Extra Credit Opportunity
For those of you clamouring for a bump, here is your chance. Go to the website OpenSecrets.org. Find something fascinating about campaign finance that you can comment on. Be original as you don't want to post comments that someone else has already responded with. There are 69 APLG students. I will give XC to the first 68 who respond by the start of class on Tuesday Jan. 14th.
Example - In 2012, Amy Klobuchar spent about $8.5 million to be re-elected to the US Senate. and that is far from being an expensive Senate seat.
From 1998 -2012 the number of lobbyists has not changed much (1998 about 10,400 lobbyists while in 2012 there were 12,400 registered lobbyists) the amount of money spent by organizations (businesses, interest groups etc.) has been increasing tremendously. In 1998 about $1.45 billion was spent while in 2012 $3.31 billion was spent lobbying. Hopefully you could answer the "so what" of this fact.
Of the 534 current members of Congress, at least 268 had an average net worth of $1 million or more in 2012, according to disclosures filed last year by all members of Congress and candidates. The median net worth for the current lawmakers who were in Congress as of the May filing deadline was $1,008,767 -- an increase from the previous year when it was $966,000. And you thought that the qualifications for Congress were age, residency and citizenship. The richest member of Congress was, once again, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) chairman of the House Oversight Committee. Issa, who made his fortune in the car alarm business, had an average net worth of $464 million in 2012.
All the best,
Darren Thompson
posted by erdecker @ 9:55 AM
43 comments
43 Comments:
I read the "Should Auld PACs Be Forgot" which explained that about 122 PACS were terminated at the end of 2013 due to company merges, company failures, or lawsuits (and 180 haven't even made contributions.)
It seems like it didn't make that much a difference since "...other PACs arriving on the scene or ramping up their giving seem to keep the machinery going. Overall, PAC donations have been on a consistent upward trajectory at least since 1990." If the trend continues, elections will cost so much that the money contributed to candidates would make more of a difference towards our national debt. The "Land of opportunity" will have a qualifier, "only if you serious bank." Rules will have to be in place for moderation, otherwise the projected future is a nightmare.
This article left me with some following questions:
If politicians are spending so much time searching for PACS and SuperPACS for money, is it taking away from their duties as policy-makers? Should PACS and SuperPACS really exist if they're capitalizing on politicians' time as well as raising funds? How far is too far?
I looked at money spent, raised, etc. during the 2012 election for the Democratic and Republican candidates, Obama and Romeny. I find it interesting that Romney spent more, raised less, and still had less debt than Obama. I don't really understand how that works. Another thing I noticed was their top 5 contributors. Obama's consisted of 2 universities, 2 computer companies, and the US Government while Romney's consisted mainly of banks. I also found it very ironic that Texas, a very conservative state, was one of Obama's top 5 state contributors. Texas gave more than double to Romney what they gave to Obama but still very interesting.
I think it is sad that elections cost so much. I understand it is important for candidates to get their goals and such out to the people, but I wish there was a cheaper way to do it. The money could be used for something so much better. They could put a dent in the national debt or feed millions of hungry people.
Jamie Knox
I looked at the Minnesota Congressional Race from 2012. I found that Amy Klobuchar raised a little more than 10 times as much as her republican opponent. I also found that all of the third party candidates running for the senate seat raised a combined total of $0. That's right, ZERO. I wonder why that is,because the 3rd party competitors for the house of representative seats raised at least some money. maybe it's because they know they probably aren't going to win the seat. I also found that among Amy Klobuchar's top 5 contributors were General Mills and Target. I knew that large corporations donated to the politicians, but it never really crossed my mind that a cereal company and a grocery store would donate so much. As I continued to look at the current House and Senate members, I found that Tim Walz's top contributor is the Mayo Clinic!
Also, I agree with Jamie that it is sad that elections cost so much. I think about how many things could be done with that much money. I can't even begin to think of what to do with all that money and yet the candidates have a hard time not spending more than the millions of dollars that they have raised!
I looked up the Richest Members of Congress and looked at their net worth (which was a lot), and found that 7 of the top 10 were Democrats. I found this interesting because Democrats are all about the progressive tax which would mean these people would have to pay more taxes since they are insanely rich. It made me realize that not all people are opposed to paying higher taxes when they are wealthy. I guess I am just used to hearing about Republican officials opposing the idea of paying more money! I also had to look up a bunch of people to see what kind of donations they made and to whom. I found that my neighbor's sister has donated over $100,000 to a lot of Democrats over the years. Bruce Springsteen has also donated a good amount of money to Democratic organizations. I hadn't realized how much money is involved in this sort of thing, it's shocking how much money officials see is necessary in their elections.
-Shannon Adkins
I was interested in where all this money that is fundraised gets spent. So, I took a look at the expenditures and the breakdown of presidential expenses. The website refers to the tremendous costs of running a campaign as “a bit like running a medium sized business for two years, and the overall race amounts to a decent size industry.” As I began to search from who benefits from this industry, I was not surprised when I saw that the majority of money is spent toward media outreach, 763.3 million to be exact. However, I did find some of the other major expenses surprising. For instance, I did not realize how much money gets spent for Strategy and Research ($48 million). I also found it ironic that they spend 175.9 million for fundraising events, mailing/calls consulting etc. After seeing these numbers, I have a greater understanding for why presidential elections cost so much, this website displayed every single cost that a president must fund/ find funding for.
I was interested in where all this money that is fundraised gets spent. So, I took a look at the expenditures and the breakdown of presidential expenses. The website refers to the tremendous costs of running a campaign as “a bit like running a medium sized business for two years, and the overall race amounts to a decent size industry.” As I began to search from who benefits from this industry, I was not surprised when I saw that the majority of money is spent toward media outreach, 763.3 million to be exact. However, I did find some of the other major expenses surprising. For instance, I did not realize how much money gets spent for Strategy and Research ($48 million). I also found it ironic that they spend 175.9 million for fundraising events, mailing/calls consulting etc. After seeing these numbers, I have a greater understanding for why presidential elections cost so much, this website displayed every single cost that a president must fund/ find funding for.
I read "The Top 10 Things Every Voter Should Know About Money in Politics". Some insight that caught my interest included:
-Campaign fundraising never stops, so the biggest supporters are long term supporters
-Politicians like small donations for making good press, but big donations pay for elections and get them re-elected
-Large contributions (greater than $200 must report the donor's name, address, employer and occupation, and are publicly availabe through the Federal Election Commission
-Small donations are only reported in lump sum to the FEC
-New congress candidates are usually forced to pay personal money for their first campaign, they can pay as much as they want and they're able to repay themselves once elected
I read several articles that talked about all the investments that the members of both the House and Senate spend their money on to get richer. What I found interesting was that all these politicians spend all their time and energy on to regulate companies and ensure that they are not corrupt and in the end they end up investing in their stock. I would have thought it would have been the other way around in that they would invest in stock that is more financially safe and stable rather than ones that could cause a big loss in investments. The top industry categories that the politicians invested in were Real Estate and Securities & Investment but the interesting thing is that the top individual companies did not fall into those categories, such as GE, Procter & Gamble and Microsoft. In my opinion this shows that fewer politicians are investing more of their money in the Real Estate category but there are more politicians investing smaller amounts of money in companies such as GE. The other thing I found interesting was the different types of investments that the Congress was making vs all the other branches of government. For example, the Recreation/Live Entertainment moves investment ranking from #17 to #2 when everyone is included which shows that politicians prefer not to waste as much money on a market that can be slightly more risky.
I immediately wanted to look at the wealthiest members of Congress because it intrigues me that those controlling our tax payments and making the laws the general people live by don't exactly fit into "general people". Darrell Issa, who had the top net worth, had a total of $21,404,510 for his campaign funds. 53% of that was his own financing ($11,279,429). His net worth ranged from $330,380,031 to $597,850,005. He spent one third to one sixth of his net worth to fund his campaign. I think it's ridiculous for anyone to spend so much of their money to be hired to make money. I also think it's ridiculous the lengths these people go to simply to convince the American people to elect them.
Ciera Hardyman
I read "Millionaires Make Up The Majority Of Congress: Here's Why That Hurts Us" initially finding it unsurprising that a lot of the time the people who make up these seats are the ones who can afford to, that is afford to campaign to put themselves at the forefront. Out of 534 members of Congress -- there was one vacant seat -- 268 have an average net worth of more than $1 million. This begs the question of whether the needs of the less fortunate are over looked due to the amount of wealthy congressman representing. “The over-representation of the rich in Congress may influence whose interests legislators are really protecting as they seek to address questions of inequality and need, according to J. Mijin Cha, a senior policy analyst at the liberal think tank Demos.” I found this very interesting and slightly disappointing. - Alicia Quinones
Whilst poking around the website, looking for nothing in particular, I clicked on the republican party, and saw that the top contributors to their cause were "Friends of John Boehner," which I think is kind of weird, John Boehner's friends alone were able to raise 1.5 million more than any other corporation. What I'm taking away from this is that if you don't have rich friends, forget about it. I also noticed, when looking at individual contributions to candidates, one member in the senate dominated, receiving $50,000 more than any other candidate, which again supports the hypothesis that if your friends are not rich, pack up and head for the hills.
I browsed around and found that Amy Klobuchar raised $10.2 million but only spent $8.5 million leaving a solid $1.784 million categorized as "Cash on Hand". Its casual cause I noticed Franken has about $1.3 million "cash on hand" just in case they need to buy a house or a new car or something. It also showed how much the candidates spent out of their own bank accounts. Klobuchar spent a big ole goose egg and Franken spent $4,600, so it is nice to see that our state leaders are sacrificing their own money to pay for their campaigns. Obama payed $5,000 while Romney payed $52,500. I like Romney.
Jake Titus
By random chance I happened to stumble upon the contributions given to campaigns by insurance companies, commercial banks, real estate interests and organizations of the like. Generally these companies have given more to republicans, which would make sense given that republicans would promote such business. Take insurance companies as an example. A democrat might support universal health care, which just might knock the insurance company right out of business. On the other hand, a republican would more likely support the free enterprise system, which would be favorable to these private corporations. However in recent elections the tides have turned, as the democratic donations have slightly outnumbered those to the republican party. This is most likely due to the intent to stay an influence on policy-making decisions in the democratic controlled white house and senate.
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I took a look at interest groups and PACs and their donations to candidates. Interest groups appear to support Republicans much more than Democrats. Republicans tend to support businesses, which in turn, keeps the money from interest groups flowing.
Link to Interest Group expenditure graph (you'll need to copy and paste):
http://i.imgur.com/TI6jTN0.png
However, the revenue that PACs receive seems to be more than 50% of what they send back to candidates, which left me wondering whether the people who are in PACs treat it as a job, or as payment for other motives.
PAC Revenue raised/to candidates:
http://i.imgur.com/GS1Zhd1.png
After reviewing some articles (Millionaires Make Up The Majority Of Congress: Here's Why That Hurts Us) (Millionaires' Club: For First Time, Most Lawmakers are Worth $1 Million-Plus) on the wealthy congressmen, I found that politicians are becoming more and more wealthy, with just over fifty percent of congressmen being millionaires. This being said, I do not think they should be debating issues like unemployment benefits, food stamps and the minimum wage when they will never have to face poverty. "'Despite the fact that polls show how dissatisfied Americans are with Congress overall, there's been no change in our appetite to elect affluent politicians to represent our concerns in Washington,' Sheila Krumholz, the center's executive director, said in a statement". If America is not impressed with the current congressmen, why is there no change?
Carleigh Pula said…..
I read the "Political Parties Overview" and found out that political parties raise a lot of money during and for the election that most people don't know about. They collect hundreds of millions of dollars each election cycle. Also I found out theirs a different name for money depending on where its coming from during election time; "Hard Money' which is given by individuals & political action committees but that money is subject to federal contribution limits. The second form of money is "Soft Money" and that comes from corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals. Until November 2002, parties could raise as much "Soft Money" as they wanted.
I read the article "CRP Dark Money Panel". In this article it explains how dark money was used. Dark money is applied to the category of a political spender because these groups don't have to disclose their source of their funding. this is threatening because their political spending is supposed to be limited and the IRS as having jurisdiction over these groups have not been watching. Now as a result, party organizations who do not disclose their donors have increased their spending from 5.2 million in 2006 to over 300 million in 2012. -Brooke Johnson
I read the article "CRP Dark Money Panel". In this article it explains how dark money was used. Dark money is applied to the category of a political spender because these groups don't have to disclose their source of their funding. this is threatening because their political spending is supposed to be limited and the IRS as having jurisdiction over these groups have not been watching. Now as a result, party organizations who do not disclose their donors have increased their spending from 5.2 million in 2006 to over 300 million in 2012. -Brooke Johnson
I looked into the top PACs and the amount of money that they gave to the two parties. I found that most of the PACs contribute money to both parties, however in general the funds are not distributed evenly. In general, the funds are distributed at a ratio of about 60/70-40/30 one way or another. One of the only PACs that contributed all of their money to one party is the Every Republican Is Crucial PAC, who obviously gave all of their money to the Republican party. Incidentally, this PAC was the highest total PAC contributor, giving a total of $1,180,000 to the Republican Party.
I was reading the article the article, "Sex, Money, and Politics" (don't judge), and came across an interesting statistic. All of the top percentage of money coming from women of House and Senate members were Democratic and female,on the flip side, the lowest percentages were either Male of Republican. Also over the years, it has been the general thought that women were becoming more prominent in politics, however this only comes on the democratic side, while the republicans had 7% women in 1990, and rose only to 11% in 2012. Democrats went from 10% to 28%. Despite these staggering differences, women only contribute more money to Democrats by a slim margin, never topping 60% going to Democrats and in 1996 giving more money to the Republicans. Overall this shows that women may be growing in politics on the democratic side, but in general, the balance remains fairly even.
Chris Lam
The first thing I saw as I clumsily maneuvered the opensecrets.org was a graph depicting the richest members of Congress. I found that although Republican Representative Darrell Issa of California's "Net Worth is nearly twice as much as the next representative, Democrats monopolize the list. Democrats represent seven of the top ten richest congress men and women (Nancy Pelosi being the only woman making the list), something I did not expect. In my supremely oversimplified understanding of the U.S. Government and all its intricacies, I generalized that Republicans are going to be the richest members of Congress being that they agree with a flat tax that would be considerably beneficial to them; however, I discovered that it is mainly Democrats who make up the richest members of Congress. For me this was a complete paradigm shift. After reviewing this information, I subsequently wondered why this is. Is it that those Democrats have been in Congress for longer than the others? Could it be that they have side businesses or organizations that contribute to their wealth, or that included in the "Net Worth" of these representatives is their PAC money?
In further digging I discovered that Democrats represented eleven out of the twenty-five richest Congress men and women, and ten out of the twenty-five poorest Congress men and women. Although the article states that "It is difficult to gauge what a lawmaker is worth based on what they file because the disclosure forms do not require exact values" (Open Secrets), I thought there must be some truth to these rankings, and found them to be very compelling. If the money representatives earn from their PAC is counted in their "Net Worth," is it not logical to assume that Democrats are receiving more than many Republicans from outside parties and must therefore be more popular. This reasoning seems sound to me given that as a country we are, at this moment in time, much more liberal than we are conservative.
Tori Dylla
I read a Koch Network: A Cartological Guide which was a joint analysis with the Washington Post of the Koch brothers' labyrinthine network of political groups. In both of these articles neither of them reveal the names of the donor's but they showed that the coalition raised more than $400 million during the 2012 election and according to the graphic ''A Maze of Money'' seventeen allied groups in the coalition raised this money and much of it was spent making ads attacking Obama and congressional Democrats. I personally think that it is insane at what measures they go to so they can make certain people or groups look like the bad guy so the opposition wins.
- Igor Antolovic
I read the article "Business Cash Rules in Alabama" what I found interesting is that the Tea Party candidate Dean Young, who likened himself to Senator Ted Cruz, got very little financial support from GOP businessmen who were upset about the government shutdown. His more mainstream Republican opponent Bradley Byrne, however, picked up tens of thousands of dollars easily. Byrne won in a landslide. Not only did most of these donations come from outside Alabama, but they also strongly suggest that in elections, money outweighs rhetoric.
Samantha Sanders
I found a list of congressional members ranked by their net worth. The 510-535 slots were filled by congress members who had a net worth between 0 and -$15 million. It is no small wonder why we are in debt as the people running the country cannot be held responsible for their personal finances and definitely should not be entrusted with the wealth of our country
"Of 534 current members of Congress, at least 268 had an average net worth of $1 million or more in 2012, according to disclosures filed last year by all members of Congress and candidates. The median net worth for the 530 current lawmakers who were in Congress as of the May filing deadline was $1,008,767 -- an increase from the previous year when it was $966,000. In addition, at least one of the members elected since then, Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), is a millionaire, according to forms she filed as a candidate. (There is currently one vacancy in Congress.) "
Millionaires club
I found this sad in the fact that politicians should be civil servants and they should not be that wealthy. I looked up how much they get paid, which is $174,000, and if they are already that rich, they shouldn't need such a large salary. I believe the government could save a lot of money by basing congressional salaries off of need, so if a poor person is elected, they would be compensated more than a rich person. I would almost like to go as far as to say they shouldn't get paid, but that would just eliminate the possablility of poor people, who financially couldn't survive two years without a paycheck, from being elected. If people really wanted just a flat salary to pay congressmen, why don't we just use the average income? We could use the median, which is 44,389, or the mean, which is 60,528. Either way, we could adjust it every year and it would be great motivation to fix the economy and improve the standard of living for the average voter.
I read an article called Politically Active Nonprofits: The Evolution of Dark Money about how the IRS and CRP need to come up with ways to control nonprofits spending on political campaigns. As long as the donor remains anonymous, nonprofit organizations are able to pour millions of dollars into political campaigns. There are ideas forming which would severely limit money donation and are causing some people to say it infringes on their basic first amendment rights. One quote by Baran was very true and made me realize just how many loopholes people must look for. She says: "Money migrated after the enactment of the McCain-Feingold law. I, and many others, predicted when the legislation was being considered that if you ban the soft money it's going to go somewhere else."
No matter how many databases the IRS makes, this problem is going to continue for decades and is going to enable politicians and dark money to continue to pervade campainging. So I am lead to ask- should we even try to fix this or should we give up because they seem to be a step ahead anyways.
I was looking up the Super PACs in the last election (2012) and what I found interesting when I was looking at the total money raised was by "Restore Our Future" who supports Mitt Romney, the total amount was: $153,741,731. On the other hand, the winner of the election, Obama's Super PAC,"Priorities USA Action" was third on the list with a total money amount raised at: $79,050,419. this gave me the question to ponder, Why didn't Romney win, because he had the most money? Did he not spend it all, should he of spent more? At the end of the day, money does not made the election, it just helps it.
I found an article called "A Rising Tide of Dark Money" and was shocked at what I found. Although it is apparent that companies dump large amounts of money into campaigning, “Dark money” now more often flows from a web of hidden shell companies and secret wire transfers — it’s more a sophisticated money-laundering scheme than simple brown envelopes stuffed with cash.” Tax-exempted, Conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch superheaded a network of 17 organizations that contributed at least $407 million, most of which went into advertising attacking President Obama and Democratic congressional candidates. The work to hide where the money comes from is surprising; it all took place beyond the disclosure requirements of the Federal Election Commission. The activity portrays the shadiness of drug runners, why pour such large amounts of money into campaigns when one can’t own up to do it? This just goes to show how shady campaigning money can be, and reveals how some politicians come up with such large amounts of money.
-Kelli Grimm
I looked at the statistics surrounding the U.S. elections. One of the things I found interesting is the amount the of money winners spent on average. In the House, the average was around $1,567,293 whereas in the Senate the average was $11,474,007. Another interesting fact is that out of the 391 incumbents seeking reelection in the House,351 were reelected. That's around 90% of them. This fact shows the idea that incumbents really get far more support than the other candidates and that spending more money can usually help get a seat in Congress. Along with that, I also saw how much money was spent in presidential elections versus congressional elections. For both of these elections the numbers are steadily increasing every election cycle, but the Congressional races are often spending more. However, the presidential races are not too far behind in how much is spent. Regardless,the amount of money spent in general is far too much, a lot of this money could be used for more beneficial things.
-Lucky Volety
I looked at the 2012 presidential race. To me, this is ridiculous. Money is basically power at this point. These candidates live the sweet life of everything being paid for, many different people on their "staff" running their life. Yet we choose them to run our country. Majority of the things that are put out there by these candidates are not even their own ideas that they may truly endorse but they do so because that's what their party wants.The money they have allows them to pollute Americans minds with their crap that they say will save the world. More money means more advertising, more advertising leads to more minds knowing about you and more minds knowing about you typically means more votes. To some it up: Money = Being elected. Crazy to think that money is overruling our own morals and the sacred meaning of a true life.
-Jared Bromberg
I was looking further into the 2012 election cycle for Minnesota and found out that campaign finance is very important for the success of an election. I kind of expected that would be the case, but I didn't realize just how much money matters when running a campaign. In Minnesota, with the senate race and all the district races, every candidate who raised the most money except for one, won the election. This is clear evidence to the fact that money makes a huge difference in the outcome of an election and I'm sure I would find very similar results if I looked at other states.
I also looked into the campaign spending of the most recent Presidential Race. I noticed that the top contributors to Obama were very well known companies or major universities, but for Romney they were banks or not so well known companies. The second thing that stood out to me was the fact that both candidates had three of the same top five contributing states. I didn't expect this at all. I assumed that the top 5 would only consist of dominant Democratic states for Obama and dominant Republican states for Romney. In the end, just like the Minnesota congressional races, the candidate that raised more money won.
Immediately went to the section that had to do with lobbying, thinking that like many other areas of political economics it would be increasing infinitesimally. I was happy to see I was wrong. Although it is still an over 2 billion dollar industry, it has not shown much growth at all within the last 10 years. Nearly one fourth of that money spent in lobbying was spent by our own US department of commerce. My question would be: why is what they do considered lobbying? They are the number one corporation when it comes to lobbying, but four of the top ten corporations that lobby have to do with healthcare, which I also found interesting.
I thought I would look at where Al Franken gets all of his campaign money from, because I thought that'd probably be INCREDIBLY interesting! While looking at his events I noticed the usual luncheon or brunch but was definitely not expecting an event labeled "Win a Trip to Conan O'Brien's House."
Also, apparently 7 of the 16 million dollars he's raised since 2009 has come from the "other" category. There wasn't any way to discover what this "other" category was, so I'm still not sure what to think about it.
I found it very interesting to look at the "revolving door" section of lobbying and interest groups. It was no surprise that companies will find a way to get into the government; they did not get to be top companies by being stupid! What did astonish me was the number of ex- White House Staff and Congressmen (161 to be exact) are now hired by companies with the apparent sole purpose to have an insider in Washington and remember, that is CURRENT members, not including former employees. Now, people who work in congress and for the white house are smart people to begin with, but it is doubtful that they would have been hired by Wall Street firms without having high end politics on their resume.
It can be both good and bad that these former politicians are working for Wall Street firms. If it is something they truly care about, then supposedly they are doing what they love now. However, with the dollar amounts that companies will pay them, it would be hard to reject an offer regardless of what a politician thought of the cause.
Through this entire site, it is clear that politics may very well be about money. However, that is really what the American dream is built on: being able to do what you want and make money at it if you work hard enough. Politicians do not lead an easy life. They are fatigued throughout their campaign(s) and their term(s). Who can blame them for wanting to retire to a job where they can make millions of dollars just by using their already established connections?
Chris Kotschevar
Congressional Democrats had a median net worth $1.04 million, while congressional Republicans had a median net worth of almost exactly $1 million. The median net worth for all House members was $896,000 in 2011- with House Democrats (median net worth: $929,000) holding an edge over House Republicans (median net worth: $884,000). Senate Democrats reported a median net worth of $1.7 million (a decline from 2011's $2.4 million), compared to Senate Republicans, at $2.9 million (an increase from $2.5 million). I find it fascinating that the Democrats are the dominant money makers in Congress, but yet the Senate Republicans are making quite more than Senate Democrats. It just goes to show that two people can really have an impact on the net worth of their party in Congress (John Kerry and Frank Lautenburg).
Also, it makes sense that it's really easy for an incumbent to readily have their name and message out around election time. It fascinates me how unfair of an advantage that incumbents over brand new challengers. The new candidates have to work their butts off for recognition and support while the incumbents just sit back and rake in the cash. It's like you might as well just hand the win over to the incumbent because the odds of them not winning are highly unlikely.
Zach Higgins
I looked at the financial details of the 2012 presidential election and found interesting information. Top contributors to Barack Obama were the University of California, Microsoft, Google, the US Government, and Harvard University. These sources of funds could be considered left-leaning due to the education involved; Mitt Romney's top contributors were: Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo, all banks or financial services, a very right-leaning support base-also not surprising. Another area of my interest was the top contributing states to each candidate. Obama's were California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Texas; Romney's were California, Texas, Florida, New York, and Virginia. Obama won four of five of his top states,(lost Texas) and, ironically, Romney lost four of five of his top states (won Texas). This surprised me because shouldn't Romney receive more support in a state that he won, such as North Carolina or Arizona?
The Walgreen's company is ranked among the top 10 of assessors. The net worth of Walgreen's is on average $15,324,074. 75% of the transactions made by the Walgreen's company go towards republican congress members. One congress member, Michael McCaul, who's worth is on average $143,153,910, and is also on the top ten list of richest congress members, has received $150,002-$350,000 from Walgreen's. This bond between Walgreen's and congressman McCaul is concerning to Americans because these companies that give so much money can often be found lobbying congress and paying their way to have control in the government. It is concerning to us because the people are unable to pay as much as large corporations are to support candidates and before we know it we could find large companies indirectly running congress rather than the votes of the people.
- Brianna Colvin
I looked at the money that the defense sector contributed to political candidates. I wasn't surprised to find that they gave more money to republicans than democrats, as those with more conservative views generally think that the U.S. should spend more on the military. I was surprised, however, that the defense sector contributed money at all- I hadn't thought about this, but now that I have, I guess it makes sense. The website said: "Although the defense sector contributes far less money to politicians than many other sectors, it is one of the most powerful in politics." The more I thought about this fact as well, the more it made sense- other top interests groups that contributed to candidates were things like real estate, lawyers, and construction. But if you think about it, although these people are important, the military and defense of our country holds more power. And to be honest, I would rather have the military hold more sway over politicians than someone in the transportation industry.
-Emma Pankratz
Refering to "Political Nonprofits", or 501(c) organizations which are tax free, these organizations are supposed to be forbidden from lobbying or supporting one candidate or another, but when digging into the details,non-profits with large budgets may lawfully expend upto million dollars. This seems like a large loophope and I think it also explains the reason that expenditures have risen from $5.2 million in 2006 to $300+ million in 2012. Why are these "political organizations" tagged as nonprofts then?
While exploring the donor demographics under historical elections, one pretty interesting thing I noticed was that there seemed to be a significant increase in donations while comparing the 1992 and 2012 elections. The 1992 election had approximately 430,000 people donate $200+ to a campaign while the 2012 had approximately 1,250,000 people donate $200+ to a campaign. What I took from this is that it seems that people in America are seem to become increasingly aware of what's happening within politics and whatnot since people appear to want to help out a candidate, even though a lot of other evidence seems to prove the opposite. However, it's probably just because elections tend to get a good amount of attention from the media, so people naturally are drawn to focus on it when it takes place.
I was still interested about PACs and SuperPACs after that video we watched so I decided to read about them on this site. I looked at the statistics for yearly cycles and wondered why certain years the PACs with the most money were mostly conservative while others were liberal. For example, in 2010 the top SuperPAC was conservative having raised almost four times as much as the next highest, liberal, PAC. In 2012 however the top two PACs were conservative and had significantly more than the next three highest, which were liberal.
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