helped create, Kennedy’s vision of political spending is unrecognizable. "I think Justice Kennedy's view on this was naive at best," one lobbyist told The Huffington Post, reflecting a rare bipartisan consensus. "People are going to do what's allowed under the law."

In the House of Representatives, Speaker Boehner maintains a tight network of former aides who have decamped to K Street. }:Through these aides, he is tied to a dark money nonprofit and related super PAC that have spent millions to help him become speaker and to maintain and expand his GOP majority. The House leadership's agenda regularly aligns with that of the clients of the lobbyists who give to these groups.

The inability to pass legislation was a hallmark of the last Congress. But one area where lawmakers forced swift action wound up being profitable for the super PACs and nonprofits that support them.

...

DELTA?

The inability to pass legislation was a hallmark of the last Congress. But one area where lawmakers forced swift action wound up being profitable for the super PACs and nonprofits that support them.

Lobbying players who pushed Congress to act on the FAA also sent contributions to various outside groups connected to congressional GOP leaders. Airlines for America, the industry’s main trade group, gave $150,000 to theCongressional Leadership Fund, $35,000 to the pro-McConnell super PAC Kentuckians for Strong Leadership and $40,000 toDefending Main Street SuperPAC, a group backing moderate Republicans in fights with tea party candidates.

The lobby group is headed by Nick Calio, a veteran of both Bush administrations, who expressed an interest in increasing the airline industry’s political giving upon taking the helm in 2010.

To further increase its GOP connection, the coal coalition signed up Boehner’s former aide Lampkin to lobby in 2013.

A spokeswoman for the coal coalition said that Duncan separates his work at American Crossroads from that at the lobbying group and does not solicit the latter’s members to give to the former.

Past AAN board members include major GOP fundraiser and previously registered lobbyist C. Boyden Grayand former Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Iowa), who is the head of the Credit Union National Association.

Lobbyists straddling the party operative-influence peddling line have themselves given more than $1 million to super PACs and nonprofits since the Citizens United decision.

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staffer revolv door:

ORIGINS?

Control the GOP Congress. The tobacco industry played a crucial role in the "Republican revolution." As Peter H. Stone reports, campaign contributions and a revolving door of operatives— working jointly for tobacco and for key Congress members—have locked the industry and the top Republican leadership in a tight embrace (see The Nicotine Network [3]). For instance, Stone relates how Majority Whip Tom DeLay has put a tobacco operative in charge of his main political organization, ARMPAC. MOJO 1996

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Americans_for_a_Republican_Majority_Political_Action_Committee

Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee

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Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee, also known as ARMPAC, was former House Majority Leader Thomas D. DeLay's leadership committee. ARMPAC was "quietly closed" at the end of April 2007 "after a decade-long run as one of the most influential - and infamous - PACs run by members of Congress." [1]

DeLay's Political Money Carousel

ARMPAC was run by Jim Ellis, who was also the founder of Texans for a Republican Majority PAC (TRMPAC), DeLay's leadership political action committee.

TRMPAC was "launched, in part, with a $75,000 contribution" from ARMPAC, Texans for Public Justice reported June 28, 2004.

According to Federal Election Commission records, "in its first year DeLay's ARMPAC pulled in $312,000; in 1996, $681,000; and in 1998, $904,000. This year [2000], ARMPAC is on track to collect a staggering $2 million. The list of ARMPAC political contributors is twenty pages long, from Philip Morris and the National Rifle Association to banks, oil companies, insurers, drug makers, Merrill Lynch, and Microsoft." --Texas Observer, February 4, 2000.

See the main article on Tom DeLay and Complaints, Investigation & Indictments for details.

SourceWatch Resources

Thomas D. DeLay: Related SourceWatch Resources

External links

Michael Weisskopf and David Maraniss, "Forging an Alliance for Deregulation," Washington Post, March 12, 1995.

Alison Mitchell and Marc Lacey, "DeLay Inc.. -- A special report: A Lawmaker Amasses Power, and Uses It. A CLOSER LOOK: DeLay's Fund-Raising Vehicles," New York Times, October 26, 1999.

Roberty Dreyfuss, "DeLay, Incorporated," The Texas Observer, February 4, 2000.

Ellen Miller, "Auditing DeLay," TPM Cafe, August 15, 2005.

"Republicans return DeLay PAC donations," The Hill, November 26, 2005.

News Release: "CREW FEC Complaint Against Rep. DeLay PAC – ARMPAC – Results in $115,000 Fine. One of Largest Fines in FEC History," Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, July 20, 2006.

Paul Kane, "DeLay's PAC closes shop," Capitol Briefing Blog/Washington Post, May 1, 2007.

Also see:

Thomas D. DeLay: External Links

Thomas D. DeLay: External Links 2004

Thomas D. DeLay: External Links 2005

Categories:

Corruption

Scandals

assange claims MIC grabs bigger share of tax $ at expense of human need dept that cannot compete as lobby/pressure

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/03/11077/pac-profile-congressional-leadership-fund

Type of organization: Super PAC

Supports candidate: Republican

Founded:October 21, 2011

Website: congressionalleadershipfund.org

Social media: YouTube channel, Twitter profile

Principals:

Norm Coleman (chairman): Coleman, a Republican, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002 and served one term before narrowly losing to Democrat Al Franken after an extended recount fight. He is also the chairman of the related nonprofit American Action Network.

Brian Walsh (president): As the former political director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, Walsh helped the GOP take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. Walsh also serves as the president of the American Action Network.

Fred Malek (adviser): Malek, a former aide to President Richard Nixon, sits on the board of the Congressional Leadership Fund. He is also a founder of the American Action Network, as well as the chairman of the American Action Forum, AAN’s associated 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Vin Weber (adviser): A former Republican congressman from Minnesota, Weber served from 1981 to 1993. He is currently a partner at the lobbying firm Mercury Public Affairs in Washington, D.C.

Profile:

Created as a conservative counterweight to the Democrat’s House Majority PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund was formed in October 2011 to focus “solely and exclusively on maintaining the Republican majority in the House of Representatives,” according to the group’s website.

The lion’s share of the first $6.5 million raised by the Congressional Leadership Fund through June 30 — $5 million — came from 79-year-old casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, in February.

Overall, Adelson and his family members have contributed more than $93 million to super PACs in the 2012 election cycle, the Center’s research shows.

Likewise, Texas homebuilder Bob Perry — the third-largest donor to super PACs this cycle — donated $1 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, all of which came in April.

The group also received a $2.5 million contribution on Oct. 7 from Chevron Corp., which is ranked ranked No. 3 on the Fortune 500 list of largest U.S. companies. Chevron is one of just a handful of Fortune 500 companies to donate to super PACs this election, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of corporate giving, and by far the largest.

Chevron’s donation to the Congressional Leadership Fund represented the bulk of the group’s receipts for the pre-general reporting period.

On Sept. 14, the Congressional Leadership Fund made its first independent expenditure — $558,000 in television ads opposing Rep. Betty Sutton D-Ohio. The group ultimately spent more than $2.7 million against Sutton, as she went down to defeat to Republican Rep. Jim Renacci after redistricting pitted the two incumbents against each other.

The Congressional Leadership Fund is the super PAC arm of American Action Network, a nonprofit that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, spent nearly $20 million on ads aimed at electing Republicans in the 2010 elections. The groups share personnel and office space in Washington, D.C., according to Federal Election Commission filings.

American Action Network is not required to disclose its donors, but documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service indicate it has received funds from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the Republican Jewish Coalition, the American Natural Gas Alliance and Crossroads GPS.

Advertisements:

,” linked Rep. Betty Sutton, D-Ohio, to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and slammed Sutton for her support of the Democrat's health care reform law.

,” was an ad that attacked the record of Texas state Rep. Pete Gallego, a Democrat, who challenged Republican Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco for the U.S. House in Texas’s 23rd District.

Last Updated: Jan. 15, 2013

http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/industry.php?txt=Q03&cycle=2012