Politics

Daily Disclosures

By Bill Allison

A roundup of what we’re noticing in the Reporting Group as we dig into government data and disclosures:

Mouth, money: Speechnow.org, involved in one of the seminal Supreme Court decisions that opened the door to outside spending, has disclosed some donors, including David Keating, executive director of the Club Growth ($5,210), $10,000 from a mysterious Jim Gilmore who lives in a post office box in San Francisco (a John Gilmore that shares the same address wrote a piece opposing increased sentences for ecstasy possession), and $110,000 from retiree Fred Young. Speechnow.org has spent more than $135,000 in this cycle.

Hardier than parties: My colleague Paul Blumenthal reports that fifty-nine percent of all outside spending on independent expenditures has come from organizations not aligned with either political party. That’s a dramatic change from the 2006 midterms when party committees accounted for eighty-two percent of all outside spending on independent expenditures.

Be sure to check out our Follow the Unlimited Money tool–updated hourly!–to get all the latest info on outside groups.

Bag man: Larson for Congress, campaign of Rep. John Larson, D-Conn., reports bundled contributions from United Technologies PAC ($53,625) and Hartford Financial Services Group PAC ($21,195). Recent poll shows Larson might be in trouble.

Today’s Politiwidget:

Partied out: Unlike the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee–all of which number reelection committees of the most prominent members of their parties among their top donors–the National Republican Senatorial Committee doesn’t number a single Republican Senator among its top donors, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The NRSC has spent less on independent expenditures than the other three party committees active in the 2010 mid-term elections.

Full post as published by Sunlight Foundation on October 15, 2010 (boomark / email).