The Alabama Senate primary race between incumbent Republican Senator Richard Shelby and challenger Jonathan McConnell has seen an unexpected surge in outside spending-an influx that spotlights the growing role of undisclosed “dark” money in 2016, even in super PACs that supposedly must report their donors. Citizens for a Sound Government, a political nonprofit that doesn’t […]
Campaign Spending
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
End Citizens United: Reform Group or Cash Cow?
A new multimillion-dollar PAC that claims to promote campaign finance reform has drawn progressive fire over its aggressive fundraising tactics.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
‘Not My Money’: Hillary and Bernie Distance Themselves from Supportive Super PACs
The Democratic presidential candidates have talked quite a bit about the need for campaign-finance reform. Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have gone back-and-forth on the merits of their respective reform proposals, which are very similar. But increasingly, who is or isn’t benefiting from outside spending has become a major point of contention in the race. […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Obama’s ‘Better Politics’ Rhetoric Lacks Solutions
President Obama’s Springfield, Illinois, speech Wednesday was billed as a first step in his lame-duck quest to begin building a “better politics,” in part, through new campaign-finance reforms. But the lofty rhetoric that failed to include any detailed policy proposals was a familiar letdown for campaign-finance reformers hungry for solutions. Instead, what they got was […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Going After the Big Bucks
Pumping big money into the national political parties, as many now propose, would weaken the parties in the long run and invite another round of soft-money abuses.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Democracy Prospect: The Forbes 400 Pony Up
The Forbes 400 pony up; Iowa paradoxes; secret foreign money.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Does Big Money Still Matter? You Bet It Does
It takes more than a super PAC to win the White House, but big campaign contributions wield growing influence in congressional, state, and local contests, and continue to sway policy-making.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
McConnell Uses Misinformation to Protect Secret Political Donors
How the Kentucky senator is trying to block an executive order on political spending.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
The Democracy Prospect: Voting on Trial
Voter ID goes on trial; the FCC as ground zero for campaign-finance disclosure; a brokered GOP convention becomes unlikely.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Political Money: New Best-Selling Book Genre?
A rash of new political money books signals that publishers now regard the once-obscure issue of campaign financing as popular fare.
