This report is a joint project of the Center for Responsive Politics

and the Sunlight Foundation Hedge fund managers, a top tax lobbyist, an engineer with two dozen patents to his name, an oilman, a PBS host and the CEO of a storied construction firm flush with federal contracts are some of the well-heeled individuals who are already at or near the maximum amount individuals can contribute to politicians, parties and PACs in the 2014 election cycle — limits that might be swept away by the U.S. Supreme Court in a decision expected soon.

In anticipation of the ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Center for Responsive Politics and the Sunlight Foundation have teamed up to look at the deep-pocketed donors who could give even more if the high court strikes down another limit on the amount of money in U.S. politics.

Using data compiled by CRP, we focused on 20 of the biggest givers so far of “hard money” — contributions to federal political committees that are limited by the Federal Election Campaign Act. The majority of big donors on our list have had identifiable interests before the government in the last six years. More than 10 months before Election Day, each have already contributed $100,000 or more in the current campaign cycle. That means they’re all pushing up against the $123,200 aggregate contribution limit that the Supreme Court has been asked to eliminate.

Under current law, donors are not only limited in how much they can give to a candidate ($2,600 per election), a national party committee ($32,400 per year), the federal committee of a state or local party ($10,000 per year) and a political action committee ($5,000 per year), they are also limited in the total amount they can contribute. To parties and PACs, that amount is $74,600, while to candidates the limit is $48,600 in the 2014 election cycle. That adds up to a grand total of $123,200.

Those caps were challenged by Shaun McCutcheon (at right), an Alabama businessman who argues that the law violates his First Amendment rights by limiting his ability to contribute to as many candidates or party committees as he wishes. McCutcheon says he would have donated more than the law allowed in the 2012 election cycle. He’s not the only donor who’s come near or surpassed the limit.

In the 2012 election cycle, several media outlets, among them the Sunlight Foundation, identified donors who exceeded, or appeared to have exceeded, the limits. And back in 1993, the FEC fined ten big donors, including real estate mogul Donald Trump, Archer Daniels Midland chairman Dwayne Andreas and corporate takeover artists Ron Perelman and the late Harold Simmons, for giving too much to too many pols, PACs and parties. The excessive donations came at a time when Congress was considering ending the favorable tax treatment that made leveraged buyouts possible, a change that was never enacted.

In the current election cycle, those nearing the limits include 11 donors who derive their wealth from private equity and investment firms. During the first three quarters of 2013, there were 13 who gave solely to Republican candidates and parties and four who gave only to Democrats. Only three of the 20 donors contributed to candidates of both parties, but they heavily favored (95 percent or more) one party over the other. While just three led companies that are currently lobbying the federal government, 17 of them made large contributions to super PACs. And many of them are trying to influence the government.

For example, Charles R. Schwab’s firm, Charles Schwab Corp., disclosed spending $2.7 million in the first three quarters of 2013 lobbying on an array of issues affecting brokerages, including new legislation and the ongoing implementation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Financial Protection Act. Kenneth Kies, former chief of staff of Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation, lobbies for interests ranging from the American Bankers Association to Anheuser-Busch, from Blue Cross/Blue Shield to the Cigar Association of America. Stephen D. Bechtel Jr. is the co-owner with his son of Bechtel Group, the engineering and construction firm that built the Hoover Dam and is perennially among the top 20 recipients of federal contracts; the firm lobbies on energy, taxes, the environment and trade.

Even when they’re not lobbying, some of the big donors have had up-close encounters with the federal government. George Krupp’s firm Berkshire Property Advisors, which invests and sells multi-family residential properties, sent its CEO Frank Arpeseche to testify before the House Financial Services Committee in July 2009; he also filed a comment on a Securities and Exchange Commission regulation affecting investment advisors. The chairman of the hedge fund where retired professor and current political activist Marsha Laufer’s husband made his fortune also testified before Congress in the wake of the financial crisis, assuring members that hedge funds had little to do with the collapse.

Some on the list have incorporated government into their business models. Schweitzer Engineering Labs, whose CEO, Edmund Schweitzer, and his wife, Beatriz Schweitzer, each contributed more than $100,000 in 2013, has won more than $20 million in federal contracts. And Andew Beal, whose Beal Bank has made a fortune buying defaulted loans for pennies on the dollar, then going after the debtors, made one of his best deals by buying up Small Business Administration loans and suing the debtors.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of McCutcheon, Beal and the other big donors will be able to give to as many members of the House and Senate and as many PACs, including congressional leadership PACs, as they want, and the full amount to each of the national party committees as well as to federal accounts of state and local parties.

Exactly how much bigger an investment will these donors be able to make in federal politics? Because of the plethora of committees (each with their own caps on contributions) to which donors may give, estimates can vary widely. The Brennan Center for Justice puts the potential new cap on individual donations at $3.5 million — a 28-fold increase over existing law. Of course, there are plenty of donors who already have written six- and even seven-figure checks to benefit their favorite candidates via super PACs. But a Supreme Court ruling that tosses out individual limits could create more pressing IOUs by enabling donors to put more money directly in the pockets of politicians. A donor with a particular interest in legislation could, for instance, max out to every member of a key committee.

Here’s a look at the 2014 cycle’s top 20 givers so far — the donors who appear most likely to exceed the current campaign limits should the Supreme Court green-light them to do so. We’re not listing them in order of amount donated simply because at this stage in the cycle, dollar amounts can change as amendments are filed with the Federal Election Commission. Instead, we’ve broken down the field geographically. Not surprisingly, most of the top donors hail from “ATM states,” so called because they are the states candidates tap most frequently for campaign funds.

We attempted to contact each of the individuals listed on this list. In most cases, our calls were not returned or we were told the donor was unavailable for comment. If any of the individuals mentioned in this report do return our requests for comment, we will update our post.

California

Stephen D. Bechtel Jr.

Stephen Bechtel, Jr., retired chairman and current director of the Bechtel Corp., one of the world’s top contractors, has long been a steady donor to Republican federal candidates and parties. In the 2012 cycle, he and his wife together were among the top donors to federal candidates and parties. While he does not favor contributions to super PACs, he has participated in Aspen gatherings sponsored by billionaire conservatives Charles and David Koch that have raised multimillions for shadow political spending groups that do not report donors. He’s also a major donor to California candidates and ballot propositions.

Bechtel Corp. has a storied history as the builder of the Hoover Dam, and was a major participant in Katrina disaster relief and Iraq reconstruction. In 2008, the company agreed to pay $352 million toward a settlement of charges of shoddy work in the epic Boston tunnel project known as the Big Dig, which the company built as part of a joint venture. More recently, the company has come under sharp criticism from Congress and watchdogs for cost over runs in the billions for clean up of the Hanford nuclear facility, for which it is one of the prime contractors.

Bechtel maintains a strong lobbying presence in Washington, where it reports lobbying largely on nuclear issues. Currently 11 registered lobbyists report working for Bechtel, two of them for the company directly and the others from lobbying firms, such as Akin, Gump and the Podesta Group. The company’s PAC has hosted political fundraisers for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including Rep. Norman “Doc” Hastings, a Republican from Washington, where the Hanford plant is located.

Bechtel is the third member of a four-generation dynasty to preside over Bechtel Corp. His son, Riley, now serves as CEO of the company that was founded by Stephen Bechtel Jr.’s grandfather, Warren Bechtel, and later led by his father, Stephen Bechtel Sr.

Bechtel Jr. served on presidential committees and commissions under Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford.

Nelson Rising

One of four Democratic-leaning donors among the top 20 hard money givers in the current election cycle, Rising is a California-based developer who runs Rising Realty Group with his son Christopher in Los Angeles. Though he has a background in law and economics, he has become one of the nation’s foremost real estate developers and was behind major developments in Austin, San Francisco and elsewhere in California. In addition, he chaired the Real Estate Roundtable policy group, whose PAC gives to politicians on both sides of the aisle. He also served as chairman of the board for the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Prior to starting his own realty group, Rising was the CEO of the Catellus Development group and a senior partner at Maguire Thomas Partners. The Los Angeles Times reports that the father and son team were behind the purchase of the $60 million dollar Pacific Center in downtown Los Angeles in 2012.

Though Rising Realty has yet to establish a K Street presence, the Real Estate Round Table has consistently spent millions each year lobbying Congress on legislation affecting the housing market.

In 2012 Nelson Rising served as a bundler for President Obama’s reelection campaign, raising between $200,000 and $500,000 for the president’s reelection effort. Thus far in the current election cycle, 2013, Rising has given to a geographically diverse group of members — from Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.) — and has given the maximum $32,400 contribution to both the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The real estate mogul is also an active player in California Democratic circles and in 2012 was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to a Los Angeles governing board that is winding down the affairs of the Los Angeles redevelopment agency. Brown eliminated the redevelopment agencies in a bid to close budget shortfalls. Rising gave $25,900 — the maximum amount allowed under state law — to Brown’s gubernatorial campaign in 2010. Rising gave $50,000 to Californians to Protect Schools Universities and Public Safety in 2012 in support of Prop. 30 to protect public school, university and police budgets and increase taxes on the wealthy.

Charles Schwab

Charles R. Schwab, who founded his eponymous San Francisco-based brokerage firm in 1971, is reportedly worth $5.1 billion and is a perennial member of the Forbes list of the 400 wealthiest Americans. He has also been a steady political donor for decades. Overall, he’s given more than $5.4 million to candidates and political groups since at least 1990, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute of Money in State Politics accessed through Influence Explorer. Most of this giving has been in the form of hard money contributions, although he did give $375,000 to the super PAC promoting presidential contender Mitt Romney’s campaign. A sliver of his cash has gone to support Democrats who enjoyed plum committee assignments, such as Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.).

But not all of Schwab’s contributions are easy to trace. Mother Jones reported that at a 2011 gathering of corporate executives in Vail, Colo., organized by the Koch brothers, Charles Koch read out Schwab’s name as part of a list of people who had given at least $1 million to a network of conservative groups. Schwab’s name was included in a list of donors giving money to nonprofits that then funneled cash into California initiative campaigns, an investigation by California’s Fair Political Practices Commission found.

Schwab retired as chief executive officer in 2008 but retains a large stake in the firm, which manages some $2 trillion in client assets. The firm’s PAC and executives are also generous donors to political causes, altogether contributing more than $893,000 in the 2012 election cycle alone, according to OpenSecrets.org. The firm’s PAC splits its contributions almost evenly among Democrats and Republicans.

As a financial firm, Charles Schwab is regulated by numerous federal financial agencies and has intense interest in the writing of regulations implementing the Dodd Frank financial law. Company executives have attended meetings at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Treasury Department, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to discuss various aspects of the law, including standards for brokers and dealers and the Volcker rule, meant to prevent banks from pursuing proprietary trading for their own profit.

Recently the company has found itself the subject of a protest petition organized by the group Public Citizen. Starting in 2011, Schwab had started to require clients to sign a clause agreeing not to pursue class action lawsuits against the company. In 2012, the enforcement division of Financial Industry and Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the brokerage industry’s self-policing arm, filed a disciplinary action against the firm, one that would force it to end the policy if the agency upheld the complaint. Schwab suspended the practice while the matter was reviewed. In February 2013, a FINRA panel ruled in favor of Schwab; the matter has now gone to an appeals process and is still pending. Public Citizen is urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to take up the issue and ban such practices through rulemaking.

Florida

Marsha Z. Laufer

Hosting a fundraising event for Hillary Clinton’s first run for Senate was the introduction to politics for Marsha Z. Laufer, a professor and speech pathologist at Stony Brook University on Long Island. She went on to lead the Brookhaven Town Democratic Committee. In 2005, backed with more than $150,000 from her and her husband, Democrats took a majority on the town council against a divided Republican Party. The victory was short-lived: by 2007, the GOP was back in control.

Laufer’s husband, mathematician Henry Laufer, was also a professor at Stony Brook until he left his tenured post in 1992 to follow his department chair, James Simon, to Renaissance Technologies LLC, a hedge fund that Simon founded. The firm is very active politically: In the 2012 election cycle, its executives contributed more than $9 million to political campaigns, including million-dollar-plus donations to super PACs like Priorities USA, American Crossroads and Restore Our Future.

Simon testified before Congress in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, averring that hedge funds had not contributed to the crisis and did not require more transparency, regulation or oversight. Renaissance continues to interact with Congress–the firm’s hired lobbyists disclosed trying to influence “tax issues affecting hedge funds,” “taxation of derivatives” and “taxation of fees paid to fund managers.” They also lobby on the taxation of carried interest, set at just 20 percent on such earnings. That’s about half the rate the multimillionaires who benefit from carried interest would pay the government were it treated as ordinary income.

Henry Laufer is no longer with Renaissance — he retired in 2009 — so some of the tax issues are of less importance to the man who developed the algorithms that are at the heart of the hedge firm’s mathematically-driven trading strategy. The Laufers live in Palm Beach, Florida, where they purchased a $12.8 million home in 2009.

The biggest beneficiaries of Laufer’s largesse in the 2014 cycle so far are the Democratic National Committee ($32,400) and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ($30,800).

Illinois

Ron Gidwitz

A onetime gubernatorial candidate who also served as chair of the State Board of Education in Illinois, Ron Gidwitz is one of Chicago’s prime players in the Republican power structure. He donates to a host of philanthropic groups, but also takes a turn toward politics. He founded Students First Illinois, which pushed for school reform. He also started the Illinois Coalition for Jobs, Growth and Prosperity — a free market group aimed at promoting job growth in the Midwest region. Through the super PAC and nonprofit arms of his New Prosperity Foundation, Gidwitz has taken an active hand in influencing elections.

After serving as an executive at Unilever, Gidwitz co-founded GCG Partners, a consulting and equity capital firm based in Chicago. In 2005 he ran for the Republican gubernatorial nomination but, despite the endorsement of the Chicago Tribune, lost in the primary to Judy Baar Topinka. He bundled between $100,000 and $250,000 for 2008 Republican nominee John McCain’s presidential campaign. The financial executive’s federal contributions go generally to Republican leadership and candidates from within the state. In May of this year Gidwitz made headlines for clashing with the Illinois’ Republican Party over their ousting of party chairman Pat Brady.

Muneer Satter and Kristen Hertel

Muneer Satter, who served as a managing director Goldman Sachs until 2012, and his wife, Kristen Hertel, have long been major donors. While the lion’s share of their contributions have gone to Republican candidates, parties, and super PACs, the couple have also contributed to some Democrats over the years, including Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin (D) and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. In 2008, they supported President Barack Obama with $4,200; Satter also donated to Obama’s inaugural fund.

However, in the 2012 presidential contest, he backed Republican nominee Mitt Romney in a big way, serving as co-chair of the candidate’s finance committee. “He has been a leader and adviser to me and my campaign, for which I’m grateful… Even more importantly, I consider him a dear friend,” Romney told Bloomberg News. Satter is listed as a host on numerous fundraisers for Romney. The couple gave $500,000 to Restore our Future, the super PAC supporting Romney’s candidacy. Satter and his wife made the list of top donors in the 2012 cycle, all of their contributions solidly Republican.

While Hertel’s political contributions have also heavily leaned Republican, the Chicago Sun-Times reports that she contributed a hefty $100,000 to the campaign of Democratic Mayor Rahm Emmanuel. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the nonprofit Beyond Sports Foundation and co-manages the couple’s Satter Family Foundation — which listed nearly $70 million in assets in its most recent financial disclosure filed with the IRS in 2011.

When Satter was at Goldman Sachs, he was one of several executives participating in a conference call in 2011 with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of the proposed “Volcker rule,” a regulation mandated by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law meant to prevent taxpayer-backed banks from engaging in proprietary trading for their own profit. Many big banks universally lobbied federal agencies on the rule, but Goldman Sachs perhaps had the most at stake, as the bank earns more of its revenue from trading than its rivals.

When the SEC and other agencies published the final rule last December, Goldman Sachs was widely seen as having avoided heavy regulation. “Changes in the final wording broadened exemptions for banks’ market-making desks,” reported Bloomberg News.

Since leaving Goldman Sachs, Satter founded his own investment firm, Satter Investments. Satter serves on the national council for the conservative American Enterprise Institute and is also a board member for the Nature Conservancy, an environmental group that often partners with corporations, such as Dupont, Monsanto, Wal-Mart, to conserve land. He serves on the board of directors for the Goldman Sachs Foundation, Atkins Nutritionals, and other companies.

Massachusetts

John Childs

A media-shy billionaire who’s made his fortune in the bruising world of corporate leveraged buyouts, John W. Childs has also played a role in an organization that similarly scouts out under-performers and backs suitors to launch takeover bids. He’s a $1.7 million donor to the Club for Growth, on whose board he sits.

The Club frequently backs primary challengers to incumbent Republicans who do not hew closely enough to its low tax, free enterprise, small government positions, but, as the Huffington Post reported, Childs is not averse to investing in companies that thrive on government business. After being acquired by Childs’ firm, J.W. Childs Associates, an airplane simulator manufacturer increased its government contract business from $4,830 to $710,000. Another firm, GHG Healthcare, won $230 million in contracts while Childs’ firm owned it — a substantial increase over prior years.

In 2002, J.W. Childs acquired the Meow Mix brand for $167 million thanks to a Federal Trade Commission settlement with Nestle. The company had taken over Ralston Purina, and the FTC believed that the merger would limit competition in the market for cat food. The firm sold the company a year later for $432 million, following the introduction of the “Meow meow meow meow” marketing jingle.

Help us keep government accountable by making a donation today.

In Boston, Childs is known as the Republican ATM, and his long history of giving justifies the nickname. Since the 2010 cycle, he’s contributed a more than $5.6 million to GOP candidates, party committees and conservative outside spending groups. He’s also given at least $240,000 to state-level candidates over the same period, including $100,000 to help Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin fend off a recall bid in 2012.

George Krupp

George Krupp co-founded, with his brother Douglas, a Boston-based real estate investment firm called the Berkshire Group, which has a number of subsidiaries. A Democrat through-and-through, he and his wife Lizbeth have been big Obama supporters. Krupp contributed $50,000 to Obama’s re-election bid, and contributed to Obama’s second inaugural festivities. Besides the family business, Krupp has been heavily involved in education, Jewish causes and the arts: He claims to have been kicked out of college in his second year, but finished years later. He taught history and founded a Jewish day school. Currently he’s on the Board of Trustees at Brandeis University and has a gallery named for him and his wife at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Like many members of this list, Krupp’s firm doesn’t lobby, but that hasn’t stopped it from getting its message across in Congress and at federal agencies. When the House Financial Services Committee considered passing a second round of the troubled asset relief program in July 2009, Krupp’s firm sent its CEO Frank Arpeseche to testify on the credit needs of the multi-family housing industry. Arpeseche also filed a comment on a Securities and Exchange Commission regulation that would limit the political contributions of investment advisors who do business with public pensions; Arpeseche opposed the regulation. New York Scott Bommer



In an emailed response to questions about his giving, Schweitzer did not say whether he planned to up his political contributions if the Supreme Court allows it. But he noted that his company does not spend money on lobbying. “The only thing we ask for is a flat, free, fair and open playing field,” Schweitzer said. “We like to visit Capitol Hill and say ‘We thought you’d like to talk to someone who is not going to ask you for anything.”

One of the beneficiaries of Schweitzer’s political largesse, home state Rep. Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-Wash.), has twice taken to the floor of the House to praise him, according to records pulled via Sunlight’s Capitol Words API. In 2012, Rogers likened Schweitzer to Ben Franklin, and three years earlier she hailed his company’s 25th anniversary. The Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories,which Schweitzer founded in his basement in 1982, now boasts more than 3,600 employees in offices around the globe. The company has no records of lobbying in Washington, but its government relations director, Susan Fagan, was a frequent donor to state and federal campaigns between 2001 and 2008. Fagan is now a state legislator in Washington state. This report was jointly produced by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Sunlight Foundation based on data from CRP. Reporting was provided by Russ Choma, Viveca Novak and Emily Kopp of CRP and by Bill Allison, Kathy Kiely, Peter Olsen-Phillips, Ryan Sibley and Nancy Watzman of the Sunlight Foundation. Contributing data analysis: Doug Weber of CRP and Kaitlin Devine of the Sunlight Foundation.





Images: Shaun McCutcheon at the United States Supreme Court on Oct. 8, 2013 (AP Photo/Susan Walsh); Stephen D. Bechtel Jr., via the S.D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation; Paul L. Foster, via the University of Texas; Ellen Susman, via EllenSusman.com; J.W. Childs via jwchilds.com;



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]



