Donors not tied to official campaigns–many anonymously–have given far more to candidates than the amount they dished out at the same time four years ago.
But despite a competitive race in both major parties this time around, a review of Federal Election Commission data conducted by The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) found primarily one faction responsible for the early surge.
“The rise of single-candidate operations gives conservative organizations an edge in a presidential race marked by a large crop of Republican presidential candidates,” the non-profit said in a blog post published Thursday. “Of the 20 biggest spenders, just one has a liberal viewpoint: the establishment-Democrat-backing Senate Majority PAC.”
CRP said that non-profits, super PACs and “business associations” had, by Sept. 21, already spent $25.1 million in the current election cycle. The sum is 500 percent greater than what it was at the same time in 2011, during the early days of the last presidential contest, and 34 percent greater than what it was in 2013, before the last mid-term.
The biggest spenders were “independent” Republican groups supporting New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Jeb Bush. The groups studied by CRP don’t have to disclose donors by law, and most of the largest do not.
One influential organization that doesn’t, the Koch Bros.-founded Americans for Prosperity (AFP), has, for the first time this cycle, reported election expenditures six months before votes are cast.
“But as of Sept. 21, more than a full year before the 2016 election, the group has spent $1.6 million, according to its reports to the agency, making it the fifth-highest-ranking outside spending group so far this cycle,” CRP noted.
A bellwether for the role of money in politics in recent years and staunch supporters of lax election finance regulations themselves, the right-wing political machine orchestrated by industrialist billionaires Charles and David Koch has promised to spend almost $900 million on attempting to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. In 2012, they spent less than half that amount. AFP is one of many organs used by the Kochs to support or oppose election campaigns.
The flood of money in recent years to nominally independent electioneers was sparked by the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United v. FEC decision, which removed restrictions on many types of political donations to outfits other than a candidate’s official campaign.
The decision has long been bemoaned by pretty much every lawmaker to the left of the Republican Party. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), in an article published by The Nation on Wednesday, said that the conservative court’s majority opinion–which held that independent outlays would not even give “the appearance of corruption”–was “bonkers.”
“A 2012 poll found that approximately 70 percent of Americans believe Super-PAC spending will lead to corruption,” Whitehouse wrote. “According to the same survey, 75 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Democrats agreed that there would be less corruption if there were limits on how much could be given to Super PACs.” The Senator also noted a New York Times/CBS News poll which found that two-out-of three Americans believe “the wealthy have a greater chance of influencing the electoral process than other Americans.”
“As Justice Stevens warned in his dissent, ‘A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold,” Whitehouse said.
Developments earlier this week in the Republican primary have, however, raised questions about the ability of “independent” donors to affect outcomes.
“Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin was among the most successful fund-raisers in his party, with a clutch of billionaires in his corner and tens of millions of dollars behind his presidential ambitions,” The New York Times noted on Monday. “But his swift decline and exit from the presidential race…were a stark reminder that even unlimited money has its limits.”
“Super PACs, Mr. Walker learned, cannot pay rent, phone bills, salaries, airfares or ballot access fees,” a Times report on the candidate’s electoral demise also remarked.
