Rob Tornoe, a political cartoonist based in Delaware, is now drawing original cartoons for The Center, based on our stories. You'll see his work pop up on publicintegrity.org, our Facebook page and on Twitter. Tornoe also draws cartoons for The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Press of Atlantic City, Media Matters and Philadelphia NPR affiliate WHYY, among others. You can follow him on Twitter, and Facebook, too.

When state legislators in Wisconsin began work last year on a plan for redistricting, the once-a-decade process when states draw new district maps for Congress and state legislatures, they found themselves presented with non-disclosure agreements requiring them to keep their deliberations confidential.

In Ohio, the Republican National Committee kicked off a training session on redistricting for state leaders by telling them to “keep it secret.”

Democratic leaders in Illinois held dozens of public hearings after promising a more open process. But all of the meetings came before the congressional redistricting maps were released, and the Democratic majority quickly approved their own proposals with little opportunity for the public, or Republicans, to voice concerns.

In the lead up to the most recent round of redistricting, which began last year with the release of data from the 2010 census, politicians, advocates and “good government” groups nationwide pushed to open the process to citizens and allow for broader debate than in the past. The idea was that a transparent process would lead to maps that made more sense geographically and   better reflected voters’ interests.

But with few exceptions, the political parties in control of statehouses rammed their own partisan proposals through the legislatures as quickly as possible, leaving little more than nominal opportunities for the public to influence the process. In several states, legislatures outsourced the actual work to lawyers and used claims of attorney-client privilege to further exclude the public.

Earlier this year, the State Integrity Investigation, a data-driven analysis of state government accountability, reviewed each state’s redistricting process for transparency and potential for public input. Just 18 states received A’s; 24  received a D or an F.

Advocates, citizens and political parties have filed 194 lawsuits challenging congressional or state legislative lines in 41 states. Courts drew the final maps in nine states, either because the legislature’s maps were deemed discriminatory or because lawmakers could not agree on a final plan. Lawsuits are still pending in eight states. While the lines in those states are likely set for this election, the lawsuits could force new maps for 2014.

Despite all the litigation, experts say, the end result this time won’t be much different than in the past, when a procedure  intended to assure that each American receives equal representation is instead used by Republicans and Democrats alike to game the system to their advantage. Republicans controlled four times as many state legislatures as did Democrats, but after the GOP won huge gains in 2010, there wasn’t much room to increase their advantage. The party’s intent instead, experts say, was to secure the seats they already have. According to an analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice,part of the New York University School of Law, Republicans pushed 11 additional districts to their advantage, meaning 241 seats now lean Republican, one fewer than the party currently holds as the result of a big victory in 2010.

Often, neither party can gain many seats overall through redistricting, so both seek to protect their incumbents, creating safer seats, less competitive elections and, some say, more partisan politicians.

According to an analysis by Fair Vote, a nonprofit that advocates for election reform, the two parties have been so successful that only 74 congressional races, or 17 percent of seats, remain competitive, 15 fewer than in 2010.

To achieve safe seats, politicians sometimes drew splotchy, disjointed districts that carve up neighborhoods, throw together disparate groups whose concerns have little in common and make little sense in terms of representative democracy. Democrats working on Maryland’s 3rd district, a recent Washington Post editorial said, “split, severed or dissected” 42 of its precincts in an effort to cobble together a Democratic-leaning map. Two chunks of the district are not even connected to the rest. Opponents placed a measure on the November ballot that would overturn the state’s new districts.

The system “turns democracy on its head,” said Gerry Hebert, a former Justice Department lawyer who is now executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan public interest group. He also runs a private practice focusing on redistricting and election law, and is currently arguing challenges to new maps in several states, including Texas. “Instead of voters choosing their representatives, which is how I understand it’s supposed to work, you have representatives choosing their voters.”

The 'Gerry-mander'

The process of drawing district lines for partisan gain is as old as the nation. One early attempt was driven by Elbridge Gerry, who as governor of Massachusetts approved new district lines in 1812 to solidify his party’s reign over the state Senate. A cartoonist chose one particularly awkward looking district, stretched to pick-and-choose sympathetic voters, and drew it as a giant salamander, naming it the “Gerry-mander.”

Redistricting was not carried out consistently, however, leaving districts of vastly different size. By the 1960s, Los Angeles County’s population was 422 times greater than that of California’s least populous district, yet each had only one representative in Congress.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that states must redraw their congressional and state legislative districts every ten years, after release of new census data, to ensure that everyone receives roughly equal representation. But the high court largely allowed the states to decide how they would go about it.

While most states have general guidelines for drawing new districts, including that they must be relatively compact in shape, most allow the legislature to draw lines largely as its members please. The only strict federal law, coming from the Voting Rights Act, is that district maps must adequately represent the state’s minority voters. The idea is to prevent legislators from packing minorities into a small number of districts or spreading groups across too many to dilute their vote. In several states with a history of discrimination, the federal government must approve (“preclear”) new maps.

Some states, including California and Arizona, have placed redistricting in the hands of nonpartisan or bipartisan independent commissions. Some have independent advisory boards. This time around, greater access to computers and open source technology enabled the public to at least try to influence the process like never before. Michael McDonald, an associate professor of government and politics at George Mason University, helped create public competitions in several states where students and others used software to generate their own district maps.

But these efforts largely failed to influence the final plans that states adopted, McDonald said. And in some cases, legislators only increased their efforts to maintain control and avoid public participation.

“You shine that spotlight,” he said, “and the cockroaches just scurry further into the shadows.”

With few exceptions, excluding the public and intentionally drawing districts for partisan gain remains the norm, and remains perfectly legal.

‘Ignore the Public’

Wisconsin Republicans were presented with a rare opportunity in 2011. For the first time in decades, one party controlled both houses of the Legislature and held the governor’s office in a redistricting year, enabling them to run the entire process.

The public was excluded. To help draw the maps, Republican leaders hired a law firm that required all legislators who wanted to discuss the plans to sign a confidentiality agreement. Legislative aides produced talking points instructing legislators to focus on what happened in their closed door sessions before the release. “Public comments on this map may be different than what you hear in this room,” the memo advised. “Ignore the public comments.”

Leaders published their proposals on July 8 and held only one public meeting, five days later. The plans had been ready at least a couple of weeks earlier, but the leaders would not even show them to many legislators. On July 19, the Senate approved the maps on a party line vote. The state’s redistricting process received an F from the State Integrity Investigation.

“The end result was a partisan gerrymander, pure and simple,” said Mike McCabe, director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a state watchdog group. “It was a highly secretive and highly partisan process.”

Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald, whose office reportedly produced the talking points, did not return calls and emails to his office and staff requesting comment.

Not until a group of citizens and legislators sued were documents released showing the concerted effort to exclude the public. A recent editorial in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reacted to reports the law firm hadn’t even turned over all the documents that the court requested, calling the Republicans’ politicking “simply outrageous.”

The extreme secrecy was part of an effort to approve new maps before the state’s recall elections, when Republicans ultimately lost control of the Senate. Legislative leaders were so intent on beating the recall that they actually rewrote a state law preventing them from drawing state-wide lines before local governments had drawn their own. The final lines plucked two Democratic-leaning cities from the district of a vulnerable GOP freshman and tacked them onto the left-leaning 3rd district. The result is an island of blue surrounded by Republican districts. The lines are being challenged in state court.

‘Lip service’

While Wisconsin’s process was especially controversial, the state is hardly alone. The State Integrity Investigation conducted dozens of interviews across the country and collected information on how each state handles redistricting. About half of the states provide little or no opportunity for public involvement, resulting in an opaque and often partisan process with little or no transparency. Several states charted a route similar to Wisconsin’s, using claims of attorney-client privilege to try to shield the process from public view.

In the state-by-state report cards, twenty-one received F’s on redistricting: Kentucky, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Ohio, Alabama, Minnesota, Michigan, Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Texas, West Virginia, Alaska, New York, Oklahoma, Maine and Utah. Grades of D or D- went to Maryland, Arkansas and Nevada. (Seven states have only one congressional representative. For those, the rankings focused on state legislative redistricting only.)

In Tennessee, legislative leaders promised “the most open, interactive and transparent” redistricting process in the state’s history. But Republican leaders did not release any information on the plans until the end of the process, about a week before they adopted the proposals. The party did not release full, detailed maps of state legislative districts until two weeks after the legislature had approved them.

Hebert said that in most states, calls from legislators for more transparency have led to nothing.  

“It’s lip service,” he said. “They couldn’t care less what people say.”

One particularly blatant example occurred in 2003 in Texas, when Republicans, who were redrawing the state’s district lines after the party won a majority in the statehouse, convened in a central office.

“They actually took brown paper and pasted it up on the glass wall of the legislature offices so nobody could look in,” Hebert said.

Choosing Voters

While to some it seems unethical, many states allow legislators to draw maps for political gain and to protect incumbents. The Supreme Court has allowed plaintiffs to challenge maps based on partisan gerrymandering, but it’s never ruled in favor of such a claim. In effect, said Justin Levitt, a redistricting expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, the court has said that too much partisan redistricting may be illegal, but it hasn’t said what would qualify as too much.

Two of the most dramatic examples of partisanship this last cycle were Illinois and North Carolina. Illinois presented Democrats with one of their only shots at reversing GOP gains from 2010, when the party won 11 of the state’s 19 House seats. Democrats control the Legislature and hold the governorship,  the first time that’s happened in the state since 1970. After promising an open process, the legislature held 31 public hearings across the state on plans for the state Legislature. But only three of those occurred after legislative maps were released. Democrats held no meetings after publishing the congressional map, which came just four days before the final vote approving the plans.

Democrats were able to give themselves 11 safe seats, three more than they had before, even as the state lost a seat due to population shifts. They left Republicans with just two safe seats, with an additional five considered balanced, according to an analysis by Fair Vote. Courts rejected several challenges to the maps.

In North Carolina, however, Republicans made up for these losses. As detailed in the October issue of The Atlantic, state leaders hired Tom Hofeller, a seasoned GOP mapmaker, to help gain control of the state’s congressional delegation without running afoul of the Voting Rights Act; the state is among those that must submit maps for federal approval. Hofeller concentrated the state’s Democrats into a handful of districts, removing left-leaning enclaves from seats where Republicans might otherwise face tough challenges. The result is a map that favors Republicans 10-3 by snatching away a Democratic-leaning seat and eliminating the two toss-ups. The Department of Justice approved the maps, but a separate lawsuit claiming racial gerrymandering is still pending and could force new maps for 2014.

Even though state legislatures generally have the authority to draw new maps, it is an open secret that members of Congress often pick and choose where their district lines will lie. In Ohio, emails released in a lawsuit show that members of House Speaker John Boehner’s political team were in close contact with state leaders. In one note, state Senate President Thomas Niehaus told Tom Whatman, a member of Boehner’s team, that he would not approve a map without Boehner’s support. In another email, Whatman requested that state leaders extend one district line to include the headquarters of a top campaign donor to that district’s representative, Jim Renacci. The map also split the city of Toledo into three districts, a move that the deputy mayor said rendered the town “politically irrelevant.”

In testimony before the Ohio Senate Government Oversight and Reform Committee last year, Richard Gunther, a professor of political science at Ohio State, called the effort “the most grotesque partisan gerrymander,” he had ever seen. In an email message, Gunther added that Republicans are likely to hold 12 of the state’s 16 congressional seats even though the party rarely garners much more than half of the statewide vote.

Boehner’s political office did not return a request for comment for this story. Neither did the National Republican Congressional Committee, the Republican National Committee or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

A Mess in the Lone Star State

While most state legislatures operate for political gain, few can top the baldly partisan warfare in Texas. It was there, in 2003, that Democratic legislators fled the state in a failed attempt to prevent a vote on new district maps. The new lines helped flip the state’s congressional delegation in the 2004 election to majority Republican.

This year Republicans sought to hold those gains. But the party faced a problem it had experienced in the previous round as well: a growing Latino population that tends to favor Democrats. GOP leaders thought they’d found a way to keep their hold on power, but their tactics kicked off a complex web of lawsuits that eventually forced the state to delay its primaries from March to May.

The lawsuits uncovered documents showing exactly how Republicans tried to defy the demographic trend. In one email, a lawyer hired by the state’s GOP congressional delegation described how state legislators could remove Latinos who are more likely to vote from the district of a vulnerable Republican and switch them with Latinos who tend not to vote, taken from a Democratic-leaning district. The result would be a “nudge factor” that would keep Latino populations the same, thereby avoiding Voting Rights Act violations, while essentially weakening the power of the Latino vote.

Meanwhile, Republican leaders were granting requests from congressmen in Washington, D.C., to tweak their districts to include a country club or the school that one congressman’s “grand babies” attended.

State House Speaker Joe Straus declined to answer specific questions about redistricting but said in a statement that the maps reflect population changes. Opponents have charged that the GOP plan failed to add majority Latino districts even though Latinos account for 65 percent of the state’s population gain since 2000.

Texas Democrats also tried to shunt Latino voters out of districts where they thought they might pose a threat in primary elections, said Nina Perales, vice president of litigation at MALDEF, a Latino civil rights group that filed lawsuits in Texas and other states.

“Being a voting rights lawyer in Texas redistricting is like driving a very small car down the highway between two semis,” she said, “and those semis are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.”

Ultimately, federal courts rejected some of the new districts, saying they did not adequately represent Latinos. The 2012 election will use lines that were drawn as a compromise at the direction of a federal court, but the state will have to draw new lines for 2014.

Taxpayers Foot the Bill

Litigation has become a necessary part of the redistricting process, but it’s one that is costing taxpayers millions of dollars each cycle. Gerry Hebert remembers seeing Tom Hofeller, the GOP redistricting expert, give a presentation on preparing for redistricting several years ago that illustrates the point. “He has a slide that says,‘never travel without counsel.’ I think that’s great advice, being a lawyer myself, but the meter’s running.”

While no one has estimated the total cost of all this litigation — with 194 suits filed in this cycle and 65 still active— the tab can run into the millions for each state. According to TheTexas Tribune, legal fees had already cost taxpayers in that state close to $1.5 million as of April, and litigation is ongoing. In New Mexico, where a court drew the final lines, lawsuits cost the state $5.7 million. In Wisconsin, where litigation is not yet resolved, fees have topped $1 million.

Perales of MALDEF said the case of Texas shows how wasteful the system can be. Even though her organization and others work with legislators as they are drawing the maps to try to avoid litigation, political leaders continue to push plans that exclude minorities and the opposing party. “When the legislators hear our sound legal advice and they flaunt the rules, nobody can be surprised when we bring successful litigation,” she said. When challengers do win, states generally must pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees, too. “It’s very irresponsible for a state like Texas to adopt a plan that’s discriminatory.”

Hebert said majority parties often waste taxpayer money by forcing cases to trial rather than settling them. But with the system as it is, with little guidance from the Supreme Court on how far a political party can go to protect its incumbents, he stressed that litigation continues to be an important last resort. “Sometimes the courts are the only place you can have a fair shake,” he said.

Efforts at reform

A few states have attempted to address the partisan excesses by removing redistricting from the control of the legislature. In 2008, California voters passed a referendum creating an independent citizen commission to handle redistricting.

In previous cycles, the two major parties had struck an informal deal protecting incumbents on each side. This time, a group of eight citizen-commissioners held dozens of public meetings to help shape their proposals.

Advocates for redistricting reform have praised California, but it’s unclear how much the new system really changed the results. Democrats will likely maintain their dominance of the state’s congressional delegation, but most experts agree the new districts have put more heat on incumbents in a state where they have won 253 out of 255 races in the past five elections. In a well-publicized case, the new map has pitted two sitting Democratic congressmen against each other (voters also passed a law the puts the two most popular candidates from the primaries on the final ballot, regardless of party affiliation).

It’s also proven impossible to remove politics completely. A probe by the investigative news outlet ProPublica found that Democrats manipulated the system by having fake citizens groups represent the party’s interests at public meetings. Loyola’s Justin Levitt  said it’s unlikely the Democrats’ tactics fooled the commissioners. He acknowledges the new system is still open to political influence, but he said it’s far better than the alternative and that it helped make more competitive races this year.

In Arizona too, politics intruded on what is supposed to be an independent commission. In 2000, voters there created a bipartisan commission consisting of two representatives of each party and an independent chair. Last year, as the commission was drawing new lines, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer sought to impeach both Democrats and the independent chair, Colleen Mathis, claiming they were favoring Democrats and operating in secret. The state senate did vote to remove Mathis in November, but a state court stepped in later that month and overturned the decision, returning Mathis to the position. The commission did approve final maps in January, though several lawsuits challenging the maps and the process remain unsettled.

“You’re never going to completely wash politics out of the process,” said McDonald, of George Mason University.

While the legislature in Florida maintains control of redistricting, voters passed a constitutional amendment in 2010 prohibiting lawmakers from implementing district lines that benefit a particular party or incumbent. The law opened the way for court challenges based on partisan gerrymandering, and opponents have done just that, with a trial scheduled to begin in February. The Brennan Center’s analysis found that Democrats gained two seats in the state even though Republicans controlled the process.

Advocates for reform stress that their best opportunity may be in the next year or two, when memories of the partisan squabbles are fresh and, importantly, when the next redistricting is years away. That means that state legislators who support reform may no longer be in office next time. If reforms lead to more competitive races, at least it will be someone else running in those races.

A coalition of advocacy groups in Ohio has placed an initiative on the November ballot that would create a system similar to California’s. Opponents have said the proposal would waste millions of taxpayer dollars.

Levitt of Loyola Law School and others say there’s no single system that works for every state, but the key is to ensure that lawmakers don’t have free rein to draw their own lines. As long as legislators can work the system in their favor and help keep their own jobs, they will.

“It’s not necessarily evil,” he said. “It’s natural.”

A federal enforcement blitz targeting coal mines with potentially dangerous levels of dust found a host of violations at more than a dozen sites where conditions left miners at risk for developing black lung disease.

Following the April 2010 explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in southern West Virginia, regulators have focused on problem mines under a new special enforcement program. The most recent round of inspections, however, used new criteria to target mines likely to have problems controlling the dust that can lead to black lung.

The inspections followed a Center for Public Integrity-NPR investigation that highlighted the resurgence of black lung disease and exposed widespread misconduct by coal companies and often-lax enforcement by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration.

In September, inspectors found more than 120 violations at 13 coal mines. Many companies failed to ventilate working areas properly and relied on broken-down equipment to suppress dust, citations allege. Two of the mines cited are owned by Robert Murray, who has lent strong support to presidential candidate Mitt Romney. A representative for Murray Energy Corp. could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The inspections focused heavily on mines in Appalachia, where the increase in black lung has been most dramatic. Overall, rates of the disease have declined since 1969, when, in a landmark law, Congress forced companies to control dust levels.

In the late 1990s, however, the downward trend in disease rates reversed, and government researchers are documenting with alarm the return of black lung, which was supposed to have been eradicated years ago. Even more disturbing: Rates of the most severe form of the disease have tripled since the 1980s.

Carol Raulston, a spokesperson for the National Mining Association, on Wednesday reiterated the industry’s position that the disease’s resurgence is a regional phenomenon of central Appalachia caused by increased exposure to silica – a mineral found in rock that is damaging to miners’ lungs – rather than coal dust. “If they’re just focusing on coal dust [in the special inspections],” she said, “they’re missing the implications of the latest health data.”

The promise of the 1969 law has been undermined by rampant cheating on dust samples and exploitation of loopholes by coal companies, the Center-NPR investigation found. A Center analysis of MSHA databases found that miners have been breathing too much dust for years, but the agency has issued relatively few violations and routinely allowed companies extra time to fix problems.

In 2010, MSHA proposed a rule that would lower miners’ exposure to coal mine dust and close some loopholes. Republicans in Congress have sought to block issuance of the rule, mandating a study of whether it was necessary by the Government Accountability Office. The study, released this August, supported MSHA’s proposal, but the rule remains in limbo.

A super PAC founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg reported spending $4.9 million on both Republicans and Democrats in Florida, Illinois and California, according to Federal Election Commission records filed Wednesday.

Independence USA PAC was formed Oct. 18, and voters won't know who its donors are until after the election. The group has spent $6 million so far this election.

The super PAC spent $2.5 million supporting the U.S. House run of California state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, a Democrat; $1.8 million supporting the House run of former Orlando Chief of Police Val Demings, a Democrat; and $909,000 supporting Rep. Bob Dold, R-Ill., among other candidates.

The billionaire media mogul, now an independent, was a lifelong Democrat who switched to the GOP when he first ran for mayor.

He has pledged his super PAC will spend between $10 million and $15 million supporting state, local and congressional candidates who value bipartisanship and Bloomberg’s agenda, which includes supporting same-sex marriage, an overhaul of public schools, and his signature cause, gun control.

While Independence USA hasn't reported its donors, records show that a politically active nonprofit, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, is primarily supported by the mayor.

While Bloomberg has become increasingly involved in national politics this election, he had repeatedly declined to discuss the presidential election. He has expressed disappointment with both candidates. Today, he endorsed President Barack Obama.

The super PAC is run by Howard Wolfson, Bloomberg’s deputy mayor, who is taking a leave of absence from City Hall until the election.

In other outside spending news:

• Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, reported spending $12.1 million opposing President Barack Obama.
   
• Priorities USA, the super PAC supporting Obama, reported spending $10.6 million opposing Romney. It released “Connect the Dots,” which opposes Romney and Gov. Rick Scott of Florida.
   
• American Crossroads, a conservative super PAC, reported spending $7.6 million opposing Obama and the Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate in Indiana and Nebraska. It released “Four Years,” which opposes Rep. Joe Donnelly, the Democratic candidate in Indiana, and “Consequences,” which opposes former Sen. Bob Kerrey, running for his former seat in Nebraska.
   
• Its sister nonprofit Crossroads GPS released “No Clue” opposing Rep. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., who is running for U.S. Senate in the state.
   
• House Majority PAC, a super PAC backing House Democrats, reported spending $4.2 million opposing Republican candidates for U.S. House in numerous races. It released “Little Bit” opposing Saratoga Springs, Utah, Mayor Mia Love, the Republican candidate for House in the state’s 4th District.
   
• Majority PAC, a super PAC backing Senate Democrats, reported spending $3.3 million. It released “Made Of” opposing Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in the state, and “The Difference,” opposing Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who is running for U.S. Senate.
   
• American Future Fund, a conservative nonprofit that reported spending $2.4 million on Wednesday, released “Listening” in support of Jonathan Paton, the Republican candidate for U.S. House in Arizona’s 1st District. A half-million dollars of that expenditure paid for the Paton ad; the rest supported Romney.
   
• Americans for Tax Reform, a nonprofit run by conservative activist Grover Norquist, released six ads opposing Democrats running for U.S. House:
• “Never Ending Spending” opposes Rep. Mark Critz in Pennsylvania’s 12 District;
• “Tax Raising Politicians” opposes Rep. Charlie Wilson in Ohio’s 6th District;
• “Typical Selfish Politician” opposes Port of San Diego Commissioner Scott Peters, running in California’s 52nd District;
• “Safe” opposes Rep. John Barrow in Georgia’s 12th District;
• “Skyrocket” opposes Rep. Ben Chandler in Kentucky’s 6th District;
• “Wrong Prescription” opposes former Illinois National Guard Commander Bill Enyart in Illinois’ 12th District.

Who paid for that political ad? You might be surprised by the answer. Email us and we will try to find out. Describe the advertisement — was it mean or nice? Will it affect your vote? When and where did it run and what were the names of the candidates? And PLEASE tell us what the disclaimer at the end says, and we will check it out.

A secretive nonprofit group that wants to nullify Montana’s campaign finance laws received a $300,000 donation from an anti-union organization aligned with a Colorado furniture executive, an Internal Revenue Service document shows.

American Tradition Partnership, a pro-energy group known for successfully suing Montana to force it to abide by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, has also sued the state to protect the identity of its donors — who have funded the ATP’s attack mailers in state races.

An IRS document obtained by the Center for Public Integrity indicates one of its early donors was a nonprofit 501(c)(4) called Coloradans for Economic Growth, which spent millions of dollars from undisclosed sources to support a failed 2008 ballot initiative that would have made Colorado a “right-to-work” state.

Among the initiative’s supporters was Jacob Jabs, president and CEO of American Furniture Warehouse. A 2008 letter to the IRS signed by former ATP employee Athena Dalton said Jabs was the “primary donor” and had promised to give $300,000 to ATP, but only if the IRS expedited its approval of ATP’s application for tax-exempt status.

Jabs has denied knowing anything about the group or giving it any money.

The appeal apparently worked. Three days later, the IRS approved the application.

ATP’s 2008 donors list shows a $300,000 contribution from Coloradans for Economic Growth, but makes no mention of any donation from Jabs.

Dalton did not return numerous calls. According to a report by ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, Jabs said he contacted Dalton earlier this October and she told him that ATP officials had instructed her to use Jabs’ name in the letter.

One of those officials was Christian LeFer, who was also director of Montana Citizens for Right to Work at the time. LeFer declined to comment on whether he told Dalton to use Jabs’ name or not.

In a previous interview with the Center, he said that "ATP and RTW [Right to Work] have nothing to do with each other," and that "I know of no shared funds" between the groups.

Donald Ferguson, ATP’s spokesman, did not respond to a request for comment.

Coloradans for Economic Growth was a major force behind the state’s anti-union ballot initiative, shelling out almost $3.4 million in 2008 to groups that campaigned for the law’s passage.

Such laws, which exist in 23 states, allow employees at union shops to forego paying union dues.

Jabs appeared in TV commercials as an unofficial spokesman for the cause, and gave at least $20,000 to groups mobilizing support for the ballot issue.

Jabs did not immediately return calls for comment.

At a 2008 press conference, Jabs announced he would be backing the anti-union referendum to “frankly hurt the pocketbooks of the unions so they don’t have the millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars to spend.”

ATP’s other early funders listed on the IRS document include New Leadership Colorado. The nonprofit also contributed to anti-union groups in 2008, and gave $45,000 to ATP.

Coloradans for Economic Growth and New Leadership Colorado are both listed as “delinquent” for failing to file annual reports with the Colorado secretary of state and have faded from public view. They were both registered in 2008 at Hackstaff Law of Denver, Colo. The law firm’s address is the same one listed on ATP’s corporate registration.

Hackstaff is the former firm of Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, who represented ATP in a lawsuit challenging campaign finance laws in the Colorado city of Longmont in 2009 before he won public office.

A third nonprofit, Virginia-based Conservative Action League gave $40,000 to ATP, and has given smaller grants to Montana’s right-to-work group, which until recently was headed by ATP’s LeFer.

LeFer said he’s a “consultant” to ATP, but documents obtained by PBS Frontline show that he wrote fundraising strategy memos to ATP staff under the title of “Director Strategic Programming.”

In a 2009 memo, LeFer writes that ATP’s fundraising program “was designed by the same people who designed the multimillion-dollar personal-visit style” strategy used by “Club for Growth, the National Right to Work Committee, and other pro-business / limited government interests.”

The group garnered support from two corporate executives early on: Montana’s Ray Thompson gave $10,000 and Tulsa millionaire Norm Asbjornson gave $50,000.

Thompson is a tea party supporter who lent his corporate jet to a group called Tea Party Patriots in 2010 for their “grassroots” tours, according to Mother Jones. He sold his small manufacturing company for $364 million in 2009, and now runs a diner and grocery store in Kalispell, Mont.

Asbjornson is the founder of AAON Inc., a heating and air conditioning company based in Tulsa, Okla. He is from Montana and remains a major donor to Republican candidates in the state this year.

He gave $10,000 to the state Republican Party and $5,000 to Denny Rehberg’s U.S. Senate bid. He gave a smaller amount to Steve Daines’ run for Montana’s lone U.S. House seat.

Last summer, he gave $55,000 to the Romney Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that supports GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

He has also supported the tea party candidacy of Ted Cruz, the GOP’s nominee for U.S. Senate from Texas. In 2010, he gave money to tea party-endorsed Sharron Angle’s unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate in Nevada.

A list of ATP’s targeted donors from 2009 obtained by Frontline includes representatives of oil, gas, and mining interests. It also lists Asbjornson as a “top priority” to return to after his 2008 contribution.

Neither donor could be reached for comment.

This year, ATP has launched mailers attacking Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock’s bid for governor. Bullock has represented the state in court during ATP’s campaign finance challenges in Montana.

He is neck-and-neck in state polls with Republican Rick Hill, who supports right-to-work laws. Bullock says he would veto any such measure passed by the Legislature.

Conservative outside spending groups have taken to the airwaves in an attempt to kick four Supreme Court justices off the bench in Iowa and Florida for taking positions the groups find objectionable.

In Iowa, one organization, joined by former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum, hopes to oust a justice who supports same-sex marriage. In Florida, justices face the wrath of a pro-business group and a physician who object to President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.

Supporters of the justices have paid for ads and mailers and are defending the judges’ records while accusing their opponents of politicizing the court system.

The campaigns include television ads and dueling bus tours.

Eighteen states, including Iowa and Florida, require their appointed Supreme Court justices to periodically face voters in what are known as “merit retention elections.” Voters are asked whether a judge should remain on the bench. If a majority says no, the governor appoints new justices from a list of names submitted by a nonpartisan nominating commission.

Historically, retention elections generate little political spending and limited voter interest. From 2000 to 2009, retention elections accounted for about 1 percent of campaign spending on all state Supreme Court elections, according to Justice at Stake, a Washington, D.C.-based group critical of judicial elections.

In 2010, conservatives waged a successful campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices who voted the previous year to legalize gay marriage. Spending on retention elections that year jumped to roughly 13 percent of the total spent on all state Supreme Court elections.

The lone remaining justice in Iowa who voted with his ex-colleagues in supporting same-sex marriage has been targeted, as have three Florida justices.

Finding out who is funding the campaigns is often difficult. Spending is often from nonprofit groups that don't disclose their donors. Disclosure laws in the states may be weak or difficult to enforce.

Groups that seek to oust judges don’t always reference specific issues, but instead accuse them of “judicial activism.” Judicial watchdogs worry that the infusion of campaign cash from the groups could actually lead to more activism among judges.

“Everybody has absorbed a new playbook, which is, if you want to change rulings or simply intimidate judges, threaten them through the election process,” says Charles Hall, of Justice at Stake. “So we’re really seeing in the retention states an ethic of ‘Rule my way, or else.’”

Iowa: A fight over gay marriage

Four of Iowa’s seven Supreme Court justices are up for retention this year. But only one — Justice David Wiggins — has become a target for conservative groups still miffed about the court’s controversial 2009 decision to legalize same-sex marriage.

In September, the generically named “Iowans for Freedom,” a project of the conservative nonprofit group The Family Leader, sponsored a “No Wiggins” bus tour. Speakers on the 17-city, four-day road trip accused Wiggins of “judicial activism” and urged voters to reject him at the polls.

High-profile politicians, including Santorum, a devout Catholic and former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, turned out to support the campaign.

“You have an opportunity here in Iowa to continue what you did two years ago,” Santorum said during a tour stop in Des Moines.

Iowans for Freedom is chaired by Bob Vander Plaats, a failed gubernatorial candidate and president of The Family Leader, a “Christ-centered organization” whose goal is to “honor and glorify God — not a political party, not a candidate, and not a program.”

The organization has spent more than $300,000 on its “No Wiggins” campaign, according to campaign disclosure reports.

“We want our courts to be independent,” Vander Plaats says. “A court should never be independent to amend our constitution from the bench.”

Among the other contributors to Iowans for Freedom is CitizenLink, a Colorado-based “family advocacy organization that inspires men and women to live out biblical citizenship that transforms culture,” according to the group’s website.

Campaign finance records show that CitizenLink has contributed a total of $50,000 to Iowans for Freedom.

Patriot Voices, a Western Pennsylvania-based nonprofit organization co-founded by Santorum, has given $25,000 to the campaign against Wiggins. The National Organization for Marriage, a nonprofit group that opposes same-sex marriage, has spent more than $135,000 on television ads attacking Wiggins.

“We must hold David Wiggins accountable for redefining marriage and legislating from the bench,” a narrator says in the group’s first campaign ad, which is co-funded by Iowans for Freedom. “Vote no on Wiggins.”

Wiggins is not campaigning to keep his seat. But that hasn’t stopped his supporters from doing so on his behalf.

In September, the Iowa State Bar Association spent nearly $11,000 for its “Yes Iowa Justice” bus tour designed to counter the attacks on Wiggins and urge voters to keep him on the bench. The five-day tour shadowed the “No Wiggins” tour across much of the state.

In October, the bar association also spent more than $20,000 on radio advertising.

Justice Not Politics Action, a nonprofit group created to counter the anti-Wiggins campaign, has spent more than $225,000 on its “Vote Yes on Retention” campaign.

“Our courts are threatened,” says former Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson, who chairs the group. Voters “don’t like the idea that money is coming from outside interest groups who want to intimidate the courts.”

The group has received much of its funding from Iowa law firms. But its biggest donation came from Human Rights Campaign. In October, the national gay-rights organization gave Justice Not Politics Action $100,000.

Florida’s ‘spending arms race’

The point of contention in the Florida race is Obama’s health-care reform law.

Justices R. Fred Lewis, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince voted in 2010 to invalidate a ballot initiative challenging the Affordable Care Act because they determined it contained misleading language. The decision outraged many conservatives, setting the stage for the merit retention effort.

For the first time since the system was created in 1976, the executive committee of the Republican Party of Florida voted unanimously to oppose the justices up for retention.

Leading the charge against them are two tea party groups: Restore Justice 2012, an Orlando-based “527” group chaired by conservative activist Jesse Phillips, and Americans for Prosperity, a 501(c)(4) "social welfare" nonprofit backed by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.

“It’s really caused kind of a spending arms race in that state,” said Alicia Bannon, of New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.

Restore Justice has produced at least three Web ads thus far. In one ad, a handful of young voters describe how Florida is “at a crossroads.”

“Freedom is being reborn,” they say, “but there are dark clouds of opposition gathering.” The ad goes on to discuss the need to make the state Supreme Court a “noble institution and bastion of liberty once again.”

The ad closes showing the images of the three justices up for retention above the buzz words also used in the Iowa campaign: “stop judicial activism.”

“There are lots of voters and lawyers who have said that the Florida justices are not upholding the constitution, and that they’re legislating from the bench,” says Phillips.

Tracing the financial backers of the campaign is difficult.

Restore Justice has spent nearly $12,000 on the retention election, more than $5,000 of which went toward “media production,” according to reports filed with the state. Contribution records show the group only received about $3,000 in donations.

Under Florida law, Restore Justice is considered an “electioneering communications organization.” It is permitted to raise and spend unlimited sums of money as long as it does not tell viewers in its ads to vote for or against a candidate.

Restore Justice didn’t officially register with the state as an electioneering organization until August. Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 12, IRS records show that the group received nearly $70,000 in contributions, almost all of which came from Florida physician Allan Jacob.

In 2010, Jacob gave $15,000 to a political committee headed by the brother of then-state Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla. Days after the contribution, the Republican Senate majority leader wrote a letter that helped Jacob’s kidney dialysis company keep a state contract.

In August, state campaign finance records show, Jacob gave $125,000 to Diaz de la Portilla’s political committee, Citizens for Accountable Government. Diaz de la Portilla is currently running for a state House seat.

Jacob could not be reached for comment.

Phillips says Restore Justice is planning “a blitz” on the radio. He estimates that the group will have spent roughly $80,000 by Election Day to help oust the three Florida justices.

Americans for Prosperity released an ad saying the state’s high court “denied our right” to vote against the health care law.

It’s unclear how much money Americans for Prosperity has spent on the Florida Supreme Court race. The organization’s last state campaign finance report was filed in 2009, when the group was listed as an electioneering organization.

“Why they are not currently registered or reporting is unknown,” wrote Chris Cate, a Florida Department of State spokesperson in an email.

Officials from Americans for Prosperity did not return phone calls for comment.

Outside spending has prompted each of the judges to raise their own campaign funds. Collectively, the justices have raised more than $1.3 million this campaign season.

Those fundraising numbers dwarf totals raised by Florida judges over the past decade. Between 2000 and 2009, Florida Supreme Court justices raised a total of just $7,500 for their retention bids, according to Justice at Stake.

The three justices have also been getting help from Defend Justice from Politics, another 527 organization. Like Restore Justice, state records show that Defend Justice is an electioneering group, prohibited from “expressly” telling voters to vote for or against a candidate.

State campaign finance records show the group has spent nearly $1.5 million on its campaign to support the justices, most of which has gone toward advertising. In state filings, the group lists just one contributor: “Defend Justice from Politics.”

“We’re not hiding” the group’s donors, says Neal Roth, a Miami attorney working with the Defend Justice campaign.

Roth says the organization recently filed a report with the IRS that lists all of its contributors, which has yet to be posted online. Roth provided The Center for Public Integrity with a copy of the report, which shows the group has received more than $1.1 million from eight Florida law firms that each gave the campaign at least $100,000.

The group’s report also shows some donations from a handful of organizations outside of Florida, including a $120,000 contribution from America Votes, a liberal political advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

Defend Justice’s only ad to date, which is being broadcast in major markets across Florida, accuses opponents of “trying to remove three fair and impartial Supreme Court justices so they can replace almost half the court with judges who will let them bend the rules.”

The ad goes on to urge voters to “stand up for our justices against this political power grab.”

The flood of spending from both sides worries watchdogs like Peter Butzin, chair of Common Cause Florida.

“We’re politicizing the system,” he says. “I find it very frightening.”

With President Barack Obama earning high marks on his response to Hurricane Sandy, conservative outside spending groups and Republicans are seeking to contrast it with charges that he dropped the ball in Benghazi.

Americans for Limited Government’s “Obama Campaign Has Its ‘Perfect Storm’” and Campaign for American Values PAC’s “Obama Has Left Americans Behind” follow the line of attack launched by Michael Brown, the director of FEMA under George W. Bush, who was widely criticized for botching the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

While the new ads do not go quite as far as Brown, who charged the president with acting too quickly on the response to Sandy, they do capitalize on his juxtaposition of the president’s response to Sandy and his response to the terrorist attack on the American consulate in Libya.

Obama was “openly working with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during hurricane recovery,” the ALG ad begins. Christie, a Republican with presidential aspirations, heaped praise on the president for his response, which was seen as a hit to GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

“Obama didn’t react to terrorist attacks in Libya the same way he reacted to Sandy,” cursive text on the screen continues. “The Obama admin. [sic] tried to blame the attack on a movie released on YouTube. Maybe they can try to blame Hurricane Sandy on one of those Al Gore movies.”

A movie poster from “The Day After Tomorrow,” a high-budget, special-effects driven disaster film from 2004, is shown in the background.

The ad from Campaign for American Values PAC, headed by conservative evangelical activist Gary Bauer, shows a clip of Obama speaking after the hurricane saying, “We pull together and we leave nobody behind.”

“Sadly, Mr. President,” the narrator says, “Your administration did leave somebody behind.”

The ad flashes photos of the four Americans killed in the Benghazi attacks, who reportedly had requested and were denied additional security in the days before the attack.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he did not have adequate information to “put forces at risk in that situation.” 

While conservatives are using Hurricane Sandy to criticize Obama’s response to past disasters, Democrats are using it to criticize Romney for past statements about wanting to eliminate the federal disaster response agency.

In the wake of Sandy, Romney released a statement changing his tune. He said that as president, he would “ensure FEMA has the funding it needs to fulfill its mission,” though he reiterated his intent to direct “maximum resources” to state and local first responders.

Americans for Limited Government, a 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organization that functions like a super PAC but is not required to disclose its donors, has not reported any campaign spending to the Federal Election Commission, though it has produced at least a dozen online videos opposing Obama and other Democrats.

The Campaign for American Values PAC, a super PAC, has reported spending $575,000 opposing Obama and supporting Romney. Its biggest donor is Texas-based “Corporate Land Management,” which contributed $600,000. Mother Jones traced the generically named corporation to Tim Horner, the president of a jewelry company that advocates Christian values.

In other outside spending news:

• Fair Share Action, a liberal super PAC, reported spending $714,000 supporting Obama, Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Rep. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who is running for U.S. Senate. The super PAC is funded by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and Environment America. It also in-kind from its non-disclosing sister nonprofit, Fair Share Alliance and has received nearly a half-million from millionaire software entrepreneur Tim Gill and his LGBT advocacy group, Gill Action Fund.
   
• Conservative nonprofit Americans for Job Security reported spending $2.5 million opposing Obama.
   
• The conservative Now or Never super PAC reported spending $1.8 million supporting Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Missouri, and opposing Democratic U.S. Senate candidates Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota and Rep. Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin.
   
• Crossroads GPS, a conservative nonprofit, reported spending $1.6 million supporting Romney and opposing Heitkamp and former Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in the state. It released “Walk Away,” a Spanish-language ad opposing Obama.
   
• Its sister super PAC American Crossroads released “Debate” and “China” opposing Obama.
   
• Independence USA PAC, the bipartisan super PAC of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, reported spending $1.3 million supporting Connecticut state Sen. Andrew Roraback, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in the state’s 5th District, as well as in support of Rep. Bob Dold, R-Ill. It also paid for direct mail ads opposing Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., and Rep. Joe Baca, D-Calif.
   
• Pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future reported spending $1 million on ads opposing Obama and supporting Romney.
   
• Ending Spending, a conservative nonprofit funded and run by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, released “Past Due” opposing Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., who is running for U.S. Senate. Its sister super PAC, Ending Spending Action Fund, reported spending $920,000.
   
• Let Freedom Ring and the Hispanic Leadership Fund co-produced “Eduardo” in opposition to Obama. Let Freedom Ring also released “Things Have Been Looking Up.”

Who paid for that political ad? You might be surprised by the answer. Email us and we will try to find out. Describe the advertisement — was it mean or nice? Will it affect your vote? When and where did it run and what were the names of the candidates? And PLEASE tell us what the disclaimer at the end says, and we will check it out.

A culture of cheating pervades the guard force at America’s premier processing and storage site for nuclear weapons-grade uranium, according to a new report this week by the Energy Department’s inspector general.

Contract officers and supervisors of the force at the Y-12 plant outside Knoxville, Tennessee, shared advance copies of test materials with patrolmen, said inspector general Gregory H. Friedman, rendering their responses unreliable. But he put the blame squarely on the Energy Department for mismanaging the facility’s operations.

The abuses he cited are not new. Eight years ago, Friedman blew the whistle on even worse cheating by the Y-12 guard force, disclosing that for years they obtained advance word of mock assaults meant to test their capabilities, and carefully redeployed their forces to produce impressive but faked results.

But this time, Friedman suggested the problem was not isolated. A contract official who works both at Y-12 and another “high-security DOE” site told Friedman’s staff that the official “had taken similar actions” to share written test materials in advance with the managers of that site’s guard force, his report stated.

Friedman’s report did not name the second site, but two government officials confirmed it is the sensitive facility known as Pantex, in Amarillo, Tex., the government’s principal factory for assembling, taking apart, and storing plutonium triggers for its nuclear arsenal. As a result, the reliability of the protective force for key components of that arsenal in two locations can now be considered open to question.

The cheating at Y-12 was discovered by accident four weeks after a group of peace activists, including an 82-year old nun, penetrated security fences surrounding the half-billion dollar Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility, in late July. A special test of the guard force was then organized, but it was suspended in late August when a visiting Energy Department official noticed a copy of written test questions in a patrol vehicle at Y-12.

How the test got into the hands of the guards reads like a tale from middle school. As Friedman explained in his 14-page report, the guards there got advance copies of the test from their superiors at the contractor that provided site security, WSI-Oak Ridge, who in turn got it from an official at Babcock and Wilcox Technical Services Y-12, LLC, the main contractor responsible for all the operations there.

That person, in turn, got it from an official in the Energy Department’s Health, Safety and Security Office, who had asked the contractor to review it for “accuracy.”

What should one do when the teacher finds an advance copy of a school exam in one’s hands just as the test is getting under way? Several dozen WSI-Oak Ridge employees interviewed by Friedman’s inspectors said they thought it was given out as a study guide, prompting him to write drily that he “found the credibility of this testimony to be questionable.”

One reason is that the word “TEST” appears in bold letters on the header on the first page, a fact that guard supervisors improbably claimed they never noticed, Friedman said. Another reason is that a WSI-Oak Ridge official, when circulating the test questions to colleagues, noted in an e-mail that it “would not be a good idea … for a [police officer] to have these in hand during an audit.”

The unnamed official stripped that phraseology — which suggested some foreknowledge of wrongdoing — from a copy of his email before handing it over to investigators, according to Friedman’s report. He was subsequently fired by WSI-Oak Ridge, the report added.

Circulating copies of key tests in advance to the contractor and employees responsible for ensuring that such a vital site is adequately protected against terrorism was “inexplicable and inexcusable,” Friedman concluded. “Security of the Nation’s most sensitive nuclear material storage and processing facilities must not be left to chance.”

But as his report makes clear, DOE has done it for years, as part of a culture of treating contractors as “Trusted Agents” whose advice is solicited under a set of carefully-drawn rules. It’s all part of what the department calls its “eyes on, hands off” approach to the major nuclear weapons sites, a laid-back style of overseeing contract work in which DOE officials are not burdened with the responsibility of knowing how things should be done and are barred by their agreements with the contractors from saying so even if they did know.

Alas, DOE rules for Trusted Agents did not explicitly discuss how far contract officials could go in the sharing of tests, as the department’s safety office and the contractor said in their reply to Friedman — a problem that has since been fixed.

But the DOE office that handed over the test to Babcock and Wilcox rebuffed Friedman’s complaint that the Energy Department is too wedded to the concept of asking its nuclear weapons contractors , which collectively receive billions of dollars annually, to decide what constitutes appropriate contract behavior.

“We agree that using contractors as trusted agents should be minimized where possible, and we have already changed our inspection practices” regarding the rules for test copies, but “there are circumstances where it is necessary to have a contractor act as a trusted agent in order to ensure the safe and effective testing of site security performance,” said Glenn S. Padonsky, the department’s chief health, safety, and security officer.

Thomas D’Agostino, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration retained by Obama from the Bush administration, said in his own written response that “the issue is not the release of the testing material to the contractor’s Trusted Agents, but the abuse of discretion…on the Contractor’s part” when the tests were shared more widely. He rejected the relevance of Friedman’s suggestion that the government should actually rely on “Federal officials who are knowledgeable of contractor operations,” and recommended that his critical mention of the “eyes on, hands off” oversight approach be dropped.

Friedman, who has been in his post since the Clinton administration, refused.

Accountability for the current mess remains elusive. No audit has been done of the Pantex guard force operations, even though Friedman’s report suggests “a parallel issue” there, as one of the government officials described it. “They did the same thing.” A spokesman for Pantex did not return our phone calls.

After the break-in at Y-12 by the nun, WSI-Oak Ridge was fired as the security contractor, but Babcock and Wilcox subsequently offered to rehire all of its guard staff, and just about everyone accepted, according to Babcock spokeswoman Ellen Boatner. This group presumably included at least some of the guards that Friedman’s previous report accused of reacting poorly to the break-in.

Asked if this transferred group also included those who Friedman’s report said had lied about the cheating, Boatner said she did not know who was interviewed and could not address that issue. She also said she would look into who it was at Babcock and Wilcox that admitted sharing advance copies of tests with guards at Pantex, but did not call back.

A government official, asked if that unnamed contract employee was still working for Babcock’s Y-12 operation, said he was.

Securities and Investments

Rank: 1

Total: $94 million*

Favorite candidate: Mitt Romney

Top donors: Ken Griffin, Paul Singer, Robert Mercer, John Paulson, Joe Ricketts

Donors’ interests: Most favor limited regulation of financial markets and keeping taxes low, particularly on income from investments.

Industry’s interest: Same as donors.

Casinos and Gambling

Rank: 2

Total: $55 million

Favorite candidate: Mitt Romney

Top donors: Sheldon Adelson and family

Donors’ interests: Keeping taxes low on overseas profits that are repatriated to the U.S., strong support for Israel.

Industry’s interests: Removing online gaming restrictions and expanding the visa waiver program (so foreign tourists can more easily come to the U.S. to gamble), according to the American Gaming Association.

Chemical and Related Manufacturing

Rank: 3

Total: $31 million

Favorite candidate: Mitt Romney

Top donors: Harold Simmons and his company, Contran Corp.

Donors’ interests: Simmons’s companies want to eliminate certain environmental regulations that have resulted in millions of dollars’ worth of environmental cleanup costs for Contran subsidiary Valhi Inc. and led to numerous personal injury lawsuits against Valhi subsidiary NL Industries, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Industry’s interests: Keeping the costs of environmental and safety regulations to a minimum while improving the industry’s image relative to climate change.

• Keeping chemical regulation out of the hands of state governments and updating the Toxic Substances Control Act to ensure safety while balancing popular demand for stricter regulation with industry interests, according to the American Chemistry Council.

Real Estate

Rank: 4

Total: $23 million

Favorite candidate: Mitt Romney

Top donors: National Association of Realtors, Harlan Crow and Crow Holdings, Gary Morse and various Morse-owned corporations in The Villages retirement community in Florida

Donors’ interests: The NAR wants to preserve the mortgage interest deduction, restructure Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and raise the cap for credit union lending and Fannie- and Freddie-backed loans.

Industry’s interests: Similar to those of the National Association of Realtors.

Homebuilders

Rank: 5

Total: $22 million

Favorite candidate: Mitt Romney

Top donors: Bob Perry

Donors’ interests: Promotion of free markets, limitation of damage awards in jury verdicts and lowering taxes, among other issues.  

Industry’s interests: Maintaining federal support of home loans, preventing more foreclosures and reforming the housing appraisal process, according to the National Association of Home Builders.

Source: Center for Public Integrity analysis of data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics, Federal Election Commission.

*Totals through Oct. 17, 2012.

Wouldn’t it be great if our candidates had to take a dose of truth serum every morning before hitting the campaign trail? If they did, those of us who will be voting tomorrow wouldn’t be nearly as confused about what Obamacare is and what it isn’t, what it will do and what it won’t.

Since there is no such truth serum requirement, I believe that many of us will actually be voting against our own best interests. Many Americans will vote for candidates who have scared them into believing that Obamacare is a government takeover of health care that it will bankrupt the country while slashing Medicare benefits.

In the event that you or someone you know might benefit from some truth-telling, here, then, are a few things you ought to know before pulling that lever tomorrow:

·         The Affordable Care Act is not a government takeover that has put us on a slippery slope toward socialism, or even toward a single-payer system like the one in the People’s Republic of Canada. In fact, the law actually shores up our uniquely American,  market-based,  multi-payer system now dominated by for-profit insurance corporations.  That is not my favorite part of the law. But if you think insurance companies contribute value to our system, you should know that Obamacare gives them a new lease on life.  Their business practices—which for years have included refusing to sell coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and pricing many other folks out of the system—have actually resulted in an ever-shrinking market. As a consequence, the insurers’ business models are not sustainable. Without a requirement that we all buy coverage from them, insurance companies will be able to grow only by taking market share away from each other and by persuading senior citizens to enroll in their profitable Medicare Advantage plans.

·         The legislation is not going to add trillions to the deficit, even though it will expand Medicaid and provide subsidies to low-income individuals and families to buy private coverage. In fact, the opposite is true, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.  In 2010, the CBO estimated that Obamacare would actually reduce the deficit by $214 billion over 10 years, in part by reducing overpayments to private insurers that operate Medicare Advantage plans.  After Republicans who had campaigned against the law regained control of the House after the 2010 elections, they passed legislation to repeal Obamacare in its entirety—despite the fact that the CBO warned that their bill was the one that would increase the deficit—by $240 billion over 10 years. The bill went nowhere in the Senate.

·         The Affordable Care Act will not cut Medicare benefits. On the contrary, because of Obamacare, Medicare is now providing coverage for preventive care, like cancer screenings, for the first time. And the law is also improving the Medicare drug benefit by gradually reducing the amount of money seniors have to pay for medications out of their own pockets. As noted above, the law does reduce payments to insurers and to some health care providers—by an estimated $716 billion over the coming decade—but that money represents savings, not benefit cuts.  One of the reasons the hospital industry endorsed Obamacare is that by bringing more people into coverage, hospitals will not have to provide nearly as much uncompensated care, which hits their bottom lines very hard. So hospitals were quite willing to go along with a reduction in future payments from the government because they know they will more than make up for it by having far fewer uninsured patients.  

Here are some things the law will do:

·         It will prohibit insurance companies from refusing to sell coverage to people simply because they have one or more pre-existing conditions.

·         It will also prohibit them from cancelling our coverage when we get sick just to avoid paying for our care.

·         It will prohibit insurers from charging women more than men for comparable coverage and will not allow them to charge older folks more than three times as much as younger folks.

·         It will require them to spend at least 80 percent of what we pay in premiums actually paying claims and improving care.

·         It will allow young adults—who comprise the largest segment of the uninsured—to stay on their parents’ policies until age 26.

·         It will reduce the number of uninsured Americans by at least 30 million if all the states agree to accept federal dollars to expand their Medicaid programs.

That said, Obamacare is not a panacea for all that ails the U.S. health care system. I view it as the end of the beginning of reform. We will have to do more as a nation to bring everyone into coverage, to control costs and to improve the way we deliver care. But Obamacare does not resemble the law that many politicians have spent millions of dollars trying to persuade us it is.  Don’t be fooled into voting against your own best interests tomorrow.

In the final weekend before Election Day, President Barack Obama was hit with more than $37 million in attack ads; Romney faced less than $1 million in attacks, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Outside spenders dropped roughly $56.3 million on the presidential election in recent days, according to reports filed Friday, Saturday and Sunday. More than two-thirds of the ads are negative, a Center for Public Integrity analysis shows.

On all federal races, outside groups reported over the weekend spending roughly $73.3 million.

The biggest outside spender, not counting party committees and traditional political action committees, was the conservative super PAC American Crossroads, co-founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove. It reported spending nearly $23 million, almost entirely opposing Obama.

In a distant second wasAmerican Future Fund, a conservative nonprofit, which reported spending $7.9 million, most of it supporting Romney. Two new anti-Obama ads, “Fed Up” and “Delphi” debuted Friday.

The primary pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, reported spending $4.4 million opposing Obama. It released the ad “Flatline” on Friday.

The main pro-Obama super PAC, Priorities USA Action, did not report spending any money over the weekend. An email sent to supporters indicates it is planning on making a final ad buy to continue airing “Stage,” which it says is its most effective ad of the election.

The top liberal spender on the presidential election over the weekend was Planned Parenthood Action Fund with $623,000 supporting Obama and opposing Romney.

Majority PAC, a super PAC supporting Senate Democrats, was the biggest overall liberal outside spender, with $2.5 million opposing Republican candidates for the upper chamber.

Of the U.S. Senate races, Arizona attracted the most outside money over the weekend — $1.8 million for the faceoff between former U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, the Democrat, and Rep. Jeff Flake, the Republican. More than $851,000 went to opposing Flake.

The Senate race in Virginia between former Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine and former Republican Sen. George Allen attracted $1.7 million. More than $1 million went to opposing Kaine.

It will not be known who financed the super PAC ads until after the election. The donors behind the nonprofit ads are not required to ever be disclosed.

In other outside spending news:

• American Future Fund also released “Tomorrow” opposing Rep. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., who is running for U.S. Senate in the state.
   
• The conservative nonprofit U.S. Chamber of Commerce released an ad opposing Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., for $500,000.
   
• Women Vote!, the super PAC of pro-abortion rights group EMILY’s List, released an ad opposing Republican Rep. Frank Guinta in New Hampshire’s 1st District and an ad opposing Republican Rep. Charlie Bass in New Hampshire’s 2nd District.
   
• Ending Spending Action Fund, the conservative super PAC founded by TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, released “Chillicothe,” which supports Romney and opposes Obama, and “Clear Choice,” a radio ad that supports Nebraska state Sen. Deb Fischer, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in the state.
   
• The nonprofit League of Conservation Voters released “Leaders Lead,” opposing Romney and supporting Obama for their positions on climate change.

Who paid for that political ad? You might be surprised by the answer. Email us and we will try to find out. Describe the advertisement — was it mean or nice? Will it affect your vote? When and where did it run and what were the names of the candidates? And PLEASE tell us what the disclaimer at the end says, and we will check it out.

Despite his vast wealth, Sheldon Adelson was not exactly a household name when the Republican presidential primary campaign got under way. But the casino magnate’s multimillion-dollar contributions to a pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC ended that.

Adelson’s support was linked to a shared stance with Gingrich as staunch supporters of Israel. Not quite so well publicized was Adelson’s financial stake in who wins the presidency.

A second Obama term, thanks to the incumbent’s proposed tax policies — could cost Adelson billions if he brought home profits earned at his overseas casinos, according to tax experts.

Since Gingrich flamed out in the primaries, Adelson and his wife Miriam have shifted their allegiance to GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, giving the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future $20 million.

With Romney as president, Adelson, the billionaire chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., could bring his profits home tax-free.

The Las Vegas Sands’ overseas operations account for 86 percent of its revenue from casinos, hotels and shopping, according to its 2011 annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Sands’ most lucrative holdings are in Macau, a special administrative region in China.

Super PACs like Restore Our Future can accept unlimited contributions from billionaires, corporations and unions and spend the money on ads helping their favorite candidates, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.

Adelson and family’s nearly $54 million in contributions through Oct. 17 to conservative super PACs  puts the gambling industry at second place among super PAC donors’ corporate interests, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis of data from the Center for Responsive Politics and the Federal Election Commission.

With no limits on giving, economic analysis of donations to super PACs are more about a few wealthy individuals’ interests than fulfilling an industry’s legislative goals.

Adelson and family are responsible for more than 98 percent of all casino industry contributions to super PACs — or $53.7 million out of $54.6 million — but his legislative agenda does not necessarily reflect that of the American Gaming Association, which lists as major issues online gambling and visa reform to allow more high rollers to come to American casinos.

Finance industry tops list

The top industry-donor to super PACs in the 2012 election cycle by far has been securities and investments at roughly $94 million, according to records.

The list of donors is dominated by a relatively small number of extremely wealthy hedge fund and private equity millionaires and billionaires. The top 10 individual donors to this industry are responsible for almost half of its super PAC contributions. Twenty-one people and two corporations have given $1 million or more.

The average itemized individual contribution to all super PACs is a little more than $23,000, according to the Center’s analysis. The average contribution to a super PAC from the investment industry is more than $96,000.

The third-leading industry-donor, chemicals and related manufacturing, accounts for $31 million of all super PAC contributions, and almost $27 million comes from Harold Simmons, his wife Annette and his company. Contran Corp. controls several subsidiaries involved in chemical manufacturing, waste disposal and other businesses.

Topping Simmons’ agenda is minimizing the regulatory reach of government, according to an interview he gave to The Wall Street Journal in March. Many of Contran’s subsidiaries are subject to environmental regulations that cut into profits.

The fourth-leading donor by industry is real estate at about $23 million thanks to seven-figure donations from the National Association of Realtors and Harlan Crow and Crow Holdings. The NAR favors access to credit and tax breaks so more people can afford to buy homes.

Fifth is the homebuilding industry with about $22 million, again a category dominated by a single wealthy individual — Texan Bob Perry. He has given $21.5 million to conservative super PACs to date.

Perry is perhaps best known for financing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads during the 2004 election that helped sink John Kerry’s presidential campaign, but he has been a major donor to Texas political campaigns since the 1980s. He favors limiting damages a jury can award plaintiffs in civil suits.

Romney is ‘one of them’

The largest donors from the investment industry are not investment banks but an exclusive sub-group known as “alternative investing” — hedge funds and private equity firms.

Among the 26 donors to Restore Our Future who have given $1 million or more, 11 are in the hedge fund or private equity business.

Among the alternative investment industry’s top donors are Robert Mercer, a co-CEO of the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, who gave $1 million to Restore Our Future and $600,000 to Club for Growth Action, which favors eliminating the capital gains tax.

Other top donors include TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who now runs an investment firm, Paul Singer of Elliott Management, Wyoming investor Foster Friess and John Childs, chairman and CEO of a private equity firm.

Eighty percent of super PAC contributions from the investment community have gone to conservative super PACs, according to the Center's analysis.

James Simons, the founder of Renaissance Technologies, and George Soros*, the chairman of the hedge fund Soros Fund Management, have given a combined $10.1 million to pro-Obama and pro-Democratic super PACs.

Romney himself was a private equity man in his days at Bain Capital, which he co-founded.

“They view [Romney] as one of them,” said David Kautter, the director of the Kogod Tax Center at American University. “They tend to view him as someone who accumulated substantial wealth doing what they do, someone who understands what they do and someone who believes that what they do provides substantial value to the economy.”

Romney has said he would maintain, lower or eliminate the capital gains rate at various points during the race. Low rates benefit hedge fund and private equity managers, whose compensation comes primarily from investment returns.

Obama supports treating this type of compensation as regular income and subject to income tax rates up to 39.6 percent. In addition, Obama advocates raising the capital gains rate to 20 percent.

Adelson’s gamble on Romney

Romney was not Adelson’s top choice. Adelson invested $16.5 million in former House Speaker Gingrich via Winning Our Future, the primary pro-Gingrich super PAC, before the candidate dropped out May 2.

Now the top supporter of Restore Our Future, Adelson has said he is willing to spend $100 million electing Romney and a Republican Congress. The spending has made him newsworthy.

Adelson’s steadfast and occasionally controversial positions on Israel’s national security have also increased his profile in the national media and provided fodder for the opposition.

He opposes a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, once calling it a “stepping stone for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.”

He was also once one of the biggest backers of AIPAC — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. But Adelson broke off relations with the group in 2007 when it supported increasing U.S. economic aid to Palestinians.

Adelson shifted his financial support to the Republican Jewish Coalition, where he sits on the board. The politically active nonprofit has reported spending $4.6 million on ads attacking Obama.

In an op-ed for the JNS News Service, Adelson wrote that American Jews should not trust Obama when it comes to Israel.

“For Obama, the issue is only political; for Israel, it’s existential — a matter of survival,” he wrote.

On paper, both Obama and Romney have similar positions on Israel — they both are committed to having a “special relationship” with the nation.

“Where they differ is in the way the current president perceives Israel,” said Aaron David Miller, an Israel expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center. “Israel is more of a matter of national security interest than it is a values argument.”

While Romney has a more “spontaneous, emotional instinct” to identify with Israel, Miller said, Obama seems less emotionally connected.

“In part it’s a generational thing,” Miller said — Obama came of age after the Israeli occupation. “And in part it’s a matter of temperament.”

Idealism or self-interest?

It is impossible to say for certain whether Adelson’s support of Romney is based on idealism or self-interest or both. Adelson’s spokesman refused to comment for this report.

Romney’s tax policies and Adelson’s financial interests are aligned, especially when it comes to tax treatment of overseas profits.

The Romney-backed “territorial tax system” would allow the Sands to bring its future foreign profits back to the U.S. free from U.S. income tax. Romney’s plan also calls for a “tax holiday” that would allow American companies with profits stashed abroad to repatriate them tax-free.

A 2004 tax holiday resulted in the repatriation of one-third of all offshore earnings, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service.

Experts predict a territorial system would have a similar effect.

“I think it is very likely that more foreign earnings will end up back in the U.S. than we would have under the current worldwide system,” said Kautter.

Obama opposes the territorial tax system and has proposed a minimum tax for multinational corporations’ overseas earnings.

Under the current system, American companies that have operations abroad pay income tax to the country in which they earn the money then pay U.S. income tax when they bring profits home. Income taxes paid to the foreign government are deducted from the U.S. income tax when the money is repatriated; earnings left abroad are not subject to U.S. taxes.

Will McBride, the chief economist at the conservative Tax Foundation, calls the U.S. income tax on foreign profits a “repatriation tax.”

“Naturally that discourages business from bringing that money back home,” he said.

Obama and others argue that a territorial tax system would encourage American businesses to move overseas.

The Sands holds $5.6 billion in in overseas profits, according to its 2011 annual report. Under Romney’s policy, Adelson and his company could repatriate it all for free.

The tax holiday combined with a switch to a territorial tax system would potentially provide a $1.8 billion tax break to the Sands the first year, according to a study from a liberal think tank, the Center for American Progress.

Adelson himself, as majority owner, stands to benefit.

“By a reasonable but conservative estimate, the tax cut he stands to get from Romney’s tax policies over a four-year term would be well over $2 billion,” said Seth Hanlon, the author of the study. “When you consider he’s going to spend $100 million on the presidential race, the return on investment is more than 2000 percent.”

*George Soros is the chairman of the Open Society Foundation, which provides funding for the Center for Public Integrity. For a list of Center donors, visit the website.

Update (Nov. 5, 4:10 p.m.): This story has been updated to include comment from William S. Rose, Jr., of Specialty Group Inc.

The biggest corporate contributor in the 2012 election so far doesn’t appear to make anything — other than very large contributions to a conservative super PAC.

Specialty Group Inc., of Knoxville, Tenn., donated nearly $5.3 million between Oct. 1 and Oct. 11 to FreedomWorks for America, which is affiliated with former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

FreedomWorks’ super PAC has spent more than $19 million on political advertising including $1.7 million on Oct. 29 opposing Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat running for Congress in Illinois against tea party favorite Joe Walsh, a first-term incumbent.

The buy was more than four times greater than the group’s previous largest single expenditure.

Specialty was formed only a month ago. Its “principal office” is a private home in Knoxville. It has no website. And the only name associated with it is that of its registered agent, William S. Rose Jr., a lawyer whose phone number, listed in a legal directory, is disconnected.

Rose released a press release Monday saying the company was created to "buy, sell, develop and invest in a variety of real estate ventures and investments."

In the six-page statement, Rose said he was a "disappointed, yet staunchly patriotic, baby boomer" with concerns about the administration's handling of the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, as well as the Department of Justice's botched "Operation Fast and Furious" gunwalking program.

Specialty is the biggest and most mysterious corporate donor to super PACs, but it is not unique.

A new analysis by the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics shows that companies have contributed roughly $75 million to super PACs in the 2012 election cycle.

Super PACs, which were created in the wake of the controversial U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, can accept donations of unlimited size from corporations, unions and individuals. They spend the funds mostly on negative advertising.

The Centers’ analysis found that 85 percent of money from companies flowed to GOP-aligned groups, 11 percent went to Democratic groups and the remainder went to organizations not aligned with either party.

Prior to Citizens United, corporate spending on candidate advertising was not allowed. The decision raised fears that massive donations from corporate treasuries would flood the election in 2012.

In fact, the largest amounts have come from wealthy businessmen. However, about 11 percent of the $660 million raised by all super PACs through mid-October has come from company treasuries — mostly privately held businesses, sometimes organized as limited partnerships or limited liability companies.

Yet a few high-profile companies haven’t been afraid to jump into the partisan fray.

In mid-October, oil and gas giant Chevron donated $2.5 million to a super PAC close to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the Congressional Leadership Fund, which has aired a bevy of ads attacking Democratic House candidates.

Oxbow Carbon, the energy company owned by billionaire William Koch, the lesser-known brother of conservative industrialists David and Charles Koch, and Contran Corp., the business of Republican super donor Harold Simmons of Texas, have both steered significant sums to the coffers of super PACs.

Oxbow Carbon has donated $4.25 million to GOP super PACs, making it the No. 2 corporate donor to super PACs, while Contran, No. 3, has donated more than $3 million to Republican-aligned groups.

Another top corporate donor is a retirement community in central Florida known as The Villages — a Republican stronghold where Paul Ryan held his first campaign rally the day after GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney named him as his running mate.

Developer H. Gary Morse created The Villages more than 50 years ago, and this election cycle, more than a dozen companies connected to Morse and The Villages have collectively steered $1.6 million to GOP super PACs. That’s in addition to the $450,000 that Morse and his wife Renee have donated from their personal funds.

Notably, Morse is also the Florida co-chairman of the Romney campaign, and during the Republican National Convention, Morse’s Cayman Island-flagged yacht, named “Cracker Bay,” was the site of a soiree for some of Romney’s top donors and fundraisers.

Other high-profile corporate donors include:

• The Apollo Group, a for-profit education company, which gave $75,000 to the pro- Romney Restore Our Future and another $5,000 to JAN PAC, the super PAC of Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer;
   
• Convenience store giant 7-Eleven, which donated $25,000 to Hoosiers for Jobs, a super PAC that supported Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., during his failed primary campaign;
   
• Hamburger chain White Castle, which gave $25,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund;
   
• Defense contractor B/E Aerospace, which gave $50,000 to Restore Our Future;
   
• Payday lender QC Holdings, which gave $25,000 to Restore Our Future; and
   
• Weaver Holdings, the parent company of the Indiana-popcorn company known for its brands “Pop Weaver” and “Trail’s End,” sold by Boy Scouts across the country, which has donated $2.4 million to American Crossroads, the super PAC founded by GOP strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie.

Only a few other Fortune 500 companies have joined Chevron, which ranks third on the elite list behind only Exxon Mobil and Walmart, in making contributions to super PACs, and none have given as much as the energy giant.

Caesar’s Entertainment Corp., for instance, ranked by Fortune at No. 288, has given $150,000 to Majority PAC, a group that is spending to help Democrats retain the majority in the U.S. Senate.

“Fortune 500 companies are the least likely to be the ones who will be out in front giving publicly,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California-Irvine. “They want to have influence over elections and elected officials, but they don't want to alienate customers.”

By category, companies in the finance, insurance and real estate sector donated more than $15 million, “general business sector” firms gave about $14 million and energy sector companies contributed more than $11 million, according to the analysis.

Unions, by contrast, have donated about $60 million to super PACs, from their treasuries or political action committees.

The top union donors include the National Education Association ($9 million), the United Auto Workers ($8.6 million) and the AFL-CIO ($6.4 million). All of these groups have spent heavily on Democratic candidates.

Additional corporate money may be flowing through politically active nonprofits that don’t disclose their funders.

“I strongly suspect that most of the corporate money is hiding in plain sight in trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor at the Stetson University College of Law.

For its part, the Chamber— which collects dues from companies such as Aetna, Chevron, Dow Chemical and Microsoft — has reported spending more than $35 million on political ads, which have overwhelmingly favored Republican politicians.

Facts about Specialty Group Inc. are scant.

Records filed with the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office show it registered on Sept. 26, listing Rose, a 61-year-old attorney as its agent. Rose’s $634,000 home — about a 30-minute drive from downtown Knoxville — is listed as its “principal office.”

Yet the company’s money has made a huge impact.

After the cash infusion from Specialty, FreedomWorks produced numerous advertisements, including one that blasts Duckworth as a crony of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached and sentenced to 14 years in federal prison following a corruption scandal.

Duckworth is a double amputee and Iraq War veteran. She headed Illinois’ Department of Veteran Affairs and later served in President Barack Obama’s U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

FreedomWorks’ new ad features grainy footage of Duckworth and audio of her saying, “Gov. Blagojevich has charged me with the mission of taking care of my buddies, and that is what I’m doing.” But it leaves out the fact that when she said “buddies,” she was referring to other veterans and members of the military.

FreedomWorks for America treasurer and legal counsel Ryan Hecker says the organization only supports candidates who are “ethically right.”

Anton Becker, Duckworth's campaign press secretary, says it’s conservative outside groups who are peddling "lies."

When asked for details about Specialty Group and the source of its contributions, Hecker expressed ignorance, and doubted that voters care about where the money came from.

“We are in compliance with the law, and we are doing what we can to report to the Federal Election Commission,” he said. “If there’s an issue with Specialty, it’s their issue. It’s not our issue.”

Andrea Fuller of the Center for Public Integrity contributed to this report.

This story is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics. For up-to-date news on outside spending in the 2012 election, follow our Source2012 Tumblr and the hashtag #Source2012 on Twitter.

Thanks to a flood of outside spending, state supreme court races nationwide are awash in tens of millions of dollars’ worth of ads. Just how much is being spent isn’t clear, as many states allow certain types of ads to go unreported.

In North Carolina, one outside group has single-handedly outspent two candidates for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. The North Carolina Judicial Coalition has unleashed a torrent of ads on behalf of conservative Paul Newby, blanketing the state with a $1.3 million ad buy. Tobacco giant RJ Reynolds and the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce gave a combined $264,000 to the ad campaign.

Both Newby and his opponent, liberal Sam Ervin IV, accepted $240,000 from the state as part of North Carolina’s public financing program — established in 2004 to limit spending and rein in the excesses of special interest money in judicial races. 

Unlimited spending by unaffiliated groups has threatened the effectiveness of the program — one of 16 in the nation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The flood of spending was made possible thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010. Unlike candidates, outside spending groups can raise and spend unlimited sums from people, corporations and unions.

“Outside entities can spend as much as they want,” said Kim Strach, of North Carolina’s election board. “Candidates certified in our [public financing] program don’t have that ability.”

Michigan

The Michigan Supreme Court election is the nation’s most expensive judicial race this year. The state has seen millions of dollars in “off-the-books” outside spending before an election that could flip the 4-3 conservative edge on the state’s highest court.

“This is madness,” said Rich Robinson, of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, who says outside spending has reached a “ridiculous level.”

Parties and PACs have reported less than $680,000 in independent expenditures, but that only tells part of the story.

Political parties alone have purchased $10 million in ads on the race for three seats on so-called “issue” ads, which are not reported to the state. The Michigan Campaign Finance Network has been monitoring the ads.

The watchdog group estimates that 75 percent of the spending in this year’s Supreme Court races falls outside of the state’s reporting system.

Seven candidates are vying for two open seats. Another three are battling to serve the remaining two-year term of a retiring justice.

Candidates have raised a combined $2.7 million.

Democratic candidate Bridget Mary McCormack’s four-minute ad featuring the cast of the hit show “The West Wing” went viral in September. McCormack’s sister was a cast member.

One outside group, the D.C.-based nonprofit Judicial Crisis Network, shot back with $1 million-worth of ads attacking McCormack for volunteering to represent suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay. The group does not report its donors.

“Bridget McCormack volunteered to help free a terrorist,” the mother of a slain American soldier says in one ad from the group. “How could you?”

The Michigan Democratic Party ran ads claiming Democrats Connie Kelley, Shelia Johnson and McCormack would “protect children, not criminals.” Another ad from the party claims that Republican incumbents Brian Zahra and Stephen Markman, and challenger Colleen O’Brien “have protected criminals, not kids.”

Alabama

Five Supreme Court seats are open in Alabama, but just one is contested. Former Chief Justice Roy Moore (R) is fighting to win back the job he lost in 2003, when he was removed for refusing to move a Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court building.

His opponent is Birmingham Judge Bob Vance, who entered the race in August after the Democratic Party disqualified its previous nominee for making inflammatory comments about homosexuals.

Despite his late start, Vance has out-raised his better-known Republican opponent more than two-to-one, pulling in nearly $1 million in campaign contributions since joining the race.

One of his biggest contributors has been Alabama Voice of Teachers for Education. According to state campaign finance records, the teachers association PAC gave Vance $100,000 in October.

Alabama law does not impose campaign contribution limits on individuals or PACs.

Since May, Moore has received roughly $370,000 in campaign contributions, much of it from outside the state. Michael Peroutka, a Maryland attorney who ran for president in 2004 as the nominee of the staunchly conservative Constitution Party, has given Moore $30,000 since September.

Moore’s campaign released ads praising the former chief justice for standing “up to the ACLU and liberal judges to preserve our rights and freedoms. Roy Moore knows our liberty is given by God, not government.”

Ohio

Four candidates are competing for two open seats on Ohio’s Republican-dominated Supreme Court, while the court’s lone Democrat fights to retain her 2010 appointment.

Since July, five of the six candidates have collectively raised nearly $2 million.

Supreme Court candidates in Ohio can accept a maximum of $3,450 from individuals and $6,325 from organizations. Political parties can contribute up to $316,250.

Former appeals court Judge William O’Neill has refused to accept campaign contributions in his challenge to Republican incumbent Justice Robert R. Cupp.

O’Neill filed an ethics complaint concerning $6,300 in donations his opponent and another justice, incumbent Terrence O’Donnell, received from FirstEnergy Corp. The Akron, Ohio-based energy company contributed shortly after the judges began hearing arguments in a case involving Ohio Edison, an electric company owned by FirstEnergy.

Weeks after the justices accepted the gifts, Cupp and O’Donnell joined a majority ruling in favor of the company.

O’Neill produced a Web ad in which he asks two kids to count buckets of money while he decries the thousands of dollars Cupp received from doctors, lawyers and utility companies.

“Money and judges don’t mix,” O’Neill says in the three-minute ad.

In late October, Ohio’s Republican Party released a controversial ad stating that as a judge, “Bill O’Neill expressed sympathy for rapists.”

The 15-second ad concerns an appellate court opinion O’Neill wrote in 2000 in which the he overturned a rape conviction.

Cupp joined state Democrats and the Ohio State Bar Association in demanding that the Republican Party pull the ad. But GOP officials have refused to do so.

West Virginia

The race for two open Supreme Court seats in West Virginia features four candidates, one of whom has produced a quirky ad in which he shows viewers the inside of his closet to confirm that there are no skeletons inside.

Incumbent Justice Robin Jean Davis, a Democrat, faces Republican Alan Loughry while Democrat Letitia Chafin squares off against John Yoder, a Republican.

Outside spending has been absent from this Supreme Court election, but the four candidates have spent a combined $1.8 million during the general election campaign.

Loughry’s campaign produced three ads– two of which prominently feature the candidate’s six-year-old son, aptly named Justice.

In one ad, the Republican gives viewers a tour of his house, as he repeatedly notes that his last name is pronounced “LAW-FREE.” At one point, Loughry opens his closet and says, “See? No skeletons.”

Loughry, who has spent nearly $425,000, was the only candidate who intended to run a publicly financed campaign this election season. But his plans were thwarted when the state Supreme Court ruled in September to deny Loughry’s campaign matching state funds under a pilot program.

Retention elections

In Iowa, a conservative outside spending group hopes to oust a justice who supports same-sex marriage. In Florida, justices face the wrath of a pro-business group and a physician who object to President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.

Eighteen states, including Iowa and Florida, require their appointed Supreme Court justices to periodically face voters in what are known as “merit retention elections.”

Voters are asked whether a judge should remain on the bench. If a majority says no, the governor appoints new justices from a list of names submitted by a nonpartisan nominating commission.

Read more on these races here.

Pedro Rios was nine years old when he arrived to the United States, and now he’s a Republican candidate for California’s state legislature.

“I’m an immigrant, like many, who has worked to succeed and I’m living the American Dream,” the farmer, now 39, says in a Facebook post advertising his run at the 32^nd Assembly District in the Bakersfield area. 

But what Rios consistently avoided saying — until late October — was that he started out as a young illegal immigrant who was smuggled as a child over the border from Mexico.

Rios didn’t become a legal resident until he was a teenager and was able to take advantage of an amnesty in the 1986 immigration reform passed by Congress and signed by President Reagan. He became a U.S. citizen in 1996.

As Bakersfield area press reports have indicated, the disclosure has proved awkward for Rios — who opposes the DREAM Act for undocumented youths to earn legal status — as well as for Rios’ local Republican champions.  

Not least among Rios’ champions is Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the staunch conservative from Bakersfield who is the House of Representatives’ majority whip.

McCarthy is at the top of the list of Rios’ endorsements in this region, where Democrats have gained strength among an increasing Latino population.

Rios disclosed his history when he came under attack from Democrats and his rival, Rudy Salas, also Hispanic, for failing to support the DREAM Act or President Obama’s recent move to allow youths, as a stop-gap measure, to apply for temporary legal status. 

Publicly, McCarthy — Rios’ star supporter — has toed the hard GOP line on immigration, attacking the idea of any breaks to allow undocumented youths or adults to earn legal status.

“We should not provide any amnesty that would benefit those who defy our laws and enter the United States illegally,” McCarthy’s website says. “In order to reduce the number of illegal immigrants in our country, we must enforce the laws that already exist. In order to do this, we must secure our border by using both physical as well as electronic barriers.”

At the same time, McCarthy acknowledged earlier this year that the GOP has alienated Latino voters in California and needs to address that failure. 

Rios is part of that effort.

McCarthy was an architect of the “Young Guns” candidate recruitment drive that propelled  the GOP to victory in 2010. He’s trying to replicate that with a “Trailblazers” drive for California’s state legislature. 

McCarthy stuck with Rios after Rios acknowledged he was a beneficiary of amnesty. He suggested that since Rios was a child, he wasn’t responsible for entering illegally.

"This does not change one iota," McCarthy told the Bakersfield Californian newspaper. "He became a citizen ... and then he went and served the military for eight years. He was a 9-year-old kid that his uncle brought across."

The media in Bakersfield sees the flap as an opportunity to advance public dialogue on immigration.

A Bakersfield Californian columnist took Rios to task, accusing his campaign of hiding his background as long as it could to placate conservatives — even though Rios’ life story would likely resonate, and boost support, among Latinos.  Since his revelation, Rios has said he opposes the DREAM Act because he wants broader immigration reform to benefit others, not just those who arrived as children. 

In a stinging Bakersfield Californian editorial, however, the local GOP is taken to task for reacting to Rios’ revelation with comments hinting that Rios was “somehow different, more virtuous and deserving” because Congress and Reagan created an amnesty. 

“What sets Rios apart from the millions of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. today — the ones so often demonized by Republicans for breaking the law when they crossed the border?” the editorial asks.  “Rios got lucky. That's all. “

Watchdog groups are accusing a House committee that investigates wasteful government spending of apparently using taxpayer funds to produce a campaign video attacking President Barack Obama.

The video was produced by House Committee on Oversight and Reform, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. The one-minute video criticizes Obama for the cost of state dinners and was posted to the committee’s YouTube channel on Friday. It has made its way through Twitter and conservative blogs over the weekend.

“Spend like he says, not like he does,” the narrator says of the president, as a photo of Obama in a tuxedo holding champagne shares a split screen with dollar bills raining down.

“It is so far beyond the pale. I think it is clearly an ethics violation,” said Melanie Sloan, the executive director of the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “It is one of the most outrageous abuses of official resources I’ve ever seen.”

CREW plans to file a complaint, Sloan said.

When asked if taxpayer funds were used to create the video, committee spokesman Seamus Kraft said in an email that “the committee’s video presentation is fully consistent with House rules and did not incur any additional taxpayer expenditures for its production.”

According to Paul Ryan, an election law and ethics attorney at the Campaign Legal Center, the video amounts to an “electioneering” campaign ad — it supports or opposes a candidate even though it doesn’t explicitly say vote for or against that candidate.

It falls short only in that it wasn’t broadcast on television.

“It’s a sham issue ad attacking president Obama in the immediate lead-up to a presidential election,” he said. “I don’t think government resources and congressional committees should be in the business of engaging in such actions even if these fall short of a legal definition of what constitutes an express advocacy campaign ad.”

If the ad were aired on television, it would likely need to be reported to the Federal Election Commission, according to Ryan.

Issa, the chairman of the oversight committee, has been an outspoken critic of Obama. Issa requested Friday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton justify the cost of a state dinner for the president of Mexico, Felipe Calderon that was featured in the Web video.

The costs of the dinners are attributed to unspecified “documents” in an October article in the Washington Examiner, the Web video’s only source.

Democrats on the committee disavowed the video.

“This is an inappropriate use of committee resources,” said Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio.

House rules prohibit congressmen and women from using official resources for campaign activities.

In the day before the election, more than $3.5 million was spent supporting GOP nominee Mitt Romney or opposing President Barack Obama while $34,000 was spent in support of the president, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

While Romney has enjoyed greater support with outside groups, the president’s campaign has raised more money, which has kept the two candidates about even in total ad spending.

Reports filed Monday show that in addition to the spending on the presidential race, groups also spent $800,000 to influence votes for U.S. Senate and House races.

Americans for Responsible Leadership, a conservative nonprofit, spent more than any other outside group yesterday with $2.7 million, most of it supporting Romney. The Arizona-based group did not become active in the election until mid-October.

Because it is a nonprofit, it is not required to disclose its donors; however, a court battle in California — the group has also been spending big on state-level ballot measures —culminated yesterday with the group disclosing its donors, the Los Angeles Timesreported.

The disclosure wasn’t particularly illuminating — the nonprofit group’s donors were other nonprofits, which also keep their donors secret.

Americans for Job Security, for example, passed money to the Center to Protect Patients’ Rights, another nonprofit, which gave money to Americans for Responsible Leadership, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The original donors to Americans for Job Security are unknown.

California’s Fair Practices Political Commission said the failure to disclose the transfers amounts to campaign money laundering, Talking Points Memo reported.

The Center to Protect Patients’ Rights, which has distributed large checks to various other conservative nonprofits, is run by Sean Noble, whom Politico described as a “Koch operative.” The Koch brothers, Charles and David, are wealthy businessmen whose nonprofits have spent tens of millions of dollars this election.

The Center to Protect Patients’ Rights and Americans for Job Security are part of a larger, non-disclosing network of politically active, conservative nonprofits, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

By Oct. 30, more than $840 million in outside money had poured into the 2012 elections, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity and CRP, with conservative outside spenders exceeding liberal spenders by roughly 69 percent to 28 percent.

In other outside spending news:

• Majority PAC, the super PAC supporting Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate, released “Mainland” supporting Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and “Pay Raises” opposing Rep. Rick Berg, R-N.D.
   
• American Future Fund, a conservative nonprofit, released “Small Things” opposing Obama.

Who paid for that political ad? You might be surprised by the answer. Email us and we will try to find out. Describe the advertisement — was it mean or nice? Will it affect your vote? When and where did it run and what were the names of the candidates? And PLEASE tell us what the disclaimer at the end says, and we will check it out.

The Center for Public Integrity's John Dunbar joins PBS NewsHour's streaming coverage at 12:30 p.m. ET to discuss the impact of super PACS on the 2012 election.

Outside groups spent more than $190 million on the presidential election in the final three weeks of the campaign, with about $155 million aiding Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

The total is more than 40 percent of spending by super PACs, nonprofits and other organizations in the presidential contest since the general election began and is more than any other three-week period in the race.

Since Oct. 29 alone, GOP-aligned outside spending groups outspent their Democratic counterparts in the presidential race $84 million to $20 million, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission records collected by the Sunlight Foundation.

“Memories are short,” said attorney Dan Backer, whose clients include several conservative outside spenders. “The more you can define the message in the final days, the more likely you are to motivate your base, sway undecided [voters] and turn off supporters of your opponents.”

The outside spending no doubt helped Romney in his fight with his better-funded opponent, President Barack Obama — the Romney campaign reported about $53 million in the bank through Oct. 17 compared with the Obama campaign’s nearly $94 million.

The top spenders during the home stretch were super PACs Restore Our Future, which spent more than $45 million on ads in the presidential contest since Oct. 17 and American Crossroads, which spent $35 million.

Restore Our Future was created by several former Romney aides. American Crossroads was co-founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove.

A study by the Wesleyan Media Project reports nearly 100,000 ads were aired by all political organizations, including campaigns, between Oct. 22 and Oct. 29.

GOP groups dominated the airwaves in Columbus, Dayton, and Toledo, Ohio, as well as Tampa, Fla., the study found. Democratic groups, led by the Obama campaign, enjoyed an edge in Las Vegas, Milwaukee, Norfolk and Roanoke, Va.

Last-minute ads from conservative groups slammed Obama on everything from foreign policy to the economy.

One American Crossroads ad accused the president of “making China stronger and America weaker,” while ads produced by Restore Our Future accused him of “flat-lining” the economy and argued that it could “stay dead” for four more years unless Romney was elected.

Meanwhile, Romney was hit in the final days by ads emphasizing his Medicare proposals and private equity background.

One ad from the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action, created by two former White House aides, alleged that Romney was “director of a company that stole millions from Medicare” and contended that as president, Romney would “end Medicare as we know it.”

Overall, Priorities USA Action pumped more than $21 million into ads during the final three weeks of the election.

Thanks to changes to campaign finance law in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling and another federal court decision, nonprofits and super PACs are free to collect donations of unlimited size from nearly any source.

Money raised from individuals, corporations and unions is used to pay for advertisements — so long as they are not coordinated with the campaigns they are designed to aid.

The advertising surge included several high-profile U.S. Senate races.

Republicans need a net gain of four seats to wrest control of the Senate away from Democrats.

In Indiana, allies of Richard Mourdock have poured at least $7 million into the race during the past three weeks, according to the Center’s analysis of data from the Sunlight Foundation. That’s about half all money spent by outside groups backing Mourdock during the general election race to date.

Mourdock beat six-term incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar in the primary.

Outside groups supportive of Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly got a boost after Mourdock said pregnancies arising after a rape were “something God intended to happen” at an Oct. 23 debate.

Pro-Donnelly outside spending groups have spent more than $10 million over the course of the general election and more than $5 million in the final three weeks.

Polls now show Donnelly with a slight lead over Mourdock in the Republican-leaning state.

Not all outside spending has favored Republicans.

During the past three weeks, conservative groups sunk at least $1.8 million into the Missouri race for U.S. Senate, where they hoped to defeat incumbent Democrat, Sen. Claire McCaskill.

McCaskill’s allies spent about $3 million during the same period.

Rep. Todd Akin, her Republican opponent, bucked calls from his own party to drop out of the race after he said women who were victims of “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant. Many deep-pocketed conservative groups that had been spending in the race directed their resources elsewhere following the comment.

In the final three weeks, outside groups have spent nearly $70 million on advertisements in five hotly contested Senate races — Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Conservative groups account for 62 percent of the spending, the analysis found.

The contentious race between Republican George Allen and Democrat Tim Kaine, both former governors, has drawn more than $50 million in outside spending so far with almost $22 million coming in the past three weeks —about $14 million from conservative groups and about $8 million from liberal groups.

Crossroads GPS, the conservative nonprofit sister group of American Crossroads, sought to tie Kaine to Obama, saying both “ran up spending” and endorsed “defense cuts that could kill over 200,000 Virginia jobs,” according to one attack ad.

Meanwhile, VoteVets Action Fund, a Democratic-aligned nonprofit, launched an Oct. 26 ad saying Allen has repeatedly “turned his back” on veterans, a key voting bloc in Virginia.

“If George Allen thinks veterans’ programs are a waste, maybe voting for him is the real waste,” says the David Nasse, a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rachael Marcus contributed to this report.

Editor's Note: Today marks the final installment of the Daily Disclosure. To keep up with post-election, money-in-politics news, please visit Consider the Source.

Money can't buy happiness, nor can it buy an election, apparently.

The top donors to super PACs in 2012 did not fare well — casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the No. 1 super PAC contributor with more than $53 million in giving, backed eight losers at this writing.

Adelson was top backer of the pro-Mitt Romney Restore Our Future super PAC, with $20 million in donations. Romney lost to President Barack Obama. In addition, Adelson's contributions to super PACs backing U.S. Senate candidates in Florida, Virginia and New Jersey were also for naught.

He was not the only conservative billionaire who had a bad night.

Contran Corp. CEO Harold Simmons, (No. 2), homebuilder Bob Perry (No. 3) and TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, (No.4), also bet on Romney. Collectively, the trio gave $13.4 million to Restore Our Future, and Ricketts’ super PAC, Ending Spending Action Fund, spent an additional $9.9 million helping Romney’s failed bid.

The super donor winner of the night was Newsweb Corp. CEO Fred Eychaner (No. 5). Eychaner gave $3.5 million to pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action through the most recent filing period, which ended Oct. 17, according to Federal Election Commission records.

In Florida, Republican Rep. Connie Mack lost his challenge to the popular Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who won with 55 percent of the vote. Adelson gave $2 million to the pro-Mack super PAC Freedom PAC, and Simmons and Perry gave a combined $255,000 to the group.

The hotly contested Senate race in Virginia attracted $2.5 million from Adelson and Perry, both giving to Independence Virginia, the super PAC supporting former Republican Sen. George Allen. His opponent, Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine, won the seat with 52 percent of the vote.

Adelson also invested in the re-election of Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., in Florida’s 18th District, who was trailing in his battle with Democratic newcomer Patrick Murphy at this writing.

The casino billionaire’s $1 million to Patriot Prosperity, a New Jersey-specific super PAC supporting the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Joe Kyrillos, and the Republican candidate for U.S. House in the state’s 9th District, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, also did not pay off.

During the primary season, Adelson’s $16.5 million in contributions to the super PAC Winning Our Future was not enough guide former House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich to a Republican presidential nomination, though it is credited with keeping him in the race longer than expected. Nor were Adelson’s contributions enough to help Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst win the GOP primary for Texas Senate earlier this year, a cause to which gave at least a quarter-million dollars.

Adelson did score one point with his $2 million contribution that helped sink a Michigan ballot initiative seeking to enshrine collective bargaining in the state’s constitution. Adelson runs the only non-union casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.

 Win-Loss Rundown:

(Giving to candidate-specific super PACs in the federal election)

Sheldon Adelson, Republican, $53.7 million*

• Mitt Romney — loss
• Connie Mack (Florida Senate) — loss
• George Allen (Virginia Senate) — loss
• Allen West (House, Florida’s 18th) — too close to call, but leaning toward loss
• Joe Kyrillos (New Jersey Senate) — loss
• Shmuley Boteach (House, New Jersey’s 9th) — loss
• Newt Gingrich (GOP presidential primary) — loss
• David Dewhurst (GOP primary, Texas Senate) — loss

Harold Simmons, Republican, $26.9 million*

• Mitt Romney — loss
• Connie Mack (Florida Senate) — loss
• Rick Santorum (GOP presidential primary) — loss
• Newt Gingrich (GOP presidential primary) — loss
• Rick Perry (GOP presidential primary) — loss
• David Dewhurst (GOP primary, Texas Senate) — loss
• Orrin Hatch (GOP primary, Utah Senate) — win

Bob Perry, Republican, $21.5 million*

• Mitt Romney — loss
• George Allen (Virginia Senate) — loss
• Connie Mack (Florida Senate) — loss
• Rick Perry (GOP presidential primary) — loss
• David Dewhurst (GOP primary, Texas Senate) — loss

Joe Ricketts, Republican, $12.9 million*

• Mitt Romney — loss

Fred Eychaner, Democrat, $12 million*

• Barack Obama — win

Tuesday marked the first presidential election under the new campaign finance regime installed following the 2010 Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision. The ruling paved the way for super PACs and nonprofits, allowing them to accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations and unions, which could be spent on advertising backing or opposing candidates.

*As of Oct. 17, 2012 for the 2011-2012 election cycle. Source: Center for Responsive Politics and Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission records. Totals include contributions from individuals, family members and corporations that are controlled by the individual super donor.