Candidate-Specific Super PACs Offer End Run For Maxed-Out Donors: Study

WASHINGTON -- Further indicating that candidate-specific super PACs are being used to end-run traditional campaign contribution limits, a new analysis finds that Restore Our Future, the super PAC formed to support former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's candidacy for president, is being primarily funded by donors who have already maxed out on direct contributions to Romney's campaign.

The analysis confirms a separate analysis conducted by ABC News in August that examined donations to the Romney campaign and Restore Our Future, as well as to President Barack Obama's reelection effort and the Obama-supporting Priorities USA Action super PAC.

As a result of the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United decision, super PACs can now accept unlimited corporate and personal contributions. They are legally required to be independent of candidate committees, whose contributions are capped.

But the unexpected and meteoric rise of candidate-specific super PACs -- which nevertheless claim to be independent of those candidates' campaigns -- has set watchdogs howling.

A new analysis by Democracy 21, the Campaign Legal Center and the Center for Responsive Politics concludes that 55 of the 75 individuals who donated to Restore Our Future in the second quarter of 2011 also contributed to Romney's presidential campaign committee. Almost all of them had already given $2,500 to the Romney campaign, the maximum amount allowable for an individual donor. These donors then turned around and gave as much as $1 million each to the ostensibly independent super PAC.

The analysis found that double-dipping donors represented almost three-quarters of all Restore Our Future's individual donors.

The analysis also found that nine individuals donated to President Obama's reelection campaign as well as to Priorities USA Action, the super PAC founded by former Obama staffers, in that same time period.

These nine -- out of 24 total donors to the super PAC -- were responsible for $2.6 million in donations to Priorities USA Action -- or 82 percent of the total money the group raised.

"The presidential candidate super PAC exists for one reason: to serve as an arm of the presidential campaign for big-money donors to launder unlimited contributions to support the presidential candidate and thereby evade and eviscerate the contribution limits for a presidential candidate enacted to prevent corruption," Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21 and a longtime champion of campaign finance reform, said in a statement. He called for the Federal Elections Commission to treat campaign and candidate-specific super PACs as "in reality, one entity to which the contribution limits applicable to a single federal candidate should apply."

Paul S. Ryan, FEC Program Director at the Campaign Legal Center, pointed out in his statement that the "revolving door of staff between candidates and the Super PACs supporting them makes clear the close relationships between the two. The Super PACs are simply shadow candidate committees. Million-dollar contributions to the Super PACs pose just as big a threat of corruption as would million-dollar contributions directly to candidates."

The watchdog groups' analysis was based on only an early trickle of data from the super PACs, which report semi-annually in off election years. Several more candidate-specific super PACs, including one supporting Texas Gov. Rick Perry, were formed after the June 2011 reporting deadline.

Candidate-specific super PACs are shattering all sorts of fundraising precedents and records, with the one supporting Perry, for instance, planning on spending $55 million to help him secure the Republican presidential nomination.

Comments

[Eaglemount]

10:29 PM on 10/07/2011

Many of our leaders have shown themselves to be too stupid and greedy to run this country. And what do we citizens do? We elect them repeatedly.

They spend our tax money enriching elite criminals and we stand aside while they prosecute the very whistle blowers that seek to protect the citizenry from their fraudulent behavior.
They threaten the global economy, insult us with blatant fraud while ignoring fundamentals of sound government. And we send the same crowd back to the Hill and the WH again and again.

It's our own fault. As voters we have allowed this to happen to our democracy.

It's all well and good to comment about issues that need the attention of citizens. It's even more important to ACTUALLY DO something significant that will allow necessary changes to be made to improve our country.

*Real Change* will not happen without effective grassroots effort.

Here is a link that will interest many of you.
http://signon.org/sign/public-funding-of-elected

[laurieanichols]

02:33 PM on 10/05/2011

I know that part of the list of demands is the call for abolishing the Citizen's United ruling establishing corporations as having the right to free speech thus able to contribute willy-nilly to political campaigns. This demand should be in the top five of priorities for 99%, the 98%, the Save the American Dream group and I know that it is the top priority for Progressives United. Until we get big money out of politics, our politicians will continue to ignore the needs of the majority of the people who are suffering the most. It is unnatural that the top 1% control over 70% of the wealth in our country. We are drowning here, take your pick; student loan debt, mortgage or home equity debt and credit card debt. Our median wages haven't risen in at least 2 decades while everything around us has escalated in cost.Hence the reason for debt. This is unsustainable for our society and until this gets addressed by those in power, the movement will grow and those same politicians will soon know what it means to be unemployed

[GUITFIDDEL]

02:26 PM on 10/05/2011

We must smite the lowly peasants that are the American Middle and Lower Middle Class Bottom Feeding Wage Earners fore they have sinned and became too entitled unlike ourselves as, we are saintly, holier and therefore closer to GOD than they. They will succumb to our authority and also believe that “Corporations are People too”. Plutocracy is the way! So, if any of them start complaining and giving you a bunch of LIP, just tell them to SHUT THE HELL UP AND GET BACK TO WORK! They really can’t do anything anyway because the suckers voted away their entitlements and bargaining rights when they put us back the House in November! America’s just like Burger King for us because we can just “HAVE IT OUR WAY”!

[Melissa McCarthy]

01:16 PM on 10/05/2011

Ugggghhhhhh.....again!

[fgrammit]

01:12 PM on 10/05/2011

does not say much for the respective candidates integrity does it. there are always ways for them to get around the laws of the land and who better to know them than candidates for POTUS? sucks doesn't it

[Jennifer Mead]

12:56 PM on 10/05/2011

Well good thing the upper class has all the money cause now their candidates cost a whole lot more money. Sickening huh?

[NOSOCIALNETS]

12:38 PM on 10/05/2011

Your politicians are bought and paid for. Nothing will change.

[iam99]

12:09 PM on 10/05/2011

Quick more FRN (IOU's) so's we can influence the unthinking masses!

[sackman]

12:49 PM on 10/05/2011

Well I for one wont be voting for these clowns anytime soon , Hopefully there are many more Americans who think like myself.God help us.

[theerrantsoul]

11:49 AM on 10/05/2011

This is an absurd usurpation of freedom of speech.  Money is not speech.  High volumes of money do nothing to improve our electoral process, and EVERYTHING to damage it.  The wealthy should have no more say in the functioning of our government than any other individual American.

[SURFERMOM]

12:06 PM on 10/05/2011

Well, unfortunately that is not true nor that is not the law of the land now. Thank the Republican party loaded SCOTUS for Citizens United.

[hypnotoad72]

12:51 PM on 10/05/2011

Um, he put more insight and reasoning in his post than you bothered to put in your response.

Please provide some thought into your response as well.  One-liners don't cut it.  Just saying "that's not true" time and again won't convince anybody.  Except, perhaps, yourself.

[Jennifer Mead]

12:57 PM on 10/05/2011

fanned

[hypnotoad72]

12:53 PM on 10/05/2011

Agreed!

Money is influence.

Anybody can speak, which is a fundamental right.

But not all have money.

Some have more money.

And for them to use money to influence is not speech.  It's manipulation.  And proof we are a plutocracy, rather than a democracy or republic.  The latter two rely on free speech.  The former is tantamount to socialism for those who have the money and influence.  (Which the rest of us ultimately pay for.)

[GUITFIDDEL]

01:40 PM on 10/05/2011

Very GOOD POST! I'm #2891!!

[sylvia wadlington]

02:22 PM on 10/05/2011

Excellent post, sad when an HP commentor makes more sense than SCOTUS.

[ladymcbeth45]

11:27 AM on 10/05/2011

Move to ammend....google it...sign up and get active today...yes we citizens can do something..the time is now.....

[Dan Vasquez]

12:07 PM on 10/05/2011

Signed, sealed and delivered, thanks for sharing.

[Jennifer Mead]

12:59 PM on 10/05/2011

http://movetoamend.org/

Ever since I heard that Google now contributes to the Heritage Foundation I get sick just seeing their logo.

[GUITFIDDEL]

01:42 PM on 10/05/2011

Is there a way to FAN someone twice?!

[librldem]

11:30 AM on 10/06/2011

I removed google from my puters

[cb55]

11:23 AM on 10/05/2011

Enough already! Get the MONEY out of POLITICS. Enough said.

[hypnotoad72]

12:55 PM on 10/05/2011

The congressmen will not vote for it unless there's something in it for them.  Otherwise they wouldn't have been bought out by corporate/lobbyist influence in the first place.  Like their corporate benefactors, they are amoral and have no concept of "country", "countrymen", "workers who do the labor that earns them their profit", or anything else. 

Fanned and faved.  No amount of external influence should be allowed in government.  It's ran by the people.  Not by a handful of big money-wielders.  We're a republic, democratic republic, or democracy (depending who you ask).  Most people don't say we're a "plutocracy", despite not seeing what is allowed, even by the "supreme court".

[Jennifer Mead]

01:00 PM on 10/05/2011

Our current supreme court will go down in history as one of the most corrupt ever. They are social engineering and ignoring standing law to make their world into what they want.

[YahooBubba]

11:20 AM on 10/05/2011

If you want to get PAC money out of the process sign the petition at: getmoneyout.com

[Dan Vasquez]

12:08 PM on 10/05/2011

Done

[YahooBubba]

01:04 AM on 10/06/2011

Cool. :)

[Jennifer Mead]

01:00 PM on 10/05/2011

http://movetoamend.org/

Another link.

[Cratewasher]

11:17 AM on 10/05/2011

Corporate influence follows it's chosen candidates right into positions of power:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/youre-appointing-who-plea_b_243810.html

[mdmccormick]

10:49 AM on 10/05/2011

The top 1% may have the lion’s share of the money; however they still only have 1% of the vote. True they have plenty of stooges and mental defects that will blindly follow their lead, but we have the votes to overcome both if we will work for it.

[avodah]

11:27 AM on 10/05/2011

absolutely correct. top 1% also has the media

[fgrammit]

01:16 PM on 10/05/2011

if only the media would simply report the news and not try to influence the vote all the money in the world could not buy our entire government. but alas they have also been bought.

[SURFERMOM]

12:18 PM on 10/05/2011

That is a big if. Don't count on it.Tea party phonies say "small government only" but in reality vote ANOTHER WAY because they are fixated on labels or Christian conservatives, not because they want small government. They would vote for the most Progressive voices in Congress and for the White House if they really wanted government to work leaner and smarter and fairer,with liberty for all, not just the most monetarily powerful.
Social engineering of personal liberty is control of everyone's personal business and is not liberty for anyone,only validation of the ones that have that specific religious belief.

[Jennifer Mead]

01:10 PM on 10/05/2011

fanned

[boehnerstan]

10:15 AM on 10/05/2011

I never thought I would see the Judicial Branch open up the flood gates for the march towards Fascism in our country, but that is exactly what has happened. The Citizens United decision will mark the tipping point when the American voter became the powerless corporate slave.

[PatWard]

11:30 AM on 10/05/2011

Already a fan-------so here's a badge.

[librldem]

12:45 PM on 10/05/2011

1937 germany and counting....