ICYMI: Rossi Benefits from More Secret Money Than Any Other Candidate
Rossi opposes DISCLOSE Act to shine sunlight on the money
Using calculations from the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, Fuse Washington yesterday released a report that found Dino Rossi has benefitted from $4.5 million in undisclosed, secret money – more than any other candidate in the nation. Even since Fuse released the report midday yesterday, the Chamber of Commerce, which also does not disclose its donors, has bought $500,000 worth of TV advertisements on Dino Rossi’s behalf bringing the grand total of secret money spent on Rossi to $5 million.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/archives/225859.asp
Seattlepi.com: Group: Rossi getting most anonymous outside $
October 22, 2010
Chris Grygiel
Republican Senate candidate Dino Rossi has received $4.5 million from outside organizations who won’t say who their donors are – the most of any candidate nationally, a liberal group said Friday.
“Dino Rossi has become a national poster child for these shadowy groups funded by wealthy donors and anonymous corporations,” said Aaron Ostrom, Executive Director of Fuse Washington. “They want him to win very badly, and you have to ask what agendas they’re hiding.”
For example, Rossi’s campaign has benefited from more than $2.5 million from Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS organization, Fuse says.
Democrats nationwide have been complaining about such campaign funding. A recent Supreme Court ruling allows interest groups – both conservative and liberal – to take in unlimited corporate money without public disclosure.
On Thursday Rossi addressed the question of outside spending during an interview with MSNBC, pointing out that Democrats like his opponent, Sen. Patty Murray, also benefit from such spending.
“(The outside groups) have freedom of speech, they can do that,” Rossi said. “I’d rather see the money come straight through a campaign so the candidates have to wear it themselves, but that’s not the way the system works.”
http://www.publicola.net/2010/10/22/another-2-million-in-secret-cash-spent-against-murray/
PubliCola: Another $2 Million in Secret Cash Spent Against Murray
By Josh Feit, Friday, October 22, 2010
As Cola readers know, we’ve been pretty obsessive about covering the attack ads that are funded by undisclosed corporate dollars. (This is the fallout from the Citizens United ruling, which didn’t itself impact disclosure, but freed up corporations to give unlimited cash to groups that already weren’t required to disclose donors.)
We had the attack ads tallied up at nearly $3 million in anti-Murray ads.
Murray has been hit by: a $1.4 million ad buy from Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS; a $750,000 ad buy from a group called American Action Network; a $300,000 ad buy from a group called Truth in Politics; and a $300,000 ad buy from the National Taxpayers Union.
Liberal activist group, Fuse, sent out a statement today updating the list, noting another $1.1 million from Crossroads GPS, $36,000 anti-Murray ad from something called the Coalition to Protect Seniors. and a $34,000 ad from Focus on the Family Action.
These new adds nudge the grand total on secret independent expenditure ads against Sen. Murray up to $4.5 million.
President Obama, in Seattle campaigning for Murray yesterday, cited the undisclosed funding in his speech at U.W. yesterday.
There has been a $400,000 independent ad against Dino Rossi, but the group Common Sense 10 is set up as a political committee with the FEC, as opposed to a nonprofit, and so , must disclose its donors.
Seattle Weekly: Dino Rossi Leads the Nation in Secret Donations with $4.5M
By Curtis Cartier, Fri., Oct. 22 2010
We’ve all heard the rhetoric. “Anonymous donors are flooding the election with untraceable cash, subverting our democracy and buying votes.” Whether anonymous donations are actually subverting democracy is debatable. What’s not debatable is the fact that millions of dollars are indeed being handed to (mostly Republican) candidates from companies that–since the landmark Supreme Court case Citizens United v Federal Election Commission–are under no obligation to tell people who they are. And who’s getting more of this secret cash than anyone? Turns out it’s GOP Senate candidate Dino Rossi.
The news comes from the liberal advocacy faction, Fuse Washington, but it’s sourced from the non-partisan watchdog group The Sunlight Foundation, which lends credibility to the information.
According to a press release, Rossi’s campaign has taken in a total of $4,543,027 from groups like Bush campaign mastermind Karl Rove’s newly formed Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, and the shadowy GOP group, American Action Network. The release states that Rossi has now surpassed Illinois Senate candidate Mark Kirk for the top spot in secret cash hauling.
“Dino Rossi has become a national poster child for these shadowy groups funded by wealthy donors and anonymous corporations,” said Aaron Ostrom, Executive Director of Fuse Washington. “They want him to win very badly, and you have to ask what agendas they’re hiding.”
Incumbent Senator Patty Murray’s hands are not entirely clean of undisclosed donations, either. Last week CNN reported that left-leaning fundraisers The Citizens and Strength and Security Action Fund had donated $640,000 to her campaign.
Whether voters take more notice of the lack of transparency in who’s funding political ads than they do of the political ads themselves remains in doubt. And until a case comes along that can sway the conservative leaning Supreme Court to reverse Citizens United, Americans can expect plenty more surreptitious cash to end up in the campaign coffers of politicians.
10/23/10
