Corporations Legally Allowed To Purchase The 2012 Election; Citizens United

Groups Shield Political Gifts of Businesses

American Electric Power, one of the country’s largest utilities, gave $1 million last November to the Founding Fund, a new tax-exempt group that intends to raise most of its money from corporations and push for limited government.

The giant insurer Aetna directed more than $3 million last year to the American Action Network, a Republican-leaning nonprofit organization that has spent millions of dollars attacking lawmakers who voted for President Obama’s health care bill — even as Aetna’s president publicly voiced support for the legislation.

Other corporations, including Prudential Financial, Dow Chemical and the drugmaker Merck, have poured millions of dollars more into the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a tax-exempt trade group that has pledged to spend at least $50 million on political advertising this election cycle.

Two years after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the door for corporate spending on elections, relatively little money has flowed from company treasuries into “super PACs,” which can accept unlimited contributions but must also disclose donors. Instead, there is growing evidence that large corporations are trying to influence campaigns by donating money to tax-exempt organizations that can spend millions of dollars without being subject to the disclosure requirements that apply to candidates, parties and PACs.

The secrecy shrouding these groups makes a full accounting of corporate influence on the electoral process impossible. But glimpses of their donors emerged in a New York Times review of corporate governance reports, tax returns of nonprofit organizations and regulatory filings by insurers and labor unions.

The review found that corporate donations — many of them previously unreported — went to groups large and small, dedicated to shaping public policy on the state and national levels. From a redistricting fight in Minnesota to the sprawling battleground of the 2012 presidential and Congressional elections, corporations are opening their wallets and altering the political world.

Some of the biggest recipients of corporate money are organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, the federal designation for “social welfare” groups dedicated to advancing broad community interests. Because they are not technically political organizations, they do not have to register with or disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission, potentially shielding corporate contributors from shareholders or others unhappy with their political positions.

“Companies want to be able to quietly push for their political agendas without being held accountable for it by their customers,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has filed complaints against issue groups. “I think the 501(c)(4)’s are likely to outweigh super PAC spending, because so many donors want to remain anonymous.”

Because social welfare groups are prohibited from devoting themselves primarily to political activity, many spend the bulk of their money on issue advertisements that purport to be educational, not political, in nature. In May, for example, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a group co-founded by the Republican strategist Karl Rove, began a $25 million advertising campaign, carefully shaped with focus groups of undecided voters, that attacks Mr. Obama for increasing the federal deficit and urges him to cut spending.

The Internal Revenue Service has no clear test for determining what constitutes excessive political activity by a social welfare group. And tax-exempt groups are permitted to begin raising and spending money even before the I.R.S. formally recognizes them. Two years after helping Republicans win control of the House with millions of dollars in issue advertising, Crossroads GPS’s application for tax-exempt status is still pending.

During the 2010 midterm elections, tax-exempt groups outspent super PACs by a 3-to-2 margin, according to a recent study by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public Integrity, with most of that money devoted to attacking Democrats or defending Republicans. And such groups have accounted for two-thirds of the political advertising bought by the biggest outside spenders so far in the 2012 election cycle, according to Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, with close to $100 million in issue ads.

The growing role of issue groups has prompted a rash of complaints and lawsuits from watchdog organizations accusing groups like the American Action Network, Crossroads and the pro-Obama Priorities USA of operating as sham charities whose primary purpose is not the promotion of social welfare, but winning elections. Efforts in Congress to force more disclosure for politically active nonprofit organizations have been repeatedly stymied by Republicans, who have described the push as an assault on free speech.

“These groups are being used as a conduit to hide from voters the identity of people and corporations who are bankrolling these television ads, which are designed to influence the outcome of elections,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland.

But Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for Crossroads, said, “Individuals and organizations have a First Amendment right to promote their beliefs through advertising, be that advertising against the Iraq war, against climate change or, in the case of Crossroads, advocating for free markets and limited government.”

Labor unions — themselves among the beneficiaries of Citizens United — have also donated millions of dollars to national super PACs and state-level nonprofit groups involved in battles over government spending, collective bargaining and health care.

Donations from corporations and unions alike must be disclosed if they go to expressly political groups like super PACs.

In April, for example, the air traffic controllers’ union contributed $1 million to a pro-Obama super PAC. But other contributions are harder to trace. Last year, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees gave $100,000 to Advancing Wisconsin, a tax-exempt group that supported labor’s fight with Republicans in that state; the donation was reported nowhere in Wisconsin, but it emerged in an annual financial report that unions must file with the federal Department of Labor.

Among the largest beneficiaries of corporate donations in recent years have been trade organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which largely backs Republican candidates. As a nonprofit “business league” under the tax code, the chamber does not have to disclose its supporters, who helped finance its $33 million in political ads in the 2010 midterm elections.

But voluntary disclosures by corporations — usually at the prodding of shareholder advocacy groups — shed some light on the use of trade groups for lobbying or as pass-throughs for political spending. A search of voluntary disclosures, some collected by the Center for Political Accountability, which advocates for transparency in corporate political spending, found more than $6 million in chamber donations by 10 companies last year.

Two of the largest came from Prudential Financial and Dow Chemical, which each gave $1.6 million, while Chevron, MetLife and Merck each gave at least $500,000. Some of the donations were directed to the chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform, which lobbies for limits on liability suits.

Some contributions are disclosed by accident. Aetna’s check to the American Action Network, along with a $4.5 million contribution last year to the chamber, was mistakenly included in a filing with insurance regulators. The disclosure was first reported by SNL Financial, a trade publication. Even where companies pledge voluntary disclosure of political contributions, they often make an exception for donations to tax-exempt groups.

In 2007, Aetna signed an agreement with the Mercy Investment Program, a shareholders group, to disclose trade associations to which it made large contributions. On regulatory filings, the company initially described its $3 million contribution to the Chamber of Commerce as a lobbying expense, but the company now says it was intended to finance “educational activities.”

An Aetna spokesman would not say whether the chamber donation would appear on the company’s 2011 voluntary disclosure. Sister Valerie Heinonen, the director of shareholder advocacy for Mercy Investment Services, said that a failure to do so would violate the company’s pledge.

Beyond the contributions to large, established nonprofits like the chamber and American Action Network, corporate money is also quietly shaping the political discourse through more obscure groups, none of which are required to disclose their donors.

In Minnesota last year, Express Scripts, a major drug benefit manager, gave $10,000 to a Republican-linked group, Minnesotans for a Fair Redistricting, involved in a partisan fight over redrawing legislative boundaries.

Express Scripts made the donation, previously unreported, because the “electoral maps in Minnesota were in doubt and we supported efforts to bring certainty to Minnesota voters,” said Brian Henry, a spokesman for the company, which is based in St. Louis. He added that the firm has a facility in Bloomington, Minn.

The reasons behind American Electric Power’s $1 million contribution to the little-known Founding Fund are less clear. The company characterized it as “lobbying” in a corporate governance disclosure last year, but the fund says it does no lobbying. The fund, whose address is a mail drop in Alexandria, Va., would not make any of its directors available for an interview.

The fund’s treasurer, Frank Sadler, is a lobbyist who previously worked for Koch Industries advising nonprofit groups that support free market causes, although he said the Kochs, major Republican donors, were not involved in the group.

In its public filings, the fund said it expected to raise about $10 million this election cycle, primarily from corporations, and use it to promote free markets and “the narrowing of the scope and reach of the federal government.”

A spokesman for American Electric Power, Pat D. Hemlepp, said the company supports organizations “with positions on issues that align with AEP’s positions” and strives to be transparent on political giving. “We also respect the positions of others, including some of the organizations that receive funding from AEP, to not publicly disclose funding or activities.

That’s their right under the law.”


Sources: Aljazeera, NY Times, TPM, Youtube

Vern Buchanan Accused Of Federal Campaign Finance Violations (Read FEC Reports)

Powerful Congressman accused of campaign finance violations

Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan, a self-made Florida millionaire, is only in his third term in Congress, but he already is in charge of fundraising for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, and he sits on the powerful House Ways and Means committee.

But all that could be jeopardized. Federal investigations underway could result in Buchanan serving his next term behind bars.

CNN has confirmed there are no fewer than four congressional and federal investigations into Buchanan's business practices, his campaign finances and his alleged attempt to try to stop a witness from talking.

Now that witness is stepping forward in an exclusive interview with CNN.

Buchanan's former business partner says the congressman schemed to launder money from his car dealerships into his campaign coffers, and then tried to get others to cover it up.

Many of the questions surrounding Buchanan go back to his auto dealerships in Florida where he made his millions, and back to the days when he worked with his former business partner Sam Kazran.

Their partnership started at what is now a weed-filled lot, the former North Jacksonville Hyundai dealership. Eventually they owned four dealerships together.

"I respected him," Kazran says of their early years together. "I believed him."
But Kazran says he was naive, and that he soon found out the man he believed in was interested in only two things: money and power.

"Mr. Buchanan is a very selfish person, and in my opinion people who go to Congress have got to do good for the people they represent," Kazran says.

Kazran presented to CNN the same information, documents and testimony he has given to federal investigators. The two men had a falling out over their finances, and they've been suing each other for years. Buchanan says Kazran is a disgruntled partner and has lied about what happened.

At the center of Kazran's allegations is a cash swap scheme used to finance some of Buchanan's campaigns. He says employees were forced to write checks, then were reimbursed with cash drawn from Buchanan's car dealerships.

"It was to a point where I said, 'Chief, we can't give you this kind of money. At which point he said, 'Just run it through the corporation,'" Kazran said. "What he said to me was 'Get people to write a check to the campaign and then pay them back through the corporation.'"

Kazran did, and he was soon calling in managers, salesman, even assistants. People who never gave money to campaigns were suddenly writing big checks to Buchanan for Congress and, according to Kazran, getting reimbursed from the dealership.

It added up to almost $70,000 at Kazran's dealership alone, he said.

"I remember one of the partners jokingly saying, 'Boss, you have all the money in the world. Why do you want us to pay you the money?' And he said, 'Well, it doesn't look good if it's coming from me.'"

Kazran took his detailed allegations to the Federal Elections Commission, which was already looking into Buchanan's campaign finances. Investigators there wanted to know not only about how the cash-swap scheme was set up, but if the congressman knew about it.

Kazran says there is no question the congressman knew all about it.
The FEC's initial report found "reason to believe" that Buchanan "knowingly and willfully violated" federal election laws.

Read the initial FEC report (pdf).

But in a later report the FEC pulled back, saying it found credibility problems with both Kazran and Buchanan and not enough corroborating evidence to back up Kazran's testimony.

The FEC then dropped the investigation into Buchanan, stating, "While there is some other evidence in the record that is consistent with Kazran's general allegations, other evidence supports Buchanan's denials or is ambiguous."

Read the FEC report (pdf).

The FEC eventually fined Kazran $5,000 in a settlement because he admitted reimbursing employees for campaign contributions. Kazran has never disputed his involvement, but he says he did it because Buchanan told him to.

While the congressman has said the later FEC report proves he's innocent, the findings at the FEC were more convoluted, stating it came "close to supporting a finding that it is more likely than not" that Buchanan violated the law.


And that's where things get much more serious for the congressman.

During the FEC probe, Buchanan pushed to settle a lawsuit Kazran had brought against him. At the last minute, with a $2.9 million settlement offer from Buchanan dangling in front of him, Kazran says he was given an affidavit to sign.

According to Kazran, the congressman and his attorneys were asking him to sign a statement that was a lie, that Buchanan knew nothing about the campaign cash swap.

Kazran says Buchanan and his team were trying to force him to lie about Buchanan's role in the campaign cash scheme in exchange for the nearly $3 million cash settlement, money which Kazran says he desperately needed, as his finances were in trouble and his wife was suffering from cancer and was undergoing expensive medical treatments.

"A lot of the language of it was really to distance himself...," said Kazran. "In short it said that Mr. Buchanan had nothing to do with it."

Kazran's lawyer, Robert Stok, says it was clearly an effort to lean on Kazran when he was vulnerable.

"He was holding the settlement in escrow," Stok says. "He basically said, 'We can settle, but there's one little thing remaining. All you have to do is sign this affidavit. We release the settlement and everything will be rosy for you.'"
Kazran refused to sign and took the affidavit to federal investigators.

Now, CNN has learned that Buchanan is being investigated for attempting to tamper with a witness in a federal investigation.

After CNN's repeated requests for interviews were ignored, CNN decided to find Buchanan as he emerged from a hearing.

Buchanan would not respond fully to any questions and quickly walked away from CNN's camera. When asked if he tried to get Kazran to sign the affidavit, Buchanan responded "No, no, no, no. No I didn't," adding that he needed to get to another meeting, and that CNN should contact his office.

When asked if he used the affidavit to hold up the $3 million settlement with Kazran, Buchanan replied: "No."

In a recent report, released quietly several weeks ago, the Office of Congressional Ethics wrote: "There is substantial reason to believe that Buchanan attempted to influence the testimony of a witness in a proceeding before the FEC in violation" of federal law and House ethics code.

Read the OCE's report on the affidavit (pdf).

Now a full House ethics committee is looking into it. CNN has also learned that the FBI is conducting its own investigation.

In addition, the Office of Congressional Ethics also found "substantial reason to believe" that Buchanan failed to disclose unearned income on his financial disclosure forms from 2007 to 2010.

Read the report (pdf).

Salvatore Rosa, a former chief financial officer for Buchanan's business interests for five years, said in a recent deposition conducted by Buchanan's attorney that he submitted a federal whistle-blower complaint to the IRS with allegations that Buchanan violated federal tax laws, including tax evasion, fraud and conspiracy to commit tax evasion.

In the deposition, Buchanan's attorneys asked Rosa if he stood to gain a "financial windfall" by filing the complaint. Rosa said "potentially." The deposition did not provide details of the alleged violations of tax law. Rosa declined an interview with CNN.

Buchanan's office responded to CNN's interview request with a statement saying the charges are "politically motivated," that the congressman did nothing wrong, and "We are confident that the Justice Department and House Ethics Committee will reach the same conclusion."

On Friday, lawyers for Buchanan filed a legal motion in Sarasota, Florida, to seal all documents in the Kazran case and to stop Kazran and his lawyers from speaking publicly about it.

Buchanan's lawyers said news stories about the congressman are "publicly disparaging" his character.

Stok said: "As an American citizen, both Congressman Buchanan and I have the fundamental right of free speech. ... Mr. Buchanan's motion is yet another in a series of frivolous efforts to attempt to shut down the case ... and to conceal his wrongdoing behind a shroud of secrecy."


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Sources: CNN, Google Maps

Wall Street "Fat Cats" Heart Romney But Warren Buffet Hearts Obama

Wall Street ditches Obama, backs Romney

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned -- but what about a Wall Street titan?

Deep-pocketed financiers have abandoned President Obama and are flocking to Mitt Romney in droves, providing more donations to his campaign than any other industry except retired workers. (And that's not really an industry.)

Individuals who work in the securities and investment industry have given the Romney campaign $8.5 million through the end of April, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Over the same time period, Obama has brought in only $3 million from securities and investment workers, and the industry is only the campaign's fifth largest source of funds.

"They have basically ditched Obama," said John Dunbar, the managing editor for politics at the Center for Public Integrity. "Romney is just a much friendlier candidate if you are a banker."

The absence of Wall Street love is a departure from the norm for the Obama campaign. In 2008, then-Senator Obama raised almost $16 million from Wall Street.

John McCain, the Republican nominee, received donations totaling only $9 million.

The shift is evident even within specific firms.

The employees of Goldman Sachs (GS, Fortune 500), who have traditionally given more money to Democratic candidates, have donated more to Romney's campaign than any other firm.

Meanwhile, individuals associated with Goldman have given far less to Obama this cycle, even after he milked the bank for $1 million in 2008 -- or four times McCain's haul.

Goldman isn't an isolated case. The top six spots on Romney's donor list are all financial firms, with Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), JPMorgan Chase (JPM, Fortune 500), Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500), Credit Suisse (CS) and Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) following Goldman.

Of the top 20 organizations and businesses with donors who contributed to the Obama campaign, not one is a bank or investment firm, according to Center for Responsive Politics data.

The dwindling donations underscore intense feelings of dissatisfaction that some on Wall Street feel toward the White House, both in terms of the rhetoric used and the policies pursued by the president.

"Wall Street has taken some of the blame for the financial crisis," said Viveca Novak of the Center for Responsive Politics. "The result of that has been increased oversight and regulation -- two things that are never popular."

Early in his presidency, Obama chastised "fat cat" bankers who took large bonuses during the financial crisis.

He then worked to pass a financial reform law that included restrictions on banks that some in the industry find onerous, especially the so-called Volcker Rule that would limit some types of trading activity.

After a period when it looked like the relationship between big business and the White House was on the mend, new fissures appeared as the president embraced the rhetoric of income inequality.

Obama discussed the growing wealth gap in a series of high-profile speeches, including his most recent State of the Union address.

With the general election campaign now fully underway, Obama has been more specific in his attacks on Romney, and much emphasis has been put on the former governor's career at Bain Capital.

The president's words and the campaign's advertisements have not cast private equity in a flattering light. Vice President Joe Biden said last week that a career in private equity "no more qualifies you to be president than being a plumber."

Dunbar said the escalating rhetoric is a sign that the White House has "made a calculated decision" to "go to war" with Romney over Bain. "They've decided to burn the bridge and go after Wall Street.

They have decided to rely on populism."

The industry, by all accounts, is not enjoying its thrashing from the president.

On the same day that the Obama launched its campaign against Mitt Romney and Bain Capital, the president attended a fundraiser at the Manhattan home of Tony James, the president of private equity firm Blackstone (BX).

Fortune reported that the president didn't specifically mention private equity, and the attendees, who had paid $35,800 per plate, didn't ask.

Two power players who are even closer to the White House, ex-auto czar Steven Rattner and Newark Mayor Cory Booker, have come to the industry's defense, complicating matters for the president.

Asked last week about his campaign's attacks on Bain Capital, Obama walked a fine line, saying that there "are folks who do good work in that area" but "their priority is to maximize profits."

"When you're president, as opposed to the head of a private equity firm, then your job is not simply to maximize profits," Obama said. "Your job is to figure out how everybody in the country has a fair shot."

The breakdown of decorum between Wall Street and the White House sharply reduces the odds that Obama will be able to match Romney's fundraising totals from industry players.

But given the substantial investments the White House has made in its so-called ground game, dwindling funds from Wall Street won't necessarily leave the campaign cash-strapped. Many observers still expect Obama to raise a cool $1 billion by November.

Still, the attacks could push a wealthy donor to make a substantial contribution to a pro-Romney super PAC -- groups that can accept and spend unlimited money.
One pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, has already raised more than $20 million from individuals and organizations associated with the securities and investment industry.

Obama's super PAC, Priorities USA Action, has received only $218,500 from the same group.


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Sources: CNN, NBC, The Atlantic, Youtube, Google Maps

Santorum's Campaign Faces Economic Hardship After Romney Scores Jeb Bush Endorsement

I'm sorry folks but after Mitt Romney won Illinois last night & Jeb Bush endorsed him this morning, I don't see how Rick Santorum can continue on in this Primary.
It takes BIG Money & Santorum just doesn't have it.

After Romney scored that Endorsement from Jeb Bush, I believe Santorum, Gingrich & Paul are ALL finished!



Santorum asks Gingrich voters to join him. Will they in Louisiana?


For some time, Rick Santorum's presidential campaign has argued the former senator would be winning more votes -- and thus, more delegates -- in the Republican presidential primary if Newt Gingrich were to drop out.

The Illinois primary provided the latest evidence that may not be the case. Furthermore, Gingrich continues to insist he's going all the way to the Republican National Convention in August.

Hence, the Santorum campaign Tuesday night slightly recalibrated its message. Rather than calling on Gingrich to drop out, the Santorum campaign asked Gingrich voters to join them. There's some evidence Santorum's pitch could work in Louisiana, the next state to hold its primary.

After Santorum lost by a double-digit margin to Mitt Romney in Illinois Tuesday night, Santorum's chief strategist John Brabender told reporters, "It's time for Gingrich supporters to get behind us if they truly want a conservative candidate."

"We need not only Gingrich supporters," he added. "We would love to have Newt Gingrich be an important voice for our campaign, quite frankly. We would like to have people that are working for Gingrich to be working for us."

Based on remarks he made to Fox News' Sean Hannity Tuesday night, it doesn't look like Gingrich will be joining the Santorum team any time soon.

"Frankly, Sen. Santorum, who I like personally, I think has a hard time explaining why the guy who set the all-time record for losing Pennsylvania, somebody who... as part of the leadership ran up a trillion, $700 billion in deficits, and was part of the largest defeat since Watergate in 2006, as part of the leadership, [should be president]," Gingrich said. "I'm staying in this race because I really do think it's a question of who can beat Barack Obama."

He added that, after finishing fourth in Illinois, "I think we have a much better chance of winning in Louisiana."

Romney cruises to Illinois primary win
Estimated Republican Delegate Scorecard
Complete GOP primary results

While the former House speaker may not like the idea, the latest poll out of Louisiana suggests Gingrich supporters could get behind Santorum.

A poll conducted March 19 by Magellan, a Republican firm that uses robocalling, Santorum leads in Louisiana with 37 percent. Romney carries 24 percent support while Gingrich takes 21 percent. The poll has a 2.18-point margin of error. In a two-person race between Santorum and Romney, Santorum's lead widens to a 21-point margin (55 percent to 34 percent). As many as 61 percent of Gingrich supporters would move to the Santorum column, according to the poll, while just 22 percent would back Romney.

In North Carolina, which holds its Republican primary on May 8, the Democratic polling firm Public Policy Polling shows Romney in the lead with 31 percent while Santorum wins 27 percent and Gingrich 24 percent. However, the poll suggests that if Gingrich were to drop out, Santorum would lead with 42 percent to Romney's 38 percent.

Polling is scant in other states where Gingrich's decision to stay in or drop out could make a difference, such as Texas or Arkansas.

Furthermore, there's enough evidence to suggest Santorum could have to proactively court Gingrich voters rather than just let them flock to his campaign as Gingrich loses steam. In Illinois, CBS News exit polling showed that if it came down to Santorum versus Romney, 8 percent of Santorum's share of support would come from Gingrich voters while 6 percent of Romney's supporters would come from former Gingrich backers.

A recent Gallup poll also suggested that nationally, Gingrich supporters would split between Santorum and Romney.


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Sources: CBS News, CNN, Google Maps

GOP Leaders Rallying Around Mitt Romney; Definitely A Game Changer! Jeb Bush Endorses!

G.O.P. Nomination Becoming a One-Man Race

Mitt Romney’s big victories in Illinois and Puerto Rico this week have expanded his lead over Rick Santorum by roughly 60 delegates, putting him ahead by 300 delegates over all.

Increasingly, the nomination race is entering an endgame stage in which it is less a two-man contest between Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum than one that pits Mr. Romney against himself. How certain is Mr. Romney to get the 1,144 delegates required to clinch the Republican nomination? And if he gets them, how soon will he do it?

Mr. Romney, who has 563 delegates, according to an Associated Press count, is almost halfway to the clinching threshold. But the voting calendar is now entering a slower phase that will persist for the next five weeks, until five Northeastern states vote on April 24, with 209 delegates at stake.

The soonest that Mr. Romney could officially clinch the nomination is May 22, when Arkansas and Kentucky vote. That situation would require Mr. Romney to win at least 95 percent of the delegates in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Oregon and the District of Columbia, and to receive endorsements by virtually all of the Republican Party’s 77 undecided superdelegates by that time.

Some of those states, of course, are not so strong for Mr. Romney. And even if he won 70 percent of the delegates in those states, as well as in Texas, which votes on May 29, he would still need to wait until June 5 — when California and New Jersey vote — to clinch the nomination.

This sort of calculation, however, can sometimes be taken too literally. Barack Obama has yet to clinch the Democratic nomination officially, for instance, but there is no real doubt about the outcome.

The more telling number, therefore, may be this one: Mr. Romney has so far won 56 percent of the delegates, according to the Associated Press count. That is, obviously, more than half — in fact, Mr. Romney’s share of the delegates as calculated on this basis has steadily been inching upward over the course of the last month.

It’s also enough to permit him some slack. Mr. Romney would need to win only 46 percent of the remaining delegates to get to 1,144.

There is no reason to think that the remaining states will be much better or worse for Mr. Romney than the ones that have already voted. He should do well in places like California and New York, but more poorly in states like North Carolina and Texas.

If the remaining states play out according to their demographics, as prior ones have, Mr. Romney should continue to win slightly more than half of the delegates on average. If he wins slightly less than half, he should still have no real problems.

Until recently, of course, the Republican race had been highly volatile — perhaps introducing the possibility that Mr. Romney could go through a pronounced slump and fail to hit his delegate targets for weeks at a time.

However, in what is an underappreciated piece of good news for Mr. Romney, the race seems to have become considerably more stable. Mr. Romney has held the lead over Mr. Santorum in the Gallup national tracking poll for the past 24 days. The results in essentially all recent states have been in line with what might be predicted from their demographics (even if the polls sometimes got them wrong). Not since Mr. Santorum’s win in Colorado on Feb. 7 has there been something that cut dramatically against the preconceived notions about how a state was supposed to vote.

Nor does Mr. Santorum appear to possess the ability to control the media narrative and manufacture news of the sort that could represent hurdles for Mr. Romney. His victories in Alabama and Mississippi produced little apparent momentum. Popular interest in the nomination race has begun to decline.

Mr. Santorum’s campaign, moreover, is resource-strained along a number of dimensions. It spent just $220,000 on advertising in Illinois. It employs relatively few consultants and has no regular pollsters — the kind of people who might have told him that going to Puerto Rico (where Mr. Romney won with 83 percent of the vote) was a waste of time.

To the extent there is a departure from the status quo, in fact, it is now much easier to imagine a case against Mr. Santorum.

Mr. Santorum and his campaign team have begun to talk openly about a brokered convention. To some extent, this is a recognition of the mathematical reality: Mr. Santorum would need to win 69 percent of the remaining delegates to secure the nomination before the convention, in Tampa, Fla., something that is close to impossible.

However, voters will not necessarily react well to the talk of a brokered convention. Polls have found that about two-thirds of Republican voters do not want one.

A different but related question, posed to Republican voters in the Illinois exit poll, asked them whether they would prefer that their favorite candidate win or that the nomination contest end soon.

About 25 percent of Mr. Santorum’s voters said they would prefer that the race end soon. Perhaps some of these voters believe that they can have it all — the race would end soon with Mr. Santorum winning. But that has essentially become impossible — whatever slim chances that Mr. Santorum has would depend on going to the floor in Tampa.

As this becomes increasingly clear to voters, they may come to see their choice as being less one between Mr. Romney and Mr. Santorum and more one between Mr. Romney and a brokered convention. Some of Mr. Santorum’s supporters may desert him once they view the race in those terms, making Mr. Romney’s path easier still.

And if the nomination were to go to the convention floor, it is not clear how Mr. Santorum would expect to prevail there. Before Michigan, it was possible to envision a situation in which Mr. Romney would have the plurality of delegates but Mr. Santorum would do better by measures of popular support, like the aggregate popular vote, national polls and the number of states won. Mr. Romney now leads in all those metrics. And he has won in enough key states — including Florida, Michigan, Ohio and now Illinois — that it would be hard for one of his opponents to assert that his nomination had vetoed the will of the Republican electorate.

Before an election in 1983, Gov. Edwin W. Edwards of Louisiana declared, “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.” We’re getting close to the point where it might take a major revelation for Mr. Romney to lose, something that substantially and permanently alters the way voters view him.

If, for instance, Mr. Romney faced a period comparable to the one that Mr. Obama did in 2008 when the Jeremiah Wright tapes drove up Mr. Obama’s unfavorable ratings, he could begin to fall below the delegate thresholds that he needs to reach, and superdelegates could be slower to endorse him. Because of the way this year’s Republican calendar is structured, with so many delegates being awarded so late, Mr. Romney could be more vulnerable to something like this than candidates in past nomination races.

Of course, a situation like this is not particularly likely. Mr. Romney has been running for president essentially for the past five years and has had very few vetting problems. (Although Mr. Romney might have some weaknesses as a November candidate, the lack of those problems seems to be an overlooked strength.) Also, Mr. Romney’s opponents have not shown much skill at opposition research; reporters browsing through the Lexis-Nexis archives have had more success in uncovering damaging details about Mr. Romney than Mr. Santorum’s campaign has.

And if Mr. Romney were to be disqualified in some way, it is not clear that Mr. Santorum would be the beneficiary of this — particularly if Republican elites look at his mediocre fund-raising totals and his somewhat uneven campaign and decide that he would have trouble going up against Mr. Obama. At the betting market Intrade, Mr. Santorum is now given just a 1.5 percent chance of winning the nomination — lower than the combined total for a series of dark-horse figures like Jeb Bush, Sarah Palin and Chris Christie, who together have about a 3 percent chance.

The race will continue on until Mr. Romney clinches or everyone else quits, but the only real question is whether Mr. Romney could somehow beat himself.


Sources: Fox News, NY Times

Romney's Campaign Adviser "Etch-a-Sketch" Quotes Raises More Money For Mitt; Makes Democrat Strategists Look Desperate!

That Stupid "Etch-a-Sketch" quote is making Democrats look Stupid but its going to raise a Lot of Money for Mitt Romney from his Supporters.

So how is this helping Pres. Obama?

It Also Makes Democrat Strategists Look Desperate!

Do Democrats really think this "Etch-a-Sketch" Political Strategy is going to send more Voters to the polls for Pres. Obama?

See what I mean by "Reaching Down" instead of "Reaching Up"?


Pres. Obama's Re-election Campaign Advisers & Strategists Need To Remain Focused On Substantive Issues like the Economy, Jobs, Racial Profiling, Tax Reform, Entrepreneurship, Tech Start-Up Small Businesses For BLACKS & Latinos, Education, Housing, Energy, PERIOD!!!

Reach Up & Aim High For Obama Supporters, Don't Reach Down!

If Democrat Strategists Aim High For Obama Supporters, The Same Big Money Donors Pres. Obama Attracted In 2008 May Come Back In 2012.

I'm Just Saying.


If Only He Could Shake His Comment Away

There is, perhaps, no more enduring critique of Mitt Romney than the one about him having shaky principles that shift with the political winds.

So it may not have been particularly helpful when one of his top advisers on Wednesday suggested that Mr. Romney’s campaign views the Republican race as an Etch a Sketch toy that can be shaken up and redrawn from scratch.

“Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign,” Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney, said on CNN. “Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”

An Etch a Sketch? The toy where nothing is permanent? Where one picture makes way for another with a few shakes by a 2-year-old?

It took mere minutes for Mr. Romney’s rivals to — gleefully — seize on the potential metaphors.

“We’ve been saying it for months, and Mitt Romney has had a reputation for it for years: he’ll say or do anything to get elected – absolutely anything,” wrote Brad Woodhouse, the communications director for the Democratic National Committee, in an e-mail with the subject line: “An Etch a Sketch? Really??”

Mr. Woodhouse added: “Now his own top adviser has confirmed that Mitt Romney has absolutely no core and will in fact say anything to get elected. In fact – his positions are no more reliable than if they were written on an Etch a Sketch – which is exactly what Eric Fehrnstrom compared them to. Incredible.”

The dumping on Mr. Fehrnstrom was a bipartisan affair.

The subject line on the e-mail from Rick Santorum’s campaign was in all caps: “***SHOCKING VIDEO EMBEDDED*** LIKE AN ETCH A SKETCH … TEAM ROMNEY ADMITS THEIR CANDIDATE WILL CHANGE POSITIONS IN THE GENERAL ELECTION.”

Hogan Gidley, a spokesman for Mr. Santorum, added: “We all knew Mitt Romney didn’t have any core convictions, but we appreciate his staff going on national television to affirm that point for anyone who had any doubts.”

And moments later, Bill Burton, who runs a “super PAC” backing President Obama’s campaign, sent an e-mail titled “Etch a Sketch voters?

“While extraordinarily cynical,” Mr. Burton wrote, “this candid admission of Governor Romney’s general election strategy to mislead the American people does at least have the benefit of truth. There is no doubt Governor Romney is going to try to mask his right-wing, anti-middle class agenda in order to win the election.”

Asked whether he wanted to take the words back, Mr. Fehrnstrom e-mailed what apparently is what he wished had come out of his mouth in the first place.

“As we move from the primary to the general election, the campaign changes,” Mr. Fehrnstrom wrote. “It’s a different race, with different candidates, and the main issue now becomes President Obama’s failure to create jobs and get this economy moving.”

Despite that explanation, Mr. Fehrnstrom’s comment quickly became fodder in the Twitter universe.

Tim Carvell, who identifies himself as a “writer of comedy jokes for the TV box” living in New York, wrote, “Right now, I’m guessing the Romney adviser who compared his candidate to an Etch a Sketch is being turned upside down and shaken vigorously.”


Sources: CNN, NY Times, TPM

Gay Community Embraces Obama's Re-election & Pushes For National Gay Marriage Rights

Gay Donors, Key Group for Obama, to Plot Strategy in Washington


Hundreds of leading gay donors will travel to Washington in late April to plan strategies and marshal financial commitments for state and federal elections around the country, according to people with knowledge of the meeting.

The conference, one of the largest ever gatherings of gay donors, is being organized by the Gill Action Fund, one of the country’s leading gay political organizations, which has played a quiet but pivotal role at the state level in recent years on gay marriage and other issues, including working to defeat lawmakers who oppose gay marriage. The fund is keeping quiet the details of the gathering, hoping to shield potential donors from unwanted scrutiny or attacks from opponents, and a spokesman for the fund declined to comment on the plan on Tuesday.

But the conferences comes as gay donors are rapidly becoming one of the most pivotal sources of campaign cash in next fall’s elections, with some groups and donors shifting their sights on the presidential and Congressional races after years of fighting against ballot initiatives outlawing gay marriage and advancing the issue in states like New York and Maryland.

A growing number of the top “bundlers” — volunteers who gather checks from friends and business associates — to President Obama are gay men or women, a constituency Mr. Obama has avidly courted in recent months as he seeks to find new sources of large donations to finance his re-election campaign. A “super PAC” supporting Mr. Obama, Priorities USA Action, is also avidly courting gay donors, as traditional sources of large checks, including Wall Street, prove more resistant to appeals.

Mr. Obama pushed successfully last year to end the “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule barring openly gay men and women from serving in the military, while his administration has ceased to defend constitutional challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars federal recognition of benefits for same-sex couples.

But he also faces a day of reckoning over gay marriage, which he opposes but which is the top priority of many gay rights organizations. Many of his top supporters in the gay community are pressuring Mr. Obama to change his position, which aides to the president have signaled are “evolving.” Gay rights advocates, backed by a growing number of Democratic lawmakers, are also pushing to have support for gay marriage added to the party’s official platform later this year.


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Sources: AP, CBN News, Huffington Post, NY Times, Young Turks, Youtube, Google Maps

Obama Raises $45 Million In February But GOP Super PACs Have Deep Pockets

Obama raises $45 million in February for re-election effort


President Barack Obama collected $45 million for his re-election bid in February, accelerating his fundraising pace as his campaign frets over an oncoming spending blitz by Republican-leaning outside groups.

Obama’s monthly haul was nearly twice as much as the $23 million per month average he raised during the final three months of 2011 and more than the $29.1 million he raised in January. Yet the largesse still fell short of the $56 million he raised in February 2008, when he was seeking the Democratic nomination against Hillary Rodham Clinton.

With Republicans locked in an extended primary, Obama’s team has tried to build a large 50-state operation that will help it register new voters, bring back past supporters and boost turnout. Obama’s campaign had about $75 million in the bank through the end of January; totals for February were not immediately available.

Campaign officials have implored supporters to donate money and get involved, pointing to Republican-leaning super PACs expected to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to defeat the president. Obama’s campaign said earlier this year that it would bless big-money super PACs supporting Democrats as a way of countering the Republican effort.

In an email to donors last week, campaign manager Jim Messina cited a poll showing Obama trailing Republican Mitt Romney and asked them to get involved.

“We’re looking at a race that will be tighter than you think. And the other side has groups ready to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to tear down President Obama,” Messina said.

Obama has consistently outraised his Republican opponents. Romney, who has led the Republican field in fundraising, brought in $6.5 million in January, about a quarter of what Obama raised that month.

But Obama’s totals in February lagged behind what candidate Obama raised four years ago, before he had the benefit of the entire Democratic Party apparatus behind him.

Kirsten Kukowski, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman, said Obama was “having a hard time convincing voters he deserves another term” following three years of “record debt, high unemployment, and soaring gas prices and healthcare costs.”

Obama’s campaign said nearly 350,000 people contributed in February and the average donation was about $59 for the entire election cycle. Nearly 98 percent of the donations were $250 or less. The money was spread among Obama’s campaign, the Democratic Party and two campaign funds.

Obama has boosted fundraising efforts in recent weeks, holding events last month in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. Last week, Obama raised money in Chicago and Atlanta.

The fundraising reports were being filed ahead of a Tuesday campaign finance deadline for presidential campaigns.


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Sources: AP, MSNBC, Politico, Washington Post, Youtube, Google Maps

North Carolina Ranks High In Corruption By Watch Dog Group: C- Grade

North Carolina: The story behind the score

When an influential North Carolina lawmaker named Stephen LaRoque helped sponsor and pass a 2011 bill loosening regulations on billboards, he was the co-owner of five billboards and president of a firm that owned four others.

But when LaRoque asked the North Carolina Ethics Commission to review his key legislative role, it found no conflict, citing what it called a “safe harbor” stemming from the fact that his law would benefit everyone owning billboards.

The case reflected what many analysts say is the prevailing state of North Carolina’s ethics regulations: A lengthy set of rules has been enacted to help keep public officials honest, but enforcement has sometimes not been strict. They also complain that the extensive rules haven’t adequately curbed the influence of monied interests on state policymaking.

North Carolina –a state of 9.7 million residents that will host the Democratic National Convention in September — ranks 18tth with a grade of C- and a score of 71 percent from the State Integrity Investigation, a collaborative project of the Center for Public Integrity, Global Integrity, and Public Radio International.

No state received an A, but North Carolina ranked lower than many others on measures of its public access to information, executive accountability, state budget processes, and its procurement. It bested all other states on its lobbying disclosure rules.

Many of its ethics requirements stem from legislation enacted in 2006, following a major scandal in which a powerful lawmaker bribed a rank-and-file legislator. In exchange for his vote the legislator received campaign donations and a government job for his son. A smaller package of changes was enacted in 2010, boosting disclosure requirements and imposing stiffer penalties for illegal fundraising.

The ethics legislation was “a breakthrough, a quantum jump in the way all kinds of things are regulated,” said Bob Hall of Democracy North Carolina, a non-partisan group that promotes government accountability. “We improved our regulation of the whole system.”

There have been some notable accomplishments, signaling the determination of some officials to punish ethics violators: In 2007 the two politicians involved in the bribe went to prison, in 2008 a legislator was expelled for violating ethics rules, and in 2010 a former governor pleaded guilty to a felony campaign law violation.

But campaign financing loopholes remain, enforcement is dispersed among several state agencies and commissions, and critics say the Ethics Commission – the principal body charged with policing conflict of interest standards —lacks sufficient staff and authority to punish violators.

“For the most part, they lack teeth,” said Frank Perry, a former Ethics Commission staff member who now directs investigations for the Foundation for Ethics in Public Service, a North Carolina watchdog group. “They could be a serious force in preventing and exposing and attacking corruption, and sadly we don’t have any proof that they’re doing it.”

The Commission – with four members appointed by the governor and four by the legislature — oversees the filing of financial disclosure reports, issues advisory opinions to officials, and launches a few investigations every year in response to complaints.

But its actions are mostly confidential, and the most severe punishment it can issue is a private admonishment. The Commission also can refer cases to the Governor, legislative leaders, or other elected officials for further action, but it never has done so. The Commission received more than 300 complaints between 2006 and 2010, and investigated fewer than twenty.

Commission Executive Director Perry Newson said most complaints are dismissed because they lack adequate factual support; in some cases, complainants refuse to reveal their identities and sign sworn statements, as the law requires.

But Chris Fitzsimon of NC Policy Watch, the group that first called attention to LaRoque’s financial interests, says the commission “seems to be unwilling to issue firm rulings that might not be in the interest of public officials.”

In LaRoque’s case, his group noted, two state officials with ties to billboards withdrew from a mandated review of the law’s implementation, citing their own conflicts of interest. Of the ethics commission decision to approve LaRoque’s role, Fitzsimon said, “That’s a very narrow interpretation of ethics laws.”

A different state government agency – the Board of Elections — administers campaign finance laws, while the Judicial Standards Commission governs judges’ behavior; legislative ethics committees investigate allegations against members of the General Assembly; the Secretary of State regulates lobbyists; and an elected State Auditor serves as a general government watchdog.

Recent efforts by state leaders to combine agencies and clarify their duties have provoked turf battles and partisan debates, partly because some of the regulatory boards are controlled by Democrats and others by Republicans.

But persistent confusion over enforcement authority was highlighted in January 2012, when a judge acquitted a lobbyist for a steel importer and other firms of charges that he had failed to register properly with the Secretary of State. The judge said the law is ambiguous and that the Secretary lacked authority to impose a $30,000 fine.

Scandal provokes reforms

The lobbying reforms, for which North Carolina scored the best, grew out of a 2002 encounter in the men’s room at an International House of Pancakes in Salibury.

Present were two state legislators: Democratic Rep. Jim Black, who was desperate for power, and Republican Rep. Michael Decker, who was desperate for money.

Black needed one more legislator’s vote to be elected a third time as Speaker of the House. In the IHOP bathroom, as Decker later admitted in federal court, he agreed to provide it in exchange for $50,000 in campaign donations and a job for his son.

The deal was part of a pattern of corruption involving Black, investigators eventually concluded. The former speaker pleaded guilty to accepting money from industry groups in exchange for legislation and admitted to the State Board of Elections that he collected blank checks from donors. By 2007, both he and Decker were in federal prison.

Other North Carolina politicians, meanwhile, spent campaign money on children’s clothing, home repairs, and merchandise from Victoria’s Secret. Lobbyists not only raised funds for politicians’ campaigns, but invited them to sports events and golf outings, and picked up the checks for legislators who ate at expensive restaurants near the capitol.

“One lobbyist told me that if he took three legislators out to dinner, three others legislators would send their checks over to him,” said Jane Pinsky of the North Carolina Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform. “There were legislators who thought it was their prerogative to be wined and dined.”

State legislators responded to the disclosures of these acts by prohibiting the personal use of campaign funds, banning gifts from lobbyists, and establishing the ethics commission.

The ethics law also restricted contributions and gifts from lobbyists to elected officials.

While Pinsky said the revised law still has a few loopholes that allow lobbyists to entertain lawmakers, there’s no longer a culture of lavish hand-outs.

“Lobbyists and legislators work really hard to make sure they don’t cross the line,” she said. “I don’t think that everyone even saw the line before.”

Loopholes and gaps remain

The law has a few holes in it. Lobbyists no longer can buy meals for individual legislators, but still can sponsor receptions for large groups of lawmakers. Benefactors also can treat public officials to trips or outings that are classified as “educational meetings.”

Though lobbyists no longer personally can contribute to political campaigns, the political action committees or interest groups that employ lobbyists are free to donate when the legislature is out of session or on recess. Political parties and caucus committees also have taken a more active role in funneling money to individual candidates, allowing politicians to bypass some of the fundraising restrictions.

“Every time I think we’ve done something smart, they do something at least as smart if not smarter,” Pinsky said. “There’s a level of corruption that has to do with the campaign finance system and the way money dominates politics…that has not gone away,” said Hall of Democracy North Carolina.

Public officials still engage in “pay to play” – in which major donors are rewarded with favorable legislation, state contracts, or appointments to powerful government boards and commissions.

“They put in an inordinate amount of money and have special status,” Hall said of big campaign contributors, noting that relatively small industries, such as video poker operators, have gained influence in state government by showering politicians with donations.

He recently documented how contributions from the commercial finance industry helped Republicans win control in 2010 of both houses of the legislature for the first time since the late 1800’s. Months later, GOP leaders tried to fast-track a bill allowing the industry to charge consumers higher interest rates.

“There was over $100,000 in small donations from commercial lending outfits going to targeted Republican challengers who became the majority,” Hall said. “It looks like a pay to play."

The funds were part of a large infusion of money in 2010 from wealthy conservatives, often to advocacy groups and think tanks, which prompted the New Yorker magazine to profile North Carolina politics in October 2011 under the headline, “State for Sale.”

Leaders of both parties still reward their contributors with appointments to powerful government boards and commissions, such as the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, the Wildlife Commission, and the Board of Transportation. The transportation board “acts like an ATM machine for the governor and other state politicians,” Hall wrote in a 2008 report.

“I think the reforms that we put in place, the reporting that we put in place, and the penalties that we put in place are working pretty well,” said Democratic Rep. Joe Hackney, who sponsored the 2006 ethics bill, then succeeded Jim Black as House Speaker in 2007. “We’ve demonstrated that we will take action.”

Hackney notes that during his tenure as Speaker, the House of Representatives expelled a member for violating ethics rules – the first time in more than a hundred years a North Carolina legislator was forced from office.

A legislative ethics committee concluded that Rep. Thomas Wright – a top lieutenant of Jim Black – failed to report $180,000 in campaign contributions and mishandled a similar amount of money in loans and charitable contributions. Wright is now imprisoned for fraud and obstruction of justice.

Since then, another North Carolina House member resigned amid an investigation of questionable campaign spending, the State Board of Elections assessed almost a million dollars in fines and penalties against politicians who violated campaign finance laws, and in 2010 former governor Mike Easley pleaded guilty to a felony for failing to report a contribution.


Report: Most states do poor job in guarding against Corruption

Most American states are doing a subpar job in protecting against corruption and assuring accountability, according a study released Monday.

The joint report -- from the Global Integrity nonprofit advocacy group, Public Radio International and Center for Public Integrity investigative news organization -- used data on a host of measures to score all 50 states.

No state received an A grade, while five got Bs and 19 were given Cs.

The majority got grades that would be considered not passing in American schools, including 18 Ds and eight with failing grades.

"What's behind the dismal grades? Across the board, state ethics, open records and disclosure laws lack one key feature: teeth," said an overview of the report written by Caitlin Ginley from the Center for Public Integrity.

The report assessed 330 "Corruption Risk Indicators" across 14 aspects of government such as ethics enforcement, lobbying disclosure, auditing practices and executive, legislative and judicial accountability.

The top-ranked state, after an analysis of these measures, was New Jersey.

It got a score of 87, equivalent to a B+. It was followed closely by Connecticut.

The only three other states earned above-average scores of B- or better: Washington, California and Nebraska.

On the other end of the spectrum was Georgia, which ranked at the bottom of the report's rankings when it came to transparency and accountability.

Citing one reason for Georgia's failing grade, the report claimed "more than 650 government employees accepted gifts from vendors doing business with the state in 2007 and 2008" despite this being a clear violation of state ethics laws -- adding that the state hadn't issued a related penalty since 1999.

The Peach State wasn't alone in scoring an F. It was joined by South Dakota, Wyoming, Virginia, Maine, South Carolina, North Dakota and Michigan.

The report's overview notes that low grades in some sparsely populated Western or Plains states may be attributable to "libertarian roots, a small-town, neighborly approach and the honest belief that 'everybody knows everybody' (that) has overridden any perceived need for strong protections in law."

But overall, the study concludes that many failings are preventable, whether by giving more power to ethics boards, bolstering penalties, increasing openness and transparency, or taking stronger measures to decrease the influence of money in politics.

This is despite some public steps in recent years aimed ostensibly at fighting corruption.

"State officials make lofty promises when it comes to ethics in government.

They tout transparency of legislative processes, accessibility of records and the openness of public meetings. But these efforts often fall short of providing any real transparency or legitimate hope of rooting out corruption," wrote Ginley.
The report offers a number of examples.

One is former West Virginia Gov. Arch Moore, in office for three terms in the 1970s and 1980s, who went to a local dealership and took a car on a "test drive" and ended up keeping it for four years, while the dealership earned state contracts.

Then, the report references a North Carolina legislator who owned five billboards and sponsored a bill to loosen billboard construction regulations, with an ethics commission finding no violations. And it also faults a Tennessee ethics commission that hasn't issued a penalty in its six years in existence and that doesn't make complaints available to the public.

Scandals and a history of political corruption can be prime drivers of effective reforms, according to the report, which points to the positive measures taken in New Jersey, Illinois and Louisiana.

It also credits widespread improvements in transparency, in which legislation and "some government records are easier to retrieve than ever." But Ed Bender of the National Institute on Money in State Politics says in the report that such information often isn't presented in an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand format.

Ginley, in the report's overview, also claims the study found that "lobbyists find ways" around even retooled laws and that "across the board, enforcement is weak."

"When it comes to money, influence and power in state government, interest groups and big-money donors will find ways around just about any limit," she wrote.


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Sources: CBS News, CNN, State Integrity.org, Youtube, Google Maps

Democrats In Congress Being Outspent By GOP Candidates (Super PACS)

Post-Citizens United Money May Swamp Congressional Candidates

Political spending by deep-pocketed donors and cash-rich corporations threatens to sow chaos in this year's congressional races, political consultants warn.

A billionaire or corporation writing a check for $1 million -- or even $10 million -- isn't enough to swing a presidential election. But when it comes to congressional campaigns, it could be plenty.

“You can work for months and years to develop a fundraising advantage over your opponent of $2 million, $5 million or $10 million. And all that can be wiped out in seconds by a few people giving to a super PAC," said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman.

While Republican and Democratic candidates are, in theory, equally susceptible to that kind of unlimited outside money, it’s the Democrats who sound much more alarmed.

"No one is safe, and everyone's got to protect themselves," said Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf. "Super PACs can strike at any time they want."

"There's sort of no way to fend it off because it's so much," said progressive strategist Mike Lux. "It's just so much money that even when you know it's coming, it's hard to deal with."

Lux said his biggest worry is the last-minute ad blitz -- a staple of elections dating back to the '90s. Now with the rise in outside money, election-eve ads can hit "at an even more massive level,” he said. The result: candidates who "can't compete with an overwhelming mass of money at the end that swamps the close races."

The Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, along with a subsequent lower court ruling, struck down post-Watergate caps on political contributions by corporations and individuals. As a result, super PACs fueled mostly by contributions of $500,000 or more have already pumped $78 million into the Republican presidential primary, outspending everyone else and flooding the airwaves with negative ads.

Successful congressional candidates in 2008 spent an average of $1.4 million to win a House seat and $7.4 million to get elected to the Senate, according to the Campaign Finance Institute. Potential spending from super PACs -- and their secretive 501(c)(4) cousins -- dwarfs those amounts.

One super PAC, whose wealthy donors are targeting incumbents from both parties, has already spent nearly $1 million in just eight congressional primaries. But that's widely considered to be just a minor foreshadowing of what is to come in congressional races in the general election.

And while most outside money will likely be targeted for maximum ideological payoff, in some cases it could also be personal.

"If somebody is pissed off at a particular member for a piece of legislation -- even a line of questioning at a committee hearing -- I absolutely see that kind of revenge giving," Lux said.

Sheinkopf said he imagines there will be districts where people with money "hate the incumbent or the challenger" and can now pull out their checkbook and underwrite a deluge of negative ads. The result, Sheinkopf argued, is that "personal pique will substitute for democratic reasoning." Even candidates who are feeling confident are likely to hoard money they might otherwise have sent to their party committees or to members of their party in closer races, Sheinkopf predicted.

"It will mean the continued breakdown of both parties, because it's now every man and woman for themselves," Sheinkopf said.

With all that money sloshing around outside the official campaigns, said Gary Kalman, federal legislative office director for the U.S. PIRG consumer group, "there's going to be certain people that are going to be little bitty players in their own elections."

Meanwhile, competition for voter eyeballs grows more ferocious. "What's different is you used to be an only child or in a well-behaved family. Now you're in a family of eight, and if you don't eat your food quickly, it's going to disappear," said Democratic media consultant Will Robinson.

Federal Election Commission rules still require that broadcast stations give candidates for federal office "reasonable access" to the airwaves at the lowest cost available. So super PACs can't actually push candidates who have already bought ads out of the way.

"But what they can do is come in and buy every available piece of air around them," Robinson said. Some media markets will sell out, as Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia mostly did in the 2008 general election. "Things are very Darwinian right now," Robinson said.

Robinson predicted that advertising scarcity will also extend to prime online ad space. In key swing states, "online is beginning to disappear already," he said.

Another feature of the post-Citizens United world is that while super PACs have to disclose their donors -- not in real time, but eventually -- donors who don't want anyone to know they're behind a given ad campaign are allowed to launder unlimited political contributions through tax-exempt groups, known as 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) organizations for the Internal Revenue Code regulations that cover them.

Those ad campaigns make it impossible for the public to know for sure where the money is coming from -- but, Lux contended, not necessarily that hard to guess. "It'll be coming from the banks, number one, because everybody hates them so badly," he said. "Certainly oil companies will want to hide their dollars. Some of the big telecom companies."

Not everyone is unhappy with the new order, of course. "I'm more optimistic about the current system than I was prior to Citizens United," said Republican strategist Keith Appell. "Both sides can raise plenty of money," he added. "My feeling is as long as the playing field is level, then that’s the best of all worlds. In the end, it nets out fine."

Democratic political strategist James Carville said that the ability to spend unlimited sums endows big donors with so much power that they don't even have to use it.

"You can threaten," he said. "The real impact of this is, let's say you want something -- there's a bill that you really care about -- you go to someone kind of on the fence, and usually you would say, 'I'll do a fundraiser for you.' Now you say, 'If you don't vote for this, I'm going to dump a million dollars on you.'" Or, he continued, "'If you don't vote to give me a pollution exemption, I'm going to croak you.'"

"The potential for mischief here is pretty good," Carville said.

Las Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson and his family have kept Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich alive in the primaries, with at least $10 million in contributions to the pro-Gingrich super PAC.

But Adelson's ability to spend unlimited sums will also make him hugely influential the next time he wants something from Congress, noted Carville. "He could say, 'Anybody votes against this? I'm worth $23 billion.'"

Indeed, all the moguls need is few examples of "croaking" people who crossed them, Carville said, "and you establish the principle."


Sources: Brookings Institution, Hoover Institution, Huffington Post, Youtube