Presented by Free Press
Free Press fought in the field, at the FCC and in court to get broadcasters to post their political files online. These files contain crucial information about who’s paying to sway our vote.
We achieved a big victory when the FCC voted to require online posting — but the ruling applies immediately only to the top media markets. So Free Press is partnering with the Sunlight Foundation and the New America Foundation to collect the files from broadcast stations nationwide. Click here to see the files we’ve already collected, sign up here to inspect the files at your local station and stay tuned to this Tumblr for the latest updates.
(Source: politico.com)
Money, Transparency and Policy Since Citizens United v. FEC
The Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission U.S. Supreme Court ruling changed modern politics. It made an unmistakeable effect on the ability for secretive and unaccountable groups and organizations to push their interests, as well as opened the floodgates for unlimited spending and helped spur the creation of super PACs. Check out below the milestones of the money and politics landscape since the Court’s ruling in January 2010.
The timeline covers four categories: Courts (major court rulings and cases), Disclose (legislation around greater disclosure of political contributions and spending), Super PACs (trend and news for independent expenditure only committees) and FEC (decisions made by the Federal Election Commission).
(Source: politico.com)
Follow the money from big Dem donors to super PACs to races
Big money won big on Election Day. That is, big money supporting Democrats.
In this year’s campaign, many wealthy individuals and groups with large campaign coffers were involved — directly with contributions to candidates or indirectly through outside spending. Sunlight decided to zero in on five mega-donors who gave the most to super PACs backing liberal candidates.
Check out the House and Presidential races.
(Source: Los Angeles Times)
(Source: sunlightfoundation.com)
Mapping Election Money
NPR’s It’s All Politics looks back at the 2008 presidential election and uses cartograms to visualize how and where campaign and Super Pac money was spent. By sizing states by money spent rather than by their physical size, we see the (very) few states that campaigns and their backers consider important.
For example, campaigns spent almost $6 per vote in Nevada and less than a penny in California.
Takeaway, via It’s All Politics: “There are really only 12 states in this presidential election.”
We imagine the 2012 maps will look the same when all the data comes in. It will just include a lot more money. See the Sun Foundation’s Dark Money tally to see what we mean.
