Close to half of all super PAC money comes from 50 donors...

[humble3d]

Close to half of all super PAC money comes from 50 donors...

 

 

The new Gilded Age: Close to half of all super-PAC money comes from 50 donors

 

A small core of super-rich individuals is responsible for the record sums cascading into the coffers of super PACs for the 2016 elections, a dynamic that harks back to the financing of presidential campaigns in the Gilded Age.

 

Close to half of the money — 41 percent — raised by the groups by the end of February came from just 50 mega-donors and their relatives, according to a Washington Post analysis of federal campaign finance reports.

 

Thirty-six of those are Republican supporters who have invested millions trying to shape the GOP nomination contest — accounting for more than 70 percent of the money from the top 50.

 

In all, donors this cycle have given more than $607 million to 2,300 super PACs, which can accept unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations.

 

That means super PAC money is on track to surpass the $828 million that the Center for Responsive Politics found was raised by such groups for the 2012 elections.

 

The staggering amounts reflect how super PACs are fundraising powerhouses just six years after they came on the scene. The concentration of fundraising power carries echoes of the end of the 19th century, when wealthy interests spent millions helping put former Ohio governor William McKinley in the White House.

 

[Meet the wealthy donors who are funneling millions into the 2016 elections.]

 

What is a super PAC?

 

Despite the mixed impact that big-money groups have had on the presidential contest so far, donors on both sides of the aisle are expected to shell out hundreds of millions more to such entities before the November elections.

 

“We’re going to save firepower for whoever the Republican nominee is,” said Dallas investor Doug Deason, whose father, billionaire technology entrepreneur Darwin Deason, is currently financing super PACs supporting Sen. Ted Cruz.

 

Wealthy patrons also are turning their attention to congressional races. Already, more than two dozen super PACs backing a single House or Senate candidate have emerged.

 

The biggest surge of cash is likely to come this fall, when millionaires and billionaires aligned with both parties fully engage in the fights over control of the White House and Congress.

 

“Democratic donors see Republican donors giving huge, seven-figure checks to causes and efforts on the Republican side of the aisle, and our donors don’t want to be silenced,” said Alixandria Lapp, executive director of the House Majority PAC, a Democratic group that has raised $10 million.

 

The biggest overall contributor to super PACs so far is San Francisco environmentalist and former hedge fund manager Tom Steyer, who has put $17 million into a super PAC he formed to support candidates committed to reducing climate change. He said last month that he plans to surpass the $70 million he plowed into the group to support Democrats during in the 2014 elections.

 

[Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer will spend big bucks this cycle. But he faces a problem.]
Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, the former head of insurance giant AIG, gave $15 million to super PACs backing Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio before they dropped out of the GOP presidential race.

 

Others are spreading around their wealth. New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer gave $5 million to a super PAC allied with GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, whose White House bid fizzled, and nearly $5 million more to nine other super PACs, including one working to stop Republican front-runner Donald Trump.

 

Elite givers such as Steyer and Singer are increasingly driving the financial power of these groups. The Post found that the top 50 contributors together donated $248 million personally and through their privately held companies, or more than $4 out of every $10 raised by all super PACs.

 

To put that in perspective: This tiny cohort of mega-donors supplied more money than the combined contributions of nearly 1 million supporters of Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, whose campaign raised $161 million in the same time period.

 

 

Unlike super PACs, candidates cannot accept corporate money, and individual contributions to them are limited to $2,700 per election.

 

Michael Malbin, executive director of the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute, said the last time political wealth was so concentrated was in 1896, when corporations and banking moguls helped McKinley, the Republican candidate, outspend Democratic rival William Jennings Bryan.

 

“The peak of the system for tapping corporations and rich people came in the McKinley campaign,” he said. “I think that would be an equivalent.”

 

Populist anger over how presidential races were financed led to a 1907 ban on corporations donating to federal campaigns. Forty years later, Congress prohibited unions and corporations from making independent expenditures in federal races.

 

The picture dramatically changed in 2010, when the Supreme Court said in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations and unions could spend unlimited sums on politics as long as they did it independently of campaigns and parties.

 

The decision paved the way for super PACs, which are now a norm in federal races.

 

This year, the groups are attracting supporters who have made fortunes in a variety of industries. Hedge fund managers and energy tycoons figure prominently among the top 50 donors, as do professional sports team owners and technology executives.

 

[How much money is behind each campaign?]

 

Some of the biggest givers are return players from previous elections, such as conservative hedge fund manager Robert Mercer, who has shelled out $14.6 million so far this cycle, largely to a super PAC backing Cruz. Liberal investor George Soros has given $8 million to support groups allied with Clinton and the Democrats.

 

But the ability to play at such a high level has also captivated a new class of political givers. Among the top donors are those who had not given substantial donations to super PACs in past years, including fracking industry billionaires Farris and Dan Wilks, energy investor Toby Neugebauer, car-dealing magnate Norman Braman and hedge fund manager Steven Cohen and his wife, Alexandra.

 

Three hundred donors who have given at least $10,000 have invested in more than one super PAC, the Post analysis found. Among the most prolific is New York-based financier Roger Hertog, who backed super PACs aligned with most of the GOP presidential field.

 

He doled out $510,000 to groups supporting Rubio, former New York governor George Pataki, then-Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham of South Carolina, former Florida governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, among others.

 

Russian-born investor Leonard Blavatnik, who owns Warner Music Group, gave $3.35 million through his company Access Industries to four super PACs, including those supporting Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Graham and Rubio.

 

Indeed, mega-donors seeking an alternative candidate to Trump have exhausted millions of their personal wealth, raising questions about how effectively outside money can shape this year’s presidential race.

 

Other than Trump, the most successful White House contenders of 2016 have been fueled by large bases of small donors — Cruz on the GOP side and Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont for the Democrats. Sanders, in particular, has seen remarkable success, raising nearly $140 million, largely though small donations made online.

 

Some major donors said such vigorous grass-roots fundraising undercuts the idea that a few wealthy individuals are driving the action.

 

“To date, this may be the most democratic election in American history,” said Neugebauer, the GOP energy investor who has given more than $10 million to super PACs aligned with Cruz. “The special-interest large donors are being overpowered by the millions of Americans who want their country back.”

 

Still, rich supporters have funded an entire network of pro-Cruz super PACs, which have together spent nearly $40 million supporting his bid.

 

Many party strategists believe that the GOP presidential contest is an imperfect test of the power of super PACs because of the way Trump’s provocative candidacy has dominated the airwaves.

 

“I don’t believe that phenomenon is replicable in future cycles, and certainly not in down-ballot races,” said Republican campaign attorney Charlie Spies, who served as treasurer of the pro-Bush super PAC Right to Rise, which spent more than $100 million before Bush dropped out of the race.

 

“So it is very hard to draw broad lessons from super PACs in this presidential election because of the overwhelming earned media advantage Donald Trump has had.”

 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-new-gilded-age-close-to-half-of-all-super-pac-money-comes-from-50-donors/2016/04/15/63dc363c-01b4-11e6-9d36-33d198ea26c5_story.html

 

[CODYQX4]

Show me a list of the top 50 political donors and I'll show you 50 people the world would be much better off if all of them died from flesh eating diseases or were abducted and tortured to death by serial killers, and their deaths would pale in comparison to the damage they have done.

 

It's one thing to have a lot of money, another to own the souls of those who make world decisions.