Big money breaks out
Top 100 donors give almost as much as 4.75 million small donors combined.
By Kenneth P. Vogel
12/29/14 5:32 AM EST
The 100 biggest campaign donors gave $323 million in 2014 — almost as much as the $356 million given by the estimated 4.75 million people who gave $200 or less, a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance filings found.
And the balance almost certainly would tip far in favor of the mega-donors were the analysis to include nonprofit groups that spent at least $219 million — and likely much more — but aren’t required to reveal their donors’ identities.
The numbers — gleaned from reports filed with the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service — paint the most comprehensive picture to date of an electoral landscape in which the financial balance has tilted dramatically to the ultra-rich. They have taken advantage of a spate of recent federal court rulings, regulatory decisions and feeble or bumbling oversight to spend ever-greater sums in politics — sometimes raising questions about whether their bounty is being well spent. Yet their expanded giving power in 2014 was all the more stark, coming against a backdrop of what appears to be a surprising decline in the number of regular Americans contributing to campaigns, as well as a shift in political power and money to outside groups unburdened by the contribution restrictions handcuffing the political parties and their candidates.
Taken together, the trend lines reflect a new political reality in which a handful of superaffluent partisans can exert more sway over the campaign landscape than millions of donors of more average means. And that’s to say nothing of the overwhelming majority of voters who never spend so much as a single dime on politics. (The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that only 0.28 percent of American adults donate to campaigns.)
The widening imbalance revealed by POLITICO’s analysis illustrates “the insanity of this system” and is further discouragement to would-be small donors, asserted Larry Lessig, a Harvard professor who this year helped launch a self-described “crowdfunded” super PAC. Called Mayday PAC, it spent $10.6 million from a mix of micro- and mega-donors on a quixotic crusade to elect congressional candidates who it hoped would support policies that empower mom and pop contributors.
“As you see that your democracy is controlled by a smaller and smaller number of funders, you have less and less interest to be engaged in it,” said Lessig.
Yet the power of the ultra-rich was also ironically highlighted by Mayday’s own fundraising. It yielded a total of $3 million from just seven donors, most of whom made POLITICO’s top 100 list — LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman (who ranked No. 64, gave $1 million to Mayday and another $60,000 to various Democratic and liberal committees), Napster co-founder Sean Parker (No. 43; $500,000 to Mayday and $1.1 million to a mix of liberal and conservative committees), Boston investor Vin Ryan (No. 70; $500,000 to Mayday and $400,000 to liberal candidates and groups), billionaire heiress Pat Stryker (No. 52; $300,000 to Mayday and $1 million to liberals) and retired shoe executive Arnold Hiatt (No. 98; $250,000 to Mayday and $500,000 to liberals).
In the end, Mayday PAC suffered embarrassing disappointment in 2014, winning only two out of eight races in which it played. “Obviously, 2014 makes it hard to be optimistic about it in any immediate term,” Lessig said, “but the democracy fails unless we change this system, so I am confident that eventually we’ll figure out how to make this change happen.”
Top conservative donors and their representatives dismissed liberal concerns about the expansion of big money in politics as hypocritical and lacking in context. More than twice as much money was spent on Halloween this year — $7.4 billion — as on federal elections — $3.67 billion — one donor representative pointed out.
And Ronnie Cameron, an Arkansas poultry company owner who ranked 13th on POLITICO’s list, asserted that, while he and his fellow mega-donors may be writing bigger checks these days, it hasn’t fundamentally changed American politics.
“I doubt the amount of influence is any more concentrated in the hand of a few than it was in the 1950s or 1960s,” said Cameron. He donated $4.2 million between his company Mountaire Corp. and his personal checkbook to GOP-allied candidates and groups, ranging from maximum $5,200 donations to successful Senate candidates Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Joni Ernst of Iowa to $1.3 million worth of checks to the Republican Governors Association to $2 million to Freedom Partners Action Fund, the super PAC affiliated with the Koch brothers’ political operation. “There have always been wealthy individuals that had influence,” Cameron pointed out, adding, “Our country was founded by the wealthy landowners having the authority and representing all the people.”
Faulting POLITICO for omitting contributions from labor unions, which lean left, in its analysis (though it also omitted contributions from most major corporations, which tend to lean right), Cameron asserted that wealthy conservative donors — even at their most potent — would only offset the liberal tendencies of influential institutions. “Between Hollywood, the media and the unions, their huge influence by a relative few has long exceeded the influence paid for by people able and willing to give personal money to deliver a message.”
POLITICO’s analysis relies on FEC data processed by the Center for Responsive Politics (a nonpartisan nonprofit group), supplemented by IRS data aggregated and made available for searching by Political Moneyline, covering donations made during the 2014 cycle, including reports filed this month that detail contributions through the final days of the race. The analysis incorporates checks written by donors, their spouses and closely controlled corporations to federal candidates’ campaigns and national party committees, as well as to political action committees and super PACs registered with the FEC, and to national nonprofit groups established under a section of the Tax Code — 527 — that allows organizations like the Democratic and Republican governors associations and the abortion-rights group EMILY’s List to raise unlimited contributions, provided they disclose their donors to the IRS.
The analysis does not include donations to state-level campaigns and political committees, nor, importantly, does it include an increasingly significant subset of national political groups registered under a section of the Tax Code — 501(c) — that doesn’t require them to disclose their donors. Those groups reported to the FEC that they spent at least $219 million in the midterms, with conservative groups accounting for 69 percent of that, according to CRP. But the groups, which are popular with conservative donors who have expressed concerns about being targeted for their donations, almost certainly spent much more than on political expenses that don’t trigger reporting requirements. A single 501(c) group, the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity, spent around $125 million in 2014.
Wealthy liberals, meanwhile, had initially expressed philosophical opposition to all forms of big-money political spending after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the floodgates. Not only did they substantially trail conservatives in big-money spending during the first two elections of the new era, but they also tried — with little apparent success — to make the billionaire conservative mega-donors Charles and David Koch into campaign bogeymen.
Top 100 donors give almost as much as 4.75 million small donors combined.
By Kenneth P. Vogel
12/29/14 5:32 AM EST
The 100 biggest campaign donors gave $323 million in 2014 — almost as much as the $356 million given by the estimated 4.75 million people who gave $200 or less, a POLITICO analysis of campaign finance filings found.
And the balance almost certainly would tip far in favor of the mega-donors were the analysis to include nonprofit groups that spent at least $219 million — and likely much more — but aren’t required to reveal their donors’ identities.
The numbers — gleaned from reports filed with the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service — paint the most comprehensive picture to date of an electoral landscape in which the financial balance has tilted dramatically to the ultra-rich. They have taken advantage of a spate of recent federal court rulings, regulatory decisions and feeble or bumbling oversight to spend ever-greater sums in politics — sometimes raising questions about whether their bounty is being well spent. Yet their expanded giving power in 2014 was all the more stark, coming against a backdrop of what appears to be a surprising decline in the number of regular Americans contributing to campaigns, as well as a shift in political power and money to outside groups unburdened by the contribution restrictions handcuffing the political parties and their candidates.
Taken together, the trend lines reflect a new political reality in which a handful of superaffluent partisans can exert more sway over the campaign landscape than millions of donors of more average means. And that’s to say nothing of the overwhelming majority of voters who never spend so much as a single dime on politics. (The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that only 0.28 percent of American adults donate to campaigns.)
The widening imbalance revealed by POLITICO’s analysis illustrates “the insanity of this system” and is further discouragement to would-be small donors, asserted Larry Lessig, a Harvard professor who this year helped launch a self-described “crowdfunded” super PAC. Called Mayday PAC, it spent $10.6 million from a mix of micro- and mega-donors on a quixotic crusade to elect congressional candidates who it hoped would support policies that empower mom and pop contributors.
“As you see that your democracy is controlled by a smaller and smaller number of funders, you have less and less interest to be engaged in it,” said Lessig.
Yet the power of the ultra-rich was also ironically highlighted by Mayday’s own fundraising. It yielded a total of $3 million from just seven donors, most of whom made POLITICO’s top 100 list — LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman (who ranked No. 64, gave $1 million to Mayday and another $60,000 to various Democratic and liberal committees), Napster co-founder Sean Parker (No. 43; $500,000 to Mayday and $1.1 million to a mix of liberal and conservative committees), Boston investor Vin Ryan (No. 70; $500,000 to Mayday and $400,000 to liberal candidates and groups), billionaire heiress Pat Stryker (No. 52; $300,000 to Mayday and $1 million to liberals) and retired shoe executive Arnold Hiatt (No. 98; $250,000 to Mayday and $500,000 to liberals).
In the end, Mayday PAC suffered embarrassing disappointment in 2014, winning only two out of eight races in which it played. “Obviously, 2014 makes it hard to be optimistic about it in any immediate term,” Lessig said, “but the democracy fails unless we change this system, so I am confident that eventually we’ll figure out how to make this change happen.”
Top conservative donors and their representatives dismissed liberal concerns about the expansion of big money in politics as hypocritical and lacking in context. More than twice as much money was spent on Halloween this year — $7.4 billion — as on federal elections — $3.67 billion — one donor representative pointed out.
And Ronnie Cameron, an Arkansas poultry company owner who ranked 13th on POLITICO’s list, asserted that, while he and his fellow mega-donors may be writing bigger checks these days, it hasn’t fundamentally changed American politics.
“I doubt the amount of influence is any more concentrated in the hand of a few than it was in the 1950s or 1960s,” said Cameron. He donated $4.2 million between his company Mountaire Corp. and his personal checkbook to GOP-allied candidates and groups, ranging from maximum $5,200 donations to successful Senate candidates Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Joni Ernst of Iowa to $1.3 million worth of checks to the Republican Governors Association to $2 million to Freedom Partners Action Fund, the super PAC affiliated with the Koch brothers’ political operation. “There have always been wealthy individuals that had influence,” Cameron pointed out, adding, “Our country was founded by the wealthy landowners having the authority and representing all the people.”
Faulting POLITICO for omitting contributions from labor unions, which lean left, in its analysis (though it also omitted contributions from most major corporations, which tend to lean right), Cameron asserted that wealthy conservative donors — even at their most potent — would only offset the liberal tendencies of influential institutions. “Between Hollywood, the media and the unions, their huge influence by a relative few has long exceeded the influence paid for by people able and willing to give personal money to deliver a message.”
POLITICO’s analysis relies on FEC data processed by the Center for Responsive Politics (a nonpartisan nonprofit group), supplemented by IRS data aggregated and made available for searching by Political Moneyline, covering donations made during the 2014 cycle, including reports filed this month that detail contributions through the final days of the race. The analysis incorporates checks written by donors, their spouses and closely controlled corporations to federal candidates’ campaigns and national party committees, as well as to political action committees and super PACs registered with the FEC, and to national nonprofit groups established under a section of the Tax Code — 527 — that allows organizations like the Democratic and Republican governors associations and the abortion-rights group EMILY’s List to raise unlimited contributions, provided they disclose their donors to the IRS.
The analysis does not include donations to state-level campaigns and political committees, nor, importantly, does it include an increasingly significant subset of national political groups registered under a section of the Tax Code — 501(c) — that doesn’t require them to disclose their donors. Those groups reported to the FEC that they spent at least $219 million in the midterms, with conservative groups accounting for 69 percent of that, according to CRP. But the groups, which are popular with conservative donors who have expressed concerns about being targeted for their donations, almost certainly spent much more than on political expenses that don’t trigger reporting requirements. A single 501(c) group, the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity, spent around $125 million in 2014.
Wealthy liberals, meanwhile, had initially expressed philosophical opposition to all forms of big-money political spending after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the floodgates. Not only did they substantially trail conservatives in big-money spending during the first two elections of the new era, but they also tried — with little apparent success — to make the billionaire conservative mega-donors Charles and David Koch into campaign bogeymen.