Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) hold a news conference to propose new campaign finance legislation at the Capitol on April 23, 2013.

For the first time since Sens. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, teamed up to push through a 2002 law that banned corporate, union and unlimited individual donations to the political parties, a new campaign finance bill has received bipartisan support in the Senate.

Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon today presented legislation that would require nonprofit groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and Priorities USA, started by former aides to President Barack Obama, to disclose all of their campaign spending and who’s paying for it. Such groups spent more than $300 million in 2012, keeping their donors hidden, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Previous efforts to require such disclosure have been filibustered by Senate Republicans, and not one member of that side of the aisle has been willing to cross over and back the legislation. Murkowski said that’s because those earlier bills were seen as favoring Democratic constituencies such as labor unions. This bill, she told reporters today, is neutral.

“This is a bill that is designed to be bipartisan,” Murkowski said. “The rules are the same for everyone.”

The bill would require real-time disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures, rather than waiting for groups to file with the Federal Election Commission, sometimes after the election is over. Any group spending at least $10,000 would have to report.

The FEC would also be tasked with determining whether limited liability companies are legitimate businesses or shell corporations designed to hide the identity of donors. Restore Our Future, a super-political action committee backing Republican presidential nominee  Mitt Romney, received $235,000 from companies that were created by auto-title or payday lenders though did not disclose their business interests. Romney vowed to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law that placed those lenders under federal regulation.

At the same time, the bill would raise to $1,000 from $200 the minimum amount that would have to be disclosed. As a result, someone could collect $999 from each of 50 people at a company for the primary election and the general election and deliver almost $100,000 in donations to a candidate without having to disclose the source of the money.

 In a statement, the U.S. Chamber called the Murkowski-Wyden bill “even worse” than previous proposals to require disclosure. “If this legislation became law, money spent by a group or individual merely to explore the possibility of participating in the country’s political dialog would immediately be reportable to the government, even if the person decides later not to engage in public political speech.” The chamber said those disclosures would be “extraordinarily useful for identifying and intimidating those with different political views.”

Original post is Murkowski, Wyden Team Up: Bipartisan Disclosure Bill by Political Capital.

Photograph by Scott Eisen/Bloomberg

Students celebrate after U.S. President Barack Obama was projected the winner of the presidential election inside the Kennedy Forum at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Nov. 6, 2012.

Candidates, parties, political action committees and other outside groups spent more than $7 billion on the 2012 election, according to a final tally by the Federal Election Commission.  That’s the most ever spent on U.S. elections, and surpasses the $5.3 billion spent in 2008.

The presidential candidates spent $1.4 billion while congressional candidates spent $1.8 billion. Political action committees, fueled by the rise of super-PACs that could take in unlimited donations, spent another $2.2 billion.

President Barack Obama and his allies and Republican nominee Mitt Romney and his allies each spent more than $1 billion on the race.

Original post is FEC: 2012 Campaign Cost $7 Billion by Political Capital.

Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus at the National Press Club on March 18, 2013 in Washington.

The Republican National Committee is jealous of super-political action committees.

That bit of envy is tucked away on page 64 of the RNC’s 97-page “autopsy” of how to right itself after failing to win the White House and a Senate majority last fall. An introduction to the campaign finance section of the RNC report says that fundraising restrictions have put state and national political parties “well on their way to the intensive care unit.”

At the same time, outside groups such as super-PACs and nonprofit groups “use unlimited, and often unreported, amounts of the same money federal candidates and national parties are now prohibited from spending or raising,” the report, released today, says.

“The result is an illogical system where candidates and their parties no longer have the loudest voices in campaigns or even the ability to determine the issues debated in campaigns. Outside groups now play an expanded role affecting federal races and, in some ways, overshadow state parties in primary and general elections.”

Thanks to a series of Supreme Court decisions and rule changes in 2010, outside groups can raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations and unions and spend the money with few restrictions. No such luck for the Republican National Committee or and Democratic National Committee: Individuals are limited to giving $32,400 per year to the RNC or DNC, and corporations and unions can’t give directly to the parties at all.

Those restrictions help explain why super-PACs and nonprofits spent $890 million on last year’s federal elections — about four times as much as the parties, according to the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics.

The RNC doesn’t mind that the courts “restored the First Amendment rights” to the outside groups; it just wants similar access for itself. Today’s report recommends that elected officials, among other things, advocate for increasing the individual giving limits and ease restrictions on how the parties spend at the state and local level.

Without those changes, the report says, the parties won’t be able to compete with outside groups. The report tracks with what Steven Law, proprietor of several powerful outside groups, observed last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference: “There are no kingmakers in the parties in the way that there used to be.”

Original post is RNC Suffers Super-PAC Envy by Political Capital.

Photograph by Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo

Sen. Tim Scott speaks at the 40th annual Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md, on March 14, 2013.

Steven Law, who leads several outside groups that help finance Republican candidates, argued today at the Conservative Political Action Conference that political parties are no longer the force they once were.

Speaking at a panel about who should pick candidates, Law said party leaders were once powerful enough to usher a chosen person to office. No longer, he said. Because of campaign-finance laws that limit contributions, he said, “there are no kingmakers in the parties in the way that there used to be.”

Enter, outside groups.

Super political action committees have more funding freedom than the parties — they can accept unlimited sums from individuals, unions and corporations and spend that money on ads attacking and helping candidates of their choice.

Law just so happens to have several such groups.

His latest, the Conservative Victory Project, will spend money in Republican primaries. Law and fellow strategist Karl Rove said they will back the most conservative candidates who can win general elections.

These outside groups “can’t pick a candidate, but it’s OK to support a candidate,” Law said.

But some leaders of the anti-tax Tea Party movement and of socially conservative groups such as Brent Bozell’s For America don’t want Law and Rove involved in primaries at all.

Bozell today said that he is sending a letter to major contributors to another Rove entity, American Crossroads, warning them not to give him more money.

“Groups like Crossroads squandered hundreds of millions of dollars in what were arguably the most inept campaign advertising efforts ever,” Bozell says in the letter.

Law said during the CPAC panel that various Republican groups should work together to find and promote quality candidates.

“We have got to pull together to stop the most serious threat to liberty that probably anyone has seen in our lifetime,” he said, referring to President Barack Obama’s second-term agenda.

One questioner at the panel epitomized the mixed feelings Republicans have about the Conservative Victory Project, saying he’d withhold judgment until he sees what kinds of candidates it supports.

“I’m either 100 percent for you or 100 percent against you,” the questioner said. “I can’t decide.”

Original post is Law at CPAC: Party Kingmaking Gone by Political Capital.

Photograph by Frank Polich/Getty Images

Jim Messina, campaign manager for the re-election of President Barack Obama, talks with reporters during a tour of the re-election headquarters in Chicago.

Organizing for Action, the advocacy group that arose from President Barack Obama’s successful re-election campaign, has reversed course and decided not to take corporate donations.

OFA Chairman Jim Messina made the announcement in an article he wrote for CNN.com.

He gave no reason for the decision, which followed criticism from supporters of tougher campaign finance laws. Organizing for Action was incorporated as a nonprofit group, allowing it to take unlimited corporate, union and individual donations without identifying its benefactors.

Messina said OFA would report its donors quarterly, including amounts, and would not accept contributions from registered lobbyists, foreign nationals or political action committees in addition to corporations. “We believe in being open and transparent,” he wrote on CNN.com.

Campaign finance advocates welcomed Messina’s about-face, though continued to express concern over the idea that individuals could give unlimited amounts to a committee linked to Obama.

“OFA remains an unprecedented entity that allows individual donors and bundlers to provide unlimited amounts of money to an organization functioning as an arm of the Obama presidency,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21.

Common Cause President Bob Edgar, a former Democratic congressman, said Organizing for America should cap donations at the same $32,400 limit for contributions to political parties, and should use the grassroots group to push for stronger campaign finance laws.

“President Obama came to power in 2008 on a wave of anti-corruption sentiment and the   promise to change the way Washington works,” Edgar said. ”He has an opportunity now to  make good on that promise and through it to advance other items on his agenda.”

See the full report at Bloomberg.com.

Original post is Obama’s Advocacy Group Bows to Pressure, Bans Corporate Giving by Political Capital.

Photograph by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

A Chevron Corp. station in San Francisco.

A coalition of advocacy groups filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission today over Chevron Corp.’s $2.5 million donation to a super-political action committee aligned with House Speaker John Boehner.

Chevron’s donation to the Congressional Leadership Fund was one of the few contributions from a publicly traded company to a super-PAC. The groups, including Public Citizen and Friends of the Earth, said the donation violated federal law because federal contractors are not allowed to make political contributions. San Ramon, California-based Chevron received $661 million in contracts from the Defense Department in the 2011 fiscal year, according to Bloomberg Government.

Super-PACs were approved by the FEC in 2010 following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which overturned decades of legislation and court decisions restricting corporate contributions for political purposes. Such PACs are allowed to take in unlimited corporate, union and individual donations and spend the money to elect or defeat those running for office, though must disclose their contributors and cannot give directly to a candidate’s campaign.

“The ‘pay-to play’ prohibition exists because of a long and seedy record of companies attempting to buy lucrative government business by filling the campaign coffers of politicians,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen, which supports stronger campaign finance laws.

Chevron spokesman Lloyd Avram said the donation came from the parent company, which “does not conduct business with the federal goverment.” All federal contracts are held by corporate subsidiaries, he said.

“Chevron does not believe that the federal government contractor ban applies to this specific contribution,” Avram said.

In any event, the FEC is unlikely to take any action.

It has routinely deadlocked along party lines, 3-3, on enforcement measures.

Original post is Chevron’s $2.5 Mln Donation Challenged by Advocacy Groups by Political Capital.

Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was presented the Department of Defense’s highest award for public service at the Pentagon on Feb. 14, 2013.

Is this the first campaign staff of 2016?

Ready for Hillary, the super-political action committee pushing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to run for president in 2016, announced its first hire today.

Seth Bringman, a veteran of Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, is coming on board as national communications director.

He calls Clinton  “by far the best potential candidate to keep the White House in Democratic hands” and the “most effective in building on the progress that President Obama has made for middle-class Americans.”

Even better: A native of Ohio. Bringman will be based in that key battleground state.

Ready for Hillary was set up last month by supporters of Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. Its chairwoman is Allida Black, a professor at George Washington University and a longtime Clinton backer. Under federal law, anyone can form a super-PAC to support or oppose any candidate.

Original post is 2016 ‘Ready for Hillary:’ First Hire by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Comedian Stephen Colbert gives a cheers in front of a giant paper mache puppet of himself in Washington.

It’s all in the family.

Stephen Colbert is raising campaign funds for an older sister seeking a U.S. House seat in their native South Carolina.

The political satirist, host of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” will appear at a dinner and a reception in New York on Feb. 22 to help Elizabeth Colbert Busch, according to an invitation on her campaign Web-site.

Colbert Busch, a business development official with a Clemson University institute in North Charleston, is one of three Democrats seeking the vacant, Charleston-area 1^st District along with 16 Republicans.

Colbert talked about his sister’s campaign last night on his program, which he’s used to muse about running for “president of the United States of South Carolina” and to highlight the ineffectiveness of campaign finance laws by creating his own super-political action committee.

“As a broadcast journalist, I am obligated to maintain pure objectivity,” Colbert, staying in character as a Republican-leaning pundit, said on his show. “It doesn’t matter my sister is intelligent, hard-working, compassionate and dedicated to the people of South Carolina. I will not be mentioning any of that on my show.”

Party primary elections are scheduled for March 19, followed by the special election on May 7. The district leans Republican.

Republican Tim Scott vacated the 1st District seat last month to accept an appointment to the Senate.

Original post is Colbert Raising Money For Sister’s South Carolina Congressional Bid by Political Capital.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A Tea Party protester in San Francisco, California.

Karl Rove says he isn’t at war with the Tea Party.

Then he blasts the Tea Party groups complaining about his new venture into Republican primary races.

Rove was speaking with fellow Fox News employee Sean Hannity last night to explain the Conservative Victory Project, a super-political action committee that will spend money in Republican primary races, territory that other well-funded groups including the party itself have declined to traverse.

Yet, “this is not Tea Party versus the establishment,” Rove said.

His two other groups, the super-PAC American Crossroads and nonprofit Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, are “second to none in our support of Tea Party candidates,” Rove said.

He unsheathed his weapon, a white board, and continued explaining that the Crossroads entities had spent at about $50 million on Tea Party candidates in the 2010 and 2012 elections. The names on his white board included Florida’s Sen. Marco Rubio, Kentucky’s Sen. Rand Paul, Pennsylvania’s Sen. Pat Toomey, and 2010 Senate hopefuls Sharron Angle of Nevada and Ken Buck of Colorado.

There were no 2012 names on the white board.Rove said later in the program that his Crossroads groups had raised $320 million last year.

So why are the anti-tax Tea Party groups dissing his new venture? Rove said, in effect, it’s because their work is inferior to his own Crossroads operation.

He called those complaining about him “fundraising entities” where “most of the money gets sucked up into overhead and goes to the pockets of the person who owns the website or owns the political action committee.” By contrast, Rove said, he is a “volunteer” for Crossroads and even pays for his own expenses.

The list of organizations unhappy about the Conservative Victory Project includes: FreedomWorks, For America, the Tea Party Express, Tea Party Patriots, Teapparty.org and the Senate Conservatives Fund.

Developer Donald Trump and conservative talk radio hosts Laura Ingraham and Mark Levin also have said Rove shouldn’t meddle in primaries. Near the end of the Hannity interview, Rove said, “I don’t want a fight.”

Original post is Rove: ‘I Don’t Want a (Tea Party) Fight’ — with Fighting Words by Political Capital.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Ken Koeppe wears tea bags on his hat during an Americans For Prosperity rally.

A new Karl Rove plan to spend money in Republican primary races has stoked anger among Republicans who think the party needs to track right rather than to the center, Bloomberg News reports.

“Their idea of the most electable presidential candidate was Mitt Romney, and before him John McCain and before him Bob Dole,” said Brent Bozell, the leader of For America, a social media group that identifies its goals as promoting limited government, a strong national defense and Judeo-Christian values.

“These fake conservatives need to go away before they do more damage,” he said in an e-mailed statement this morning. A blog on For America’s website makes the same argument.

Bozell’s tone matches that of Erick Erickson, editor of conservative website Redstate.com. In a post this morning, Erickson wrote that Rove and his associates at the super-PAC American Crossroads and its nonprofit companion Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies “spent hundreds of millions of rich donors’ money and had jack to show for it.”

Erickson writes that Rove’s new political group, the Conservative Victory Project, will make it easy ”to figure out who the terrible candidates will be in 2014″ — the ones supported by the project.

The Conservative Victory Project is meant as a counterweight to other outside groups that have played in recent Republican primaries, The New York Times reported yesterday. Rove and fellow Crossroads associate Steven Law are behind the project, the Times reported.

Teaparty.org, a social media group that aggregates information about the anti-tax movement, interpreted this new Rove venture as a hostile move. It responded accordingly, featuring a Breitbart headline on its blog: “Rove Declares War on Tea Party.”

Original post is Rove and ‘Fake Conservatives:’ ‘Go Away,’ Bozell Says by Political Capital.