FEC

It’s no secret that national fundraising has buoyed the campaign of Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate in the NY-23 special election. But the full extent is remarkable. We crunched the FEC contribution numbers this afternoon to discover that 95 percent of Hoffman’s donations came from individuals and PACs based outside of the district. (Hoffman [...]

Today marks the deadline for Capitol Hill lawmakers to file their third-quarter campaign finance disclosures with the Federal Election Commission, but don’t look for any immediate news from the Senate filings. That’s because, unlike House lawmakers, who since 2001 have been required to file electronically, Senate lawmakers have to file paper forms, which have to [...]

Here’s their joint statement released following this morning’s Supreme Court argument in Citizens United v. FEC:
It is important to note that the case reargued today does not affect the core of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law – the ban on large, unregulated donations to the political parties by corporations, unions and wealthy individuals. Nonetheless, at [...]

Brenda Wright, Director of Democracy Program at Demos, has posted some insights at the American Constitution Society’s blog on the big campaign finance case, Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, to be argued before the Supreme Court tomorrow. Here’s her take:
Overruling those cases would mean that corporate political spending no longer needs to be funded [...]

Anyone with questions about the case being heard for a second time by the Supreme Court tomorrow, Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, which I wrote about today, can participate in a live Web chat right now on the subject with Common Cause, by clicking here.

If all went as planned, House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) jumped out of a plane on Saturday to show his support for the coal industry. In third-person fashion, he described the upcoming event last week as “a Nick Rahall affirmation of the importance of coal and an opportunity to pay tribute to [...]

Even though things don’t look so good for former Sen. Norm Coleman’s (R-Minn.) bid to keep Al Franken from being seated as Minnesota’s junior senator, Coleman’s still out there trying to raise money to pay his legal bills to keep Franken in the courts and out of Washington. In his latest request for campaign donations, [...]

An analysis of Federal Election Committee filings by The Washington Independent shows a steep drop-off in financial industry giving.

It’s not exactly what political campaign contributors have in mind when they write checks to lawmakers, but Rep. Pete Visclosky — one of three House Democrats linked most closely to the PMA Group, a former lobbying firm currently under federal investigation — is asking the Federal Election Commission for permission to use his campaign war [...]

That’s the natural question to ask after perusing the first quarter campaign finance report that Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, filed last week.
Employees of Fidelity, the world’s largest mutual fund company, gave Frank $29,000 during the first three months of this year — that’s more than one-third of the [...]