Americans for Prosperity, the tax-exempt conservative political organization created by oil billionaires David and Charles Koch, spent $122 million in 2012 — more than it spent in all previous years combined. While the group’s $33.5 million campaign to defeat President Barack Obama failed, AFP has successfully helped like-minded candidates at the state and local level.
The Center for Public Integrity reported Thursday that from 2004 through 2011, AFP spent a total of $72 million. The group spent $21.7 million of that in 2010, after the Supreme Court’s 5 to 4 Citizens Unitedruling made it easier for tax-exempt organizations to influence elections. But documents filed in Colorado show that number more than quintupled in 2012. The group does not disclose its donors.
While the group’s most visible expenditures in 2012 were unsuccessful — millions spent to defeat Obama and now-Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) — much of its other spending was successful. It spent at least $1.5 million to say nice things about Gov. Scott Walker (R) prior to his victory over a recall attempt. AFP and its affiliated organizations also poured about $1 million into Arkansas, where Republicans successfully captured control of the state legislature for the first time since 1874. In Kansas, the group successfully replaced moderate Republicans in the legislature with staunch conservatives.
This year, AFP and its state allies have also focused on local races, including theDouglas County, Colorado school board. Their favored slate retained control, after the AFP Foundation Colorado ran several TV ads telling voters that the current board’s education reform efforts were “working.”
By Tanya Somanader
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has become a behemoth of political influence, making high-powered and well-funded attempts to reshapepolicies to fititsagenda. Thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and its trade association designation, the Chamber can leverage significant funds from its 501(c)(6) account — which includes donations solicited from foreign corporations — in campaign attacks against Democrats without ever having to disclose its donors. Despite significantscrutiny and criticism, the Chamber refusesto disclose how dues and other contributions are being spent.
But not all of the Chamber’s members are happy about its opaque political activities. Last week, a coalition of 275 institutional shareholders with $100 billion in assets under management from the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) sent a letter to company directors who are members of the Chamber to express deep concern over the Chamber’s “extremely antagonistic position” on the Affordable Care Act. Concerned that the Chamber’s pursuit of an anti-health care agenda — especially with the possible use of “foreign monies” — may damage their reputation, these investors are demanding the Chamber reveal whether company dues are being used in this “ill-conceived strategy,” and that company directors withhold all dues or withdraw membership “until the Chamber refrains from further investment in negative advertising”:
The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and its members…are writing to express our profound concerns about our company’s potential role in furthering the highly politicized agenda of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the 2010 mid-term election and the Chamber’s continued hostile opposition to health care reform. [...]
The Chamber’s punitive campaign, a veritable “hit list” of health care supporters, is counter-productive and explicitly partisan. … As [our company]‘s board representative to the Chamber, it is vitally important to ensure that the company is not seen to be the unwitting supporter of this initiative. We strongly believe that the media attention this issue has generated, particularly surrounding allegations of the co-mingling of foreign monies, poses significant risk to our company’s reputation. Further, we fully expect that you will use your influence to encourage other Chamber members to abandon this ill-conceived strategy.
As concerned shareholders, many of us working in the health care industry, we ask that you take steps to eliminate any risks associated with this issue, and make available all information regarding the use of our membership dues to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for review no later than October 30th. Further, as we believe that dues to the Chamber support the infrastructure which coordinates this campaign, we request that you publicly declare your opposition by either withholding your dues until the Chamber refrains from further investment in negative advertising, or if necessary, withdraw your membership in protest.
This is the ICCR’s second appeal to Chamber members on health care reform. In November 2009, ICCR members “called on Chamber members with stated positions similar to ICCR’s Health Care Reform principles to challenge the Chamber’s lobbying efforts against the passage of health care legislation.”
While the ICCR issues final warnings, Chamber members like Nike and Apple have left the Chamber altogether. In a newly-released comprehensiveinvestigativeseries, Harry Hanbury and GRITtv reveal the ubiquitous role the Chamber plays in American politics and why companies may blanche at its secretive activities.
By Alex Seitz-Wald
Kentucky GOP Senate nominee Rand Paul has “disassociated” himself from Tim Profitt(R-right wing punk ass), his former Bourbon County campaign coordinator who stomped on a progressive activist’s head Monday night, but the Paul campaign is now refusing to return the $1,950 Profitt has contributed to the campaign. Democratic nominee Jack Conway, among others, have called on Paul to return the money, along with another $600 Profitt’s wife contributed. But a campaign spokesperson told the Louisville Courier Journal today that that would not be happening:
“The Paul campaign condemned the incident far before Conway’s camp ever addressed it and decisively severed all ties with the supporter in question,” said Jesse Benton, Paul’s campaign manager. “To suggest otherwise is nothing but a desperate attempt to distract voters from the issues facing Kentucky.”
But Benton said the campaign would not return Profitt’s contributions.
It’s odd that Paul would refuse to return the relatively insignificant $2,000 donation — he raised over $1 million in the last quarter alone — considering that rejecting the money would send a clear signal that the campaign wants nothing to do with Profitt. Moreover, this seems to be a reversal for the Paul campaign. The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent notes that last night Fox reported that campaign said it would return Profitt’s donation.
The New York Times reported that "in the 2008 election cycle," Barack Obama "took in $77,000" from BP "executives and its political action committee." In fact, Obama received $71,051 in BP-linked donations in 2008, and all of that money came from BP employees, not from BP's PAC, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
NY Times: Obama "took in $77,000 from company executives and its political action committee" in 2008 election cycle
Democrats continued to make use of Mr. Barton's apology to BP, using it to portray Republicans as beholden to big oil. Mr. Barton, the senior Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, worked as a consultant to Atlantic Richfield Oil and Gas Company before being elected to Congress. He has long been one of the top beneficiaries of campaign donations from big energy companies, cornerstones of the Texas economy.
But in going after Republicans, the Democrats' attacks gloss over a more complicated picture.
The largest beneficiary of campaign donations from BP in the 2008 election cycle, for instance, was President Obama, who took in $77,000 from company executives and its political action committee. This year, Senator Blanche Lincoln, Democrat of Arkansas and chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee, leads all candidates with $286,000 in donations from oil and gas companies.
In fact, Obama received no BP PAC money for 2008 campaign
Obama received no PAC money from BP during his presidential campaign. Contrary to the Times' claim that Obama "took in $77,000" from BP "executives and its political action committee," during "the 2008 election cycle," Obama received $71,051 in BP-linked contributions during his presidential campaign, and $6,000 in 2004, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. All of the BP-linked money Obama received for his 2008 campaign came from BP employees, not from BP's PAC or from the company itself. A spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics confirmed that "the $71,051 that Obama received during the 2008 election cycle was entirely from BP employees." The CRP spokesman also stated that "Obama did not accept contributions from political action committees, so none of this money is from BP's PAC."
Donations from BP or its employees represent 0.01 percent of Obama's total fundraising. As Media Matters senior fellow Jamison Foser has noted, Obama has raised more than $799 million for his campaigns. The $77,051 he has received from BP's PAC and employees accounts for less than 0.01 percent of Obama's total campaign contributions.
By Ben Armbruster
Weeks after BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Politico reported that during the last 20 years, the company and its employees gave more money to President Obama than any other federal political candidate. Yesterday on Fox News Sunday yesterday, Sarah Palin tried to make it into a wider narrative. “I don’t know why the question isn’t asked by the mainstream media and by others if there’s any connection with the contributions made to President Obama and his administration and the support by the oil companies to the administration,” she said. Palin wondered if there is “any connection there to President Obama taking so doggone long to…grasp the complexity and the potential tragedy that we are seeing here in the Gulf of Mexico.” Mainstream media outlet the Wall Street Journal did ask and it appears the answer doesn’t give cover to Palin’s charges:
According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Republicans receive far more campaign money from the oil and gas industry than do Democrats.
So far in 2010, the oil and gas industries have contributed $12.8 million to all candidates, with 71% of that money going to Republicans. During the 2008 election cycle, 77% of the industry’s $35.6 million in contributions went to Republicans, and in the 2008 presidential contest, Republican candidate Sen. John McCain received more than twice as much money from the oil and gas industries as Obama: McCain collected $2.4 million; Obama, $898,000.
Moreover, as Time’s Michael Scherer noted, the Politico article on BP’s donations “fails to provide the context readers need” considering Obama ran for president, and the numbers aren’t adjusted for “campaign inflation.” Even right-wing blogger Ed Morrissey warned the GOP not to “overplay their hand on this issue.”
Update Media Matters notes that Obama did not take any money from BP's PAC during his run for president. All of his donations came from BP employees.
