This blog continues the discussion we began with Epic Journey: The 2008 Elections and American Politics (Rowman and Littlefield, 2009).The next book in this series is The Comeback: the 2024 Elections and American Politics (Bloomsbury, 2025).
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Showing posts with label American Action Network. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Action Network. Show all posts
The Twitter accounts were hidden in plain sight. The profiles were publicly available but meaningless without knowledge of how to find them and decode the information, according to a source with knowledge of the activities. ... A typical tweet read: "CA-40/43-44/49-44/44-50/36-44/49-10/16/14-52-->49/476-10s." The source said posts like that -- which would look like gibberish to most people -- represented polling data for various House races.
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At least two outside groups and a Republican campaign committee had access to the information posted to the accounts, according to the source. They include American Crossroads, the super PAC founded by Karl Rove; American Action Network, a nonprofit advocacy group, and the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is the campaign arm for the House GOP. ... The Twitter operation underscores the uncertain state of campaign finance rules after the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision upended limits on outside spending in politics. Regulations provided by the FEC in the wake of the court ruling leave much to interpretation about what constitutes "coordination," creating a Wild West environment that, according to campaign finance experts, gives outside groups ample opportunity to share information while arguing they stayed within the confines of the law.
"It may bend common sense, but not necessarily the law," said Daniel Tokaji, a professor of Constitutional Law at Ohio State University who co-authored a study this year examining the relationship between outside groups and campaigns. "A lot of things you and I would consider coordination are not coordination under the law. I don't think sharing polling data is going to be enough to establish that the campaign was materially involved in decisions about content, target audience or timing."
In response to this story Monday, FEC vice-chair Ann Ravel said the commission may address the use of social media to share campaign information, but conceded that the rules governing campaign finance are "murky."
In its first year, Crossroads GPS -- a sister group to the super PAC American Crossroads -- reported to the FEC that it spent $16.7 million on ads directly and indirectly advocating for or against candidates. (Even 501(c)(4) groups, while not required to reveal much to the FEC, must disclose when they run certain kinds of ads and how much they spend on them -- and they must do so promptly.) It later told the IRS, in its first tax form 990 filed with the agency, that it spent $15.9 million on politics. Both figures understate the reality of what GPS spent in the political arena by millions. In either case, they are well under half of GPS' reported overall spending of $42.3 million (including salaries, overhead and so on) that year.
Likewise, other members of the Crossroads-CPPR network were careful to abide by the 49 percent rule, at least in a technical sense. The 60 Plus Association reported to the FEC that it spent $7.1 million in 2010; that's just under half of its total IRS-reported expenditures of $15.5 million. Former New York Gov. George Pataki's Revere America filed expenditure reports with the FEC that came to $2.3 million, safely below half of the $6.3 million it spent that year.
Crossroads GPS' 2010 spending may well have helped the GOP take control of the House. And the group came out with guns blazing in 2012. In that election cycle, it told the FEC it spent more than $71 million -- almost as much as the entire GPS-CPPR network had spent, combined, in 2010. Crossroads likely won't send the IRS its form 990 for 2012, in which it will reveal its total expenditures last year, until autumn of 2013 (stay tuned for Step 4 of our series for more on the lag time), but logic dictates the group will need to show a $130 million increase over its 2010 overall expenditures in order to stay under the 49.9 percent threshold for political spending in 2012 -- by any measure, a staggering increase.
Crossroads GPS is one kind of shadow money group. But other kinds of politically active groups operate under the 501(c)(4) designation. They're little more than glorified mailboxes.
Foremost among them is the Center to Protect Patient Rights, which OpenSecrets Blog first uncovered last year. From 2009, when it was founded, until the end of 2011, CPPR raised $101 million. More than $70 million of that went out the door to other shadow money groups. CPPR has no activities of its own: It doesn't run ads for or against candidates; it doesn't conduct research; it doesn't spearhead public education campaigns. It appears to be little more than a conduit funneling money to other shadow money groups that spend the money. During the 2010 cycle, CPPR made $47.9 million in grants to groups that told the FEC they spent $37.2 million on political ads.
One might expect that whatever qualifies as reportable spending for the FEC would also count as political spending for the IRS. As it turns out, though, “politics” is in the eye of the beholder. The FEC defines it one way, the IRS another -- and that difference can work in a group’s favor.
Take American Action Network, a 501(c)(4) run by former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, started the month after Citizens United was decided. AAN told the FEC it spent nearly $20 million on political ads in 2010 -- yet reported to the IRS that it had spent only about $5 million on politics. Since the group that year reported spending a total of $25 million in all, the larger amount most likely would have caused the organization to fail the “primary purpose” test that’s meant to keep a 501(c)(4)’s political spending to less than half of its overall expenditures.
Luckily for AAN (though lawyers probably had more to do with it than luck), most of the spending it reported to the FEC was for “issue ads” -- ads that don’t tell viewers to vote for or against anyone, but often close with a line that goes something like, “Call Bruce Voight and tell him to stop torturing chipmunks.” Groups must report what they spend on issue ads to the FEC only when the ads run close to an election, which AAN’s did -- thus the high number.
But in its 2010 form 990 for the IRS -- not sent to the agency until May 2012 -- much of the money AAN spent on ads had undergone a makeover. Now, the funds had been used for grassroots “lobbying.” The form hints how the group redefined some of its activities. The first version of the document revealed that it made a $500,000 grant to Crossroads GPS’s sister group, super PAC American Crossroads. AAN later amended the report to delete the grant, saying it had been “inadvertently reported.” In the same amended report, the groupincreased the amount it reported for “lobbying” by $500,000. Later, it came out that the grant was actually a payment to Crossroads Media, the political admaker that counts both American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS as clients and was cofounded by formerAmericans for Job Security President Michael Dubke.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee plans to expand its press operation to train campaigns earlier in the cycle on how to better handle the kind of candidate missteps that have plagued its party’s nominees.
The goal? To avoid what’s become known in GOP circles as “Todd Akin moments.”
“The campaigns that jumped off message not only infected themselves, they infected all the rest of the campaigns,” said Rob Collins, the new NRSC executive director, in his first extensive interview on the job. “So in this age of fractured but continuous, three-dimensional communication, we have to constantly plan for that and train for that and build for that.”
Collins, a former aide to Cantor, illustrates the interlocking personnel patterns of Team Red.
Two cycles removed from the Citizens United decision, Collins, the former president of the American Action Network super PAC, is well aware of the influence of outside groups and their effect on the role of campaign committees. There was no lack of attack ads, phone calls or mail last year when the party fell further into the Senate minority, and it’s made controlling the message more difficult for the committees.
Despite that, Collins said he believes the experience of the past four years in this new world will help.
“We don’t have to be the center of the basketball team anymore,” Collins said. “We can be the point guard. That’s why we’re making a massive investment in human beings.”
The emphasis on human capital this cycle will also include beefing up the digital department. In other words, don’t expect financial records to show a leaner, meaner NRSC.
“We lacked for technologically advanced campaigns that were being run by people who knew what they were doing ... and candidates who were on message and had the best tools at their disposal to win their campaigns,” Collins said. “So we’re doing that now. We’re getting on the road now.”
In a few cases, mostly in red states, that strategy worked. The orphan-state victory centers made more than 10 million voter contacts. Republicans protected vulnerable incumbents in several areas that tilted toward Democrats. Republicans won Democratic-held seats in Arkansas, Indiana, and Kentucky, all districts that featured Boehner-funded offices.
But even the speaker’s attention couldn’t save some members from a blue-state Democratic wave. Illinois was a bloodbath; Democrats ousted GOP Reps. Joe Walsh, Judy Biggert, Bobby Schilling, and Robert Dold. In New York, Reps. Nan Hayworth and Ann Marie Buerkle lost their jobs. So did Rep. Mary Bono Mack in California. Two other California Republicans, Reps. Brian Bilbray and Dan Lungren, trail their Democratic challengers but have yet to concede defeat. Boehner’s committees paid for 12 offices in California, 10 in New York, and six in Illinois.
“The ground game that we built, I still think, is an important part of the election and an important part of the process going forward,” Boehner said in a subsequent interview looking back at the election results. “But there are limits on what the ground game can produce, especially when you’re being swept away at the top of the ticket, as we saw in California and Illinois.”
Tuesday's elections produced some big winners -- and some really big losers -- whose names never appeared on any ballot. After outside groups spent more than $1.3 billion in independent expenditures to influence the outcome of the election, we now get to see just what all that money bought them -- or didn't.
Turns out some of the smart money wasn't so smart after all when it came to making political bets. This year, the pro-business GOP Crossroads fundraising combine and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce weren't as good at picking winners as the labor movement, which appears to be one of the surprise winners of Election Day.
Using Follow the Unlimited Money, Sunlight calculated returns on investment for the outside groups that gave the most during this year's general election campaign. This includes super PACs, non-profit organizations and political party committees. We left out the big committees focused solely on helping presidential contenders -- Restore Our Future, which backed Mitt Romney, and Priorities USA, which supported President Barack Obama -- because their won/loss percentage will be obvious from the election results. The groups listed below all played in more than one contest.
The percentage under each group's name represents their fall batting average: It reflects how much of their money went to support candidates who won and to oppose candidates who lost in thegeneral election campaign. Our calculation does not include money spent on primary contests or special elections. And our data is only as good as the group's reporting to the Federal Election Commission. If you see discrepancies or errors, email us here.
AP reports that Republican outside groups are entering the House battle:
A late spending splurge by outside political groups helped Republicans take over the House two years ago. The floodgates are opening again, but this time Democrats say they're better prepared.
So far in 2012, Democratic groups have generally been able to keep pace with the competition. Outside groups have spent about $60 million trying to help GOP candidates since June 1 and about $49 million trying to help out Democratic candidates, according the Sunlight Foundation.
But some of the Republican support groups are just getting started. Beginning Saturday, Crossroads GPS, one of the deep-pocketed groups co-founded by Karl Rove, is launching a three-week, $8.1 million broadcast campaign in 11 House districts in New York to Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Nevada, Indiana and California, according to Nate Hodson, the group's spokesman.
The Chamber of Commerce launched an $8 million ad campaign last week on behalf of 20 GOP candidates in close House races in California, New York and Illinois. It also weighed in for two Democratic incumbents. Until then, the chamber had focused most of its spending on Senate races.
American Action Network and the Congressional Leadership Fund, two Republican support groups led by former Sen. Norm Coleman, have spent about $3.1 million so far on House races. This week they said they will spend at least $13.5 million more during the campaign's final month.
Crossroads GPS has a tough hit in Nevada 4:
Several GPS ads are variations of this one in New York 25:
While Crossroads has reserved millions across the country in television time for presidential and Senate races, House operatives do not see any ad time from the group in their targeted races.
A spokesman said the groups have together spent $1.5 million on House races since Jan. 1, 2012, and there is big spending yet to come. “Crossroads is looking to spend tens of millions through a variety of platforms — TV ads, phone calls, direct mail, research, polling — to protect the majority in the U.S. House and promote a conservative agenda,” spokesman Nate Hodson said in a statement. He noted that Rove isn’t a spokesman for the group.
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“One of the big stories of this election in the House is that the Democratic outside groups have been more aggressive and spent more money on control of the House than business and Republican groups have,” top Republican strategist Brad Todd said.
Part of the trouble for Republicans and their allies is that outside dollars become less effective as each day passes. The competition in the top broadcast markets drives up the price to air advertisements — especially compared with TV time reserved early:
• In Sacramento, Calif., home to four competitive House races, outside groups pay about $1,100 per gross rating point — about $1 million to air a week of ads at saturation levels. In April, the cost was about $510 per point.
• In Las Vegas, outside groups pay about $600 per point. That’s twice the cost per point in April.
• On Boston’s Interconnect cable market, outside groups pay $1,800 per point to advertise in any of three nearby House races. Earlier this year, the cost was $700 per point.
• In smaller markets, such as Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Wausau, Wis., outside groups pay $125 to $165 per point. That’s three times the rate candidates receive.
But Politico reports that the cavalry is on the way:
Republicans are poised to flex their financial muscle in the final month leading up to the election, dumping an avalanche of cash into congressional races in an attempt to protect the House GOP majority.
The investment has the potential to drastically alter a financial playing field that has been mostly even between the two parties. Between the beginning of July and the end of September, Republican groups held a $36 million to $31 million spending advantage over their Democratic counterparts — a narrow GOP edge that left some Republican officials, who expected to have the upper hand in the money game, surprised and anxious.
In those roles, his work embodies the coordinated punch brought by like-minded groups to the effort to oust President Obama and give Republicans full control of Congress.
And as a veteran of Mr. Romney’s inner circle, he brings to the effort a keen understanding of the Romney campaign’s needs even as he is barred by campaign finance law from working directly with it. ... Now, with Mr. Romney prohibited from spending much of the cash he is raising until after the Republican convention in August, Mr. Forti and his clients are filling in the breach: Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, Restore Our Future and other Forti-linked groups have spent at least $35 million on advertising in 17 states against Mr. Obama since early April, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group.
Most of the advertising has been placed through a company called Crossroads Media, founded by one of Mr. Forti’s Black Rock partners and housed in the same office suite. So far this cycle, Crossroads and Restore Our Future have broadcast ads in about 40 Senate and House races as well as the presidential race, officials at the groups said, a breadth unmatched in the world of independent spending.
“We came up through the party infrastructure, where you are forced to look at the entire national battlefield,” said Brian O. Walsh, a friend and former colleague of Mr. Forti’s who directs the American Action Network, a tax-exempt group closely allied with Crossroads.
American Crossroads and its tax-exempt affiliate, Crossroads GPS, are expected to spend $300 million on the presidential campaign and Senate races; Restore Our Future is planning to raise at least $100 million and possibly more. Americans for Job Security, a tax-exempt trade association that spent $9 million in 2010 but is not required to release the names of its donors, shares office space with Black Rock and retains one of Mr. Forti’s partners as a consultant.
So far, American Crossroads has purchased more than $39.8 million in advertising across at least 10 states between Labor Day and Election Day. The inundation of advertising will come in states that are battlegrounds both in the White House race and the tussle over control of the U.S. Senate, according to sources watching the advertising market.
Between September 4 and November 5, American Crossroads has purchased more than $10 million in advertising in Florida; more than $7 million in Ohio; nearly as much in Virginia; more than $3 million in Colorado; $4 million in North Carolina; $3 million in Iowa; and more than $2 million each in New Hampshire and Nevada, the group will announce today.
Beyond the presidential figures, Crossroads GPS – the 501(c)(4) arm of American Crossroads, which does not have to disclose its donors – is spending $800,000 on advertising during the final two months before Election Day in North Dakota.
Most of the money looks geared toward the presidential contest. But there is ample evidence suggesting American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS are buying time to advertise in Senate contests. The groups use two separate vendors to purchase television time: One company also purchases advertising time for Restore Our Future, the super PAC backing presidential nominee Mitt Romney. To avoid improper coordination, buys that firm places are geared toward Senate contests instead of the presidential, according to sources in the advertising industry.
The American Action Network, the center-right issue advocacy group co-founded by former Sen. Norm Coleman, is devoting a minimum of $10 million to establishing a legislation-focused ground game in a number of states where there are competitive House races but state parties with little ability to provide a lift, POLITICO has learned.
The group, one of the key outside forces on the right, is one of the organizations helping out in the so-called “orphan” states, with weak state parties but races that are key to holding and expanding the Republican majority in the House. They are pairing up, state by state, with existing groups on the ground to develop, over time, a comprehensive ground game that includes phones, offices, voter data and registration drives.
“We wanted to build something to serve as a counterbalance to the folks on the left,” Brian Walsh, president of AAN, said in an interview. “It has always been a focus of ours.”
The move is part of building out a broader, issues-specific grassroots network with endurance. But in 2012, the AAN build-up will serve a simultaneous purpose of working in targeted House districts. As of now, AAN already has several people on the ground in specific districts, such as Rep. Nan Hayworth’s in New York, and congressional districts 10 and 11 in Illinois.
They are committing a baseline figure of $10 million to the project, which is being done through the network as issue advocacy, and not through its affiliated super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is devoted entirely to House races. Still, the focus on orphan states, officials note, has been a major priority of House Speaker John Boehner for months, as has fundraising for the CLF.
The secrecy shrouding these groups makes a full accounting of corporate influence on the electoral process impossible. But glimpses of their donors emerged in a New York Times review of corporate governance reports, tax returns of nonprofit organizations and regulatory filings by insurers and labor unions.
The review found that corporate donations — many of them previously unreported — went to groups large and small, dedicated to shaping public policy on the state and national levels. From a redistricting fight in Minnesota to the sprawling battleground of the 2012 presidential and Congressional elections, corporations are opening their wallets and altering the political world.
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Among the largest beneficiaries of corporate donations in recent years have been trade organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which largely backs Republican candidates. As a nonprofit “business league” under the tax code, the chamber does not have to disclose its supporters, who helped finance its $33 million in political ads in the 2010 midterm elections.
But voluntary disclosures by corporations — usually at the prodding of shareholder advocacy groups — shed some light on the use of trade groups for lobbying or as pass-throughs for political spending. A search of voluntary disclosures, some collected by the Center for Political Accountability, which advocates for transparency in corporate political spending, found more than $6 million in chamber donations by 10 companies last year.
Two of the largest came from Prudential Financial and Dow Chemical, which each gave $1.6 million, while Chevron, MetLife and Merck each gave at least $500,000. Some of the donations were directed to the chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform, which lobbies for limits on liability suits.
Some contributions are disclosed by accident. Aetna’s check to the American Action Network, along with a $4.5 million contribution last year to the chamber, was mistakenly included in a filing with insurance regulators. The disclosure was first reported by SNL Financial, a trade publication. Even where companies pledge voluntary disclosure of political contributions, they often make an exception for donations to tax-exempt groups.
