72 Super PACs Spent $83.7 Million On Election, Financial Disclosure Reports Show - WaPo

[WillyT]

72 super PACs spent $83.7 million on election, financial disclosure reports show
By T.W. Farnam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 3, 2010; 10:22 PM

<snip>

The newly created independent political groups known as super PACs, which raised and spent millions of dollars on last month's elections, drew much of their funding from private-equity partners and others in the financial industry, according to new financial disclosure reports.

The 72 super PACs, all formed this year, together spent $83.7 million on the election. The figures provide the best indication yet of the impact of recent Supreme Court decisions that opened the door for wealthy individuals and corporations to give unlimited contributions.

The financial disclosure reports also underscore the extent to which the flow of corporate money will be tied to political goals. Private-equity partners and hedge fund managers, for example, have a substantial stake in several issues before Congress, primarily the taxes they pay on their earnings.

"Super PACs provide a means for the super wealthy to have even more influence and an even greater voice in the political process," said Meredith McGehee, a lobbyist for the Campaign Legal Center, which advocates for tighter regulation of money in politics.

<snip>

More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/03/AR2010120306995.html?hpid=topnews

:kick:

[wiggs]

1. This is, of course, closely linked to the tax cut issue. If you don't give tax cuts

to the very wealthy, it is likely they will not give as much to you.

[Overseas]

2. K&R. Thanks to judicial activists appointed by the GOP and confirmed by too many of my Democrats.

My Democrats allowed judicial activists like Roberts and Scalito to be confirmed as Supreme Court nominees, even though the Democratic base opposed their pro-corporate bias and talked about filibustering at least Alito.

We need left wing judicial activists appointed to the court by Democrats to balance that out, but so far we have nominated more moderate liberal judges.

I am sad that my Democrats haven't appointed liberals as radical as those conservatives have been.

And in the meantime, Republicans have been using that filibuster Harry Reid was too scared to use during the Alito confirmation process to hold up many of President Obama's judicial appointments to lesser courts so we'll have less liberals in the pipeline.

[WillyT]

3. + 1,000,000,000... What You Said !!!

:kick:

:hi:

[Overseas]

4. Thanks.

:hi:

and

:cry: for my country

[Obamanaut]

5. Both parties raked in a lot of money from this. The OP link has a box

insert with another link, pasted below. A butt load of money is being passed around, but everyone is getting a share


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaign/2010/spending/index.html?sid=ST2010120307148

<snip>Use this interactive to track campaign spending by interest groups and political parties in the 2010 midterm elections. These totals were updated every Tuesday through Election Day. For the week ending October 31, groups spent a total of $80,388,945, with $35,537,796 on behalf of Republicans and $44,548,623 on behalf of Democrats.
<chart at link>

[pnorman]

6. K & R for both links in this thread!

n/t