‘Dark Money’ Groups Exceed Super PAC Spending, Secrecy
The top five outside spending groups on presidential election ads have reported less than 1% of their spending to the Federal Election Commission, according to a new report by national research and advocacy organizations Dēmos and US PIRG. Multiple types of outside spending groups are playing an even larger and more secretive role in the 2012 election cycle than previously thought or estimated.
The report titled Million-Dollar Megaphones: Super PACs and Unlimited Outside Spending in the 2012 Elections reveals that beyond Super PACs, other, less transparent, forms of outside spending are becoming increasingly dominant.
Nonprofit “social welfare” organizations, or “dark money” groups, exempt from taxes under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code and trade or membership associations organized under Section 501(c)(6) are permitted to spend money to influence federal, state, and local elections like Super PACs, but are not required to disclose the identities of their donors or the amounts of their contributions, according to the report.
Super PACs no longer have a monopoly on outside political spending and are even outspent by these more advanced and secretive forms of political marketing.
“For all their problems, Super PACs have one significant virtue: transparency. They are required to report all of their spending on a real-time basis and all of their donors monthly or quarterly to the Federal Election Commission,” the report states. On the contrary, 501(c)(4) “dark money” groups, which also utilize unlimited contributions from wealthy individuals and institutions for political marketing, are not required to disclose donor names or donation amounts due to a gap in FEC regulations.
“Dark money” groups actually outspent Super PACs in the 2010 cycle by a substantial margin and are set to have an even greater effect on this year’s elections, according to the report, which pooled data from the FEC and secondary sources.
The report finds:
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