One year ago Saturday, a federal court granted a new breed of political committee the ability to raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations and unions to fund independent expenditures — messages, such as radio or television advertisements, that urge the public to elect or defeat a candidate.

And corporate treasury money accounted for about $15.5 million of the cash donated to so-called “super PACs” — political committees created by the dozen in the ruling’s wake, the Center for Responsive Politics finds. That represents more than 17 percent of these new groups’ funds.

A significant portion of all corporate donations to super PACs came from companies with interests in the energy sector, according to the Center’s research. These organizations combined to give more than $5.6 million to super PACs — more than 36 percent of all corporation donations to these new groups.

These energy-related companies include Alliance Resource Partners, TRT Holdings, Aghorn Energy, the Anschutz Corporation and Tessco Energy Services, among others.

Other companies that donated to these new groups from their treasuries include:

Ohio-based American Financial Group , one of two Fortune 500 companies to take advantage of this new freedom.

, one of two Fortune 500 companies to take advantage of this new freedom. MGM Resorts International , another Fortune 500 company, which is famous for its Las Vegas casinos and restaurants and resorts across the globe.

, another Fortune 500 company, which is famous for its Las Vegas casinos and restaurants and resorts across the globe. Rooney Holdings , the construction, electronics and real estate conglomerate which was ranked by Forbes as the 358th largest private company in 2008 and which owns a subsidiary that built the new billion-dollar football stadium of the Dallas Cowboys.

, the construction, electronics and real estate conglomerate which was ranked by Forbes as the 358th largest private company in 2008 and which owns a subsidiary that built the new billion-dollar football stadium of the Dallas Cowboys. Jelly Belly Candy Company , the maker of jelly beans kept aboard Air Force One and in the Oval Office by President Ronald Reagan.

, the maker of jelly beans kept aboard Air Force One and in the Oval Office by President Ronald Reagan. Weaver Popcorn , the main supplier of the popcorn famously sold each year by the Boy Scouts of America.

, the main supplier of the popcorn famously sold each year by the Boy Scouts of America. Hunter Engineering, the Missouri-based company which boasts that its “heavy-duty brake testing equipment is the choice of the U.S. Army Logistics Command.”

AGRICULTURE, ALASKA NATIVES ALSO PROMINENT PLAYERS



Several agricultural interests also took advantage of the changes in campaign finance law to donate from corporate accounts. The Dixie Rice Agricultural Corp. was the largest of these, donating $1 million to the conservative super PAC American Crossroads.

Other agricultural-related corporate donors included Mountaire Corp., the East Coast agricultural food processing company; Shamrock Farms of Arizona, one of the largest family-owned and-operated dairies in the United States; and Harris Farms, California’s leading breeder of thoroughbreds.

Notably, corporations owned by native Alaskans played a crucial role in the 2010 U.S. Senate race in Alaska.

These corporations provided the bulk of the financial backing for a super PAC called Alaskans Standing Together. That political committee aired advertisements to aid Republican incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s write-in campaign after she lost the GOP primary to attorney Joe Miller. Murkowski ultimately prevailed by about 10,000 votes — or four percentage points — in November.

Native Alaskan corporations donated $1.7 million to this super PAC — 93 percent of the organization’s total receipts, the Center’s analysis indicates.

The most high-profile and deep-pocketed super PAC was American Crossroads, the outfit supported by top Republican operatives, including former George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove and former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie.

American Crossroads alone raised $28 million during 2010. That’s four times as much as its next super PAC competitor and about 32 percent of all money raised by super PACs. Roughly one-third of all the money American Crossroads collected came from corporate treasuries, according to the Center’s research. American Financial Group, TRT Holdings, Alliance Resource Partners, Rooney Holdings and Weaver Popcorn were all among the group’s corporate bankrollers.



SUPER PAC 101

The federal court ruling that ushered in the age of super PACs was known as SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission. It drew heavily upon the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision from January 2010 that granted corporations and unions the ability to use their general treasuries to fund independent political advertisements overtly advocating for or against federal candidates.

The only restraints super PACs face in their operations is that political messages cannot be coordinated with candidates’ own campaigns. Additionally, these political committees cannot directly donate to candidates.

The Federal Election Commission deemed these new super PACs “independent expenditure-only committees” after the legal name of the type of expenditures that would become these committees’ bread and butter. The media unofficially dubbed them “super PACs,” as they leveraged their new-found power in some of the hottest congressional races in the country.

More than six dozen of these new super PACs ultimately registered with the FEC last year and informed the commission of their intent to raise unlimited sums of money. These groups raised a combined $88.7 million, according to the Center’s research.

Combined, these new super PACs spent $65 million on independent expenditures during the 2010 election cycle. That’s about one-third of all the money spent on these types of ads by all non-party committee outside groups, according to the Center’s analysis.

Donations to candidates from organizations are still required to be made through an organization’s political action committee, which cannot accept donations larger than $5,000 per year.

TRUE CORPORATE INDEPENDENT EXPENDITURES STILL RARE



Ahead of last November’s election, according to the Center’s research, only three corporations took advantage of this new ability to use their general treasuries to directly run their own independent expenditures. These three companies — DGS Construction, Penneco Oil and Central Arizona Block Co. — spent a combined $54,500 to aid to four federal-level Republican candidates.

Penneco Oil installed billboard advertisements supporting two Pennsylvania Republicans: Pat Toomey in the U.S. Senate and Tim Burns in a U.S. House race. (Penneco also made a modest $500 contribution from its treasury to the conservative Super PAC for America.)

DGS Construction, meanwhile, funded radio ads supporting Republican Andy Harris in Maryland’s 1st Congressional District, and Central Arizona Block Co. funded radio ads supporting Arizona Republican Jim Deakin during his U.S. Senate bid.

The election season also saw a proliferation of electioneering spending by nonprofit organizations registered with the Internal Revenue Service under section 501(c) of the U.S. tax code, which are not required to disclose any information about their donors.

The Citizens United ruling allowed such groups to use corporate or union money for electioneering communications — broadcast messages in the final weeks before an election that mention federal candidates but don’t explicitly encourage voters to elect or defeat them.

Politically active nonprofit groups reported to the FEC spending about $140 million on messages — independent expenditures, electioneering communications and communication costs, the latter often coming in the form of internal political messages within a union membership. Together, this is a 61 percent increase above spending by such non-disclosing groups in the 2008 election cycle, according to the Center’s research.

It’s unclear how much of this cash — perhaps next to nothing, perhaps tens of millions — comes from corporate or union treasuries.

“Most corporations are not interested in giving to organizations which publicly disclose their donors,” Trevor Potter, the president of the Campaign Legal Center and a former commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, told OpenSecrets Blog.

“Most corporations will much prefer to give without their identities being publicly disclosed,” he continued. “It saves them the sort of trouble Target got into with shareholders and customers.”

Last year, Target Corp. made a donation of $150,000 from their corporate treasury to Minnesota Forward, an independent group that discloses its donors and that backed Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer. Emmer is an opponent of gay rights, and gay rights activists and liberal groups, such as MoveOn.org, protested Target and called for customer boycotts.

Here is a table of the top 12 super PACs in terms of receipts during the 2010 election cycle, along with how much they spent on federal-level independent expenditures and their cash on hand at the end of 2010:

Super PAC Name Total Raised Independent Expenditures End Cash on Hand Viewpoint American Crossroads $27,983,909 $21,553,277 $758,335 Conservative America’s Families First Action Fund $7,083,010 $5,878,743 $70,213 Liberal EMILY’s List Women Vote! $6,505,040 $3,628,645 $844,469 Liberal Club for Growth Action $5,589,334 $4,996,980 $99,725 Conservative Super PAC for America $4,467,934 $1,633,786 $34,945 Conservative Commonsense Ten $4,263,305 $3,257,033 $174,489 Liberal Patriot Majority PAC $3,389,335 $1,968,700 $53,554 Liberal NEA Advocacy Fund $3,300,000 $4,200,000 $0 Liberal Republican Governors Association Ohio PAC $3,061,454 $0 $170,856 Conservative Alaskans Standing Together $1,824,000 $1,260,000 $19,380 Conservative New Prosperity Foundation $1,822,095 $1,478,923 $46,760 Conservative First Amendment Alliance $1,816,884 $1,487,861 $91,229 Conservative

Note: Corporate money may have also been used by political committees — such as the Democratic Governors Association, Republican Governors Association and other groups registered with the IRS under section 527 of U.S. tax code — to help get out the vote or other expenses not reported to the FEC as independent expenditures or electioneering communications. Such contributions are not included in this analysis but are listed in OpenSecrets.org’s 527 committee database.

Center for Responsive Politics researcher Spencer MacColl and reporting intern Zach Newkirk contributed to this report.



For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: [email protected]

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