Open Secrets.org (OS) tracks political donations from various sources and publishes their findings and analysis. The overview of their latest research for the 2014 election cycle is set forth below under their Creative Commons use policy. The links provided are to their specific categorized findings. We have added to a few of their general findings pointing out some aspects we consider of note that their presentation glosses over or does not mention. Our comments are offset and in off color from the Open Secrets text. We encourage readers to peruse their links and avail yourselves of who the monied individuals and organizations are in politics and that influence public opinion. Our illustrious Senior Editor “DLH” brought attention to the OS update and contributed to the analysis.
Who Gives the Most? OpenSecrets.org Releases Updated Top Contributors List
by Sarah Bryner on August 6, 2014
In preparation for the fall election season, OpenSecrets.org is releasing our overhauled top contributors lists. These lists will provide users with an easy way to see the organizations and individuals donating the most money to federal campaigns and committees. We have long provided this information, but in the past it could be confusing or misleading. For example, organizations that only donated to outside spending groups could show up as “on the fence” because they didn’t donate to Republicans or Democrats, when in actuality these organizations heavily favored conservative or liberal political causes. Now, the true tilt of a donor will be displayed, allowing users to easily identify the partisan preferences of an organization or individual.
The most comprehensive list is our new Top Overall Federal Contributors list. Here, you can see the top donors to nearly every type of federal entity – campaigns, parties, federally-focused 527s, super PACs and Carey committees are all included in these totals. These numbers include direct giving from the organization’s employees as well as its PAC, if it has one. What’s missing is the money that we can’t see: Donations to dark money groups are never disclosed and therefore organizations that choose to spend their money in the shadows will not appear as prominently on the list as we might expect.
Veritaspac says: Open Secrets’ donor tracking provides valuable information, however a constant refrain of theirs in introducing various categorized reports is to the effect that C-4 organizations, which they also refer to as “dark organizations,” aren’t required to publicly report their donors, so the sources of much of the money flowing to politically active tax-exempt groups remain unknown. This is true but the full truth takes the edge off the sinister undertone they try to project. Organizations organized under 501C-4 of the tax code are non-profit social welfare advocacy organizations. They do not pay federal income taxes but contributions are not tax deductible. The full truth is that major donors are reported to the IRS on the organization’s form 990 filings. The names are not made public but they are reported. The IRS can audit, toss their exemption and levy fines if the donations violate the law.
One of the first things you may notice about the 2014 list is that of the top 20 organizations, only two favor Republicans. The rest, with the exception of one “on the fence” trade association, all strongly prefer liberal policies and Democratic candidates. ActBlue, long a major player in directing small contributions to Democrats, tops the list of organizations. In addition, 11 of the top 20 organizations are unions. This is a pronounced shift from 2012. In that election cycle, seven of the top 20 organizations favored conservatives.
Here even the OS characterization of the leanings of organizational contributions as “strongly preferring” liberal policies is a serious understatement. A 50% advantage might be termed “strongly.” A two-to-one advantage one would think is worthy of note as such, or perhaps the term “overwhelmingly.” How about a multiple of 3.3 times as much advantage to liberals versus conservatives?
OS does not provide running totals or even grand totals for the giving amounts in the table listing the 50 top organizational contributions, liberal vs conservative. So we ran a tape. The top twenty organizational contributors at the federal level gave almost $178 million to liberal/Democrat causes and politicians. Republicans /conservatives received about $18.5 million. As regards that grouping, for a factor of nearly 9.6 to one, the term “dwarfed” would be an appropriate comparative for the liberal advantage over Republicans/conservatives. For the top fifty donors so far for the 2013 -2014 election cycle our tape indicates Democrat/liberal causes received $215,060,836 while Republican/conservative causes received $64,742,570. That is better than a 3.3 to 1 advantage for Democrats/liberals for that category of giving.
On the Top Individuals list, the story is different. Although the top three overall donors are Democrats, six of the top 10 and 11 of the top 20 heavily favor Republicans.
The above is a loaded analysis implying some sort of equivalency. After linking to the OS page immediately above for top individual donors we noticed that they do not provide a total for each categorical column of donor amounts. So once again we ran a tape. Adding up the “liberal” and “conservative” donor columns respectively we see that of the 100 top individual contributors the amount of money that went to liberal causes is substantially more than what was given to “conservative” causes.
Our quick adding machine tally shows roughly $50 million to conservative causes but $69 million to liberal causes, a 38% advantage for liberals as far as monied individual donors. The OS table refers only to giving to federal candidates and entities that operate at the federal level, so it does not represent all issue or candidate related donations to state candidates or entities confined to a single state.
By the way, you know those evil Koch brothers, the ones that the Braley and other organizations are referring to in their anti-Ernst attack ads . . . the only one listed so far for 2014 in the above referenced table is David Koch, at a paltry $382 thousand, putting him at number 90 on the list. Donations to liberal candidates and entities from liberal lions like Thomas Styer – is listed at over $20 million. Michael Bloomberg is in at $8.7 million and Fred Eychaner at $5.6 million. They are 1,2,3 on the list, respectively, of all donors, and they gave from 95% (Bloomberg) to 100% Steyer and Echaner) to the liberal side.
According to the OS chart of Top Overall Federal Contributors, Koch Industries gave out over $2.6 million to Republican/conservative causes. However that places their company/organization at only #36 on that list. If that money were to be listed as individual, as many liberal attack dogs like to conflate “Koch” involvement, it would place them at only 8 or 9 on the individual donor list, still well behind each of the Steyer/Bloomberg/Eychaner triumvirate. But were OS to do so, a fair comparison would require them to re-associate all the owned industries giving patterns of all the individual donors. Continuing with the OS analysis:
The Top Overall Donors list can be greatly influenced by unlimited donations to 527 organizations and outside groups, so we provide the option for users to see those organizations and individuals which donate the most hard money. These totals include individual contributions made by employees of these companies to candidates and parties, as well as limited contributions made by the company’s own PAC. In this case, a different pattern emerges. Not only do the organizations tend to be less polarized in their partisan preferences, but many of the organizations favor Republicans. Eight of the top 20 organizations fall “on the fence,” equally supporting Democratic and Republican candidates and parties.
The giving patterns of the top hard money donors are wildly different from those of the top outside money donors. Among the top 50 outside money donors not a single organization gives equally to both sides of the ideological spectrum — nearly every organization supports liberals or conservatives with 100% of their money. As is the case with the top overall donors, the top outside money donors are dominated by liberal organizations, a pronounced contrast from the 2012 cycle. In 2012, four of the top five outside money donors favored conservative outside groups; this cycle, all five top donors are liberals.
The one place where conservative organizations are out-giving liberal ones is in the newly important area of joint fundraising committees. These committees are designed as an easy way for a donor to write a single check and have that money distributed to a variety of campaigns and party committees. This cycle, 18 of the top 20 organization donors to joint fundraising committees favor Republicans. Among individuals, a whopping 100 percent of the top 10 and 90 percent of the top 50 donors are Republicans.
It’s still early — by fundraising standards — in the 2014 cycle, so check back as we move closer to keep tabs on the organizations and individuals trying to influence your vote.
We agree, check back, as we will continue to reflect on their data. R Mall .
