• How outside money was poured into governors' races

    By Paul Abowd and Andrea Fuller, The Center for Public Integrity

    Despite outraising its Democratic counterpart by a 2-to-1 margin, the Republican Governors Association won only four of 11 races in the 2012 election, a far cry from the success it enjoyed two years ago.

    The Washington D.C.-based political organization raised almost $100 million, according to recently released Internal Revenue Service data. The group targeted six states it considered winnable, losing five of them. Democrats won seven of the 11 contests, but the GOP managed to pick up one seat in North Carolina, long held by Democrats.

    The top donors to the so-called “527” organization, which can accept unlimited contributions from billionaires, corporations and unions, are familiar Republican Party patrons — No. 1 is Bob Perry, a Texas homebuilder and perennial RGA supporter, who gave $3.25 million. That’s a little more than half of what he gave in 2010.

    Billionaire casino magnate Sheldon Adelson is No. 2, with $3 million in donations between him and his wife. According to the latest Federal Election Commission reports, Adelson is the top donor to super PACs in 2012, doling out more than $93 million along with his family.

    Conservative billionaire David Koch — who has not made any contributions to super PACs — was the organization’s third-highest donor, writing two checks totaling $2 million. Koch is co-owner of the second-largest privately held company in America, Koch Industries, an energy conglomerate.

    Seven of the RGA’s top 10 donors are corporate executives who gave at least $1 million. Two of them, Paul Singer and Kenneth Griffin, are hedge fund managers.

    Six of the Democratic Governors Association's top donors were unions. The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees topped the DGA donors list, giving about $1.3 million. The Service Employees International Union gave about $1.1 million, while the American Federation of Teachers gave at least $772,000.

    Top corporate donors to the DGA included pharmaceutical giants Pfizer, which gave almost $700,000, and AstraZeneca, which contributed nearly $600,000. The companies also gave comparable sums to the RGA. The DGA also got corporate support from health insurer United Healthcare Services Inc., and AT&T.

    The DGA raised nearly $50 million, the organization's "strongest fundraising year ever," according to spokeswoman Kate Hansen. 

    'Enormous impact on state elections'
    The DGA and RGA have devised national strategies for collecting unlimited funds from unions, corporations, and wealthy individuals, and funneling the money into state races. Both have used networks of state-based PACs to maneuver around various state limits on campaign giving.

    “They’ve had an enormous impact on state elections across the nation,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an election law expert at Stetson Law School. “In many states they were consistently a top spender.”

    The circuitous methods used by both organizations to inject corporate and union cash into state races and mask the identity of its donors have raised legal questions, prompted lawsuits, and tested the capacity of state election boards to enforce limits on outside spending.

    Both organizations have told the Center for Public Integrity that they fully comply with campaign finance laws, and that they report their donors and spending to the IRS.

    The RGA set up a federal super PAC called RGA Right Direction, and fed it with $9.8 million in contributions. The super PAC — another type of organization that can accept unlimited donations from individuals and corporations — then made a large contribution to Indiana Republican candidate Mike Pence, and bought ads in tight state races in Montana, Washington, New Hampshire, and West Virginia.

    Super PACs are normally used to spend money on federal campaigns. By passing the funds through the super PAC, which reported its sole donor as the RGA, the association effectively shielded the identities of the donors who paid for ads in the state races.

    In North Carolina, the RGA spent millions of dollars, directly from corporate treasuries to win in a state long led by Democratic governors. The unlimited contributions from dozens of corporations across the country went toward ads supporting Republican candidate Pat McCrory, who won convincingly over Democratic Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton.

    The DGA, too, used a network of state-affiliated PACs, to fund ad campaigns in battleground states like Montana and North Carolina. It was the primary funder of a PAC called North Carolina Citizens for Progress, which purchased ads attacking McCrory.

    While America’s wealthiest corporate executives tend to prefer the RGA, and unions give almost exclusively to the DGA, some donors played both sides this election.

    Agricultural giant Monsanto, credit card company Visa and health insurance company Humana were large donors to both the RGA and DGA — each giving about $100,000 to both groups.

    Despite the Republicans' win-loss record, RGA spokesman Michael Schrimpf called 2012 "a successful year by any standard" with Republicans now in control of governorships in 30 states. Most of those gains, however, came in 2010. The North Carolina win and the failed effort to recall Scott Walker, Wisconsin's Republican governor, in June, were high points for the GOP this year.

    In addition, in five states targeted by the RGA where it lost, the Democrats held advantages unrelated to fundraising. 

    Missouri and West Virginia featured Democratic incumbents. Three other states — Montana, Washington and New Hampshire — had open seats where a Democrat had previously been in power.

    The two organizations will put their fundraising powers to the test again in 2013, when Virginia and New Jersey choose their next governors.

    Michael Beckel contributed to this report.

    The Center for Public Integrity is a non-profit independent investigative news outlet.  For more of its stories go to publicintegrity.org

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  • PA judge rejects challenge to voter ID law

    By NBC's Pete Williams

    Even though Pennsylvania officials offered no evidence that in-person voter fraud has tainted past elections -- or is likely to occur this fall -- a state court judge ruled Wednesday that challengers of a new photo ID requirement failed to meet the legal requirement to get it put on hold.

    Lawyers for the challengers say they will immediately appeal, hoping to get enforcement of the law stopped before the presidential election on Nov. 6.

    "I am not convinced any qualified elector need be disenfranchised" by the law, said Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson, a Republican, in denying a request for a court order to stop enforcement of Pennsylvania's Act 18, passed by the legislature in March. It requires voters to present a photo ID at the polling place in order to vote.

    Several voting rights groups, including the League of Women Voters and the NAACP, joined with a group of state residents to claim that the law would force thousands of people to say home on election day because they lack the kinds of ID cards required by the new law.

    At most, Judge Simpson said, the percentage of registered voters in the state without a qualifying photo ID "is somewhat more than 1% and significantly less than 9%." 

    But he said that with the availability of absentee voting, the right of a person without photo ID to cast a provisional ballot, and the opportunities for those with special hardships to seek individual help from the courts, he was not convinced that any of those who filed the lawsuits or the witnesses they called will be prevented from voting.

    The judge also said the challengers failed to meet the legal test required to mount what's known as a facial challenge to a law -- a claim that the law on its face is unconstitutional.  "They do not acknowledge the extremely rigorous legal standard for facial challenges requiring a demonstration that there are no set of circumstances under which the statute may be valid."

    Similar efforts to stop voter ID laws in other states have been unsuccessful in federal court, which is one reason why the challengers in Pennsylvania decided to sue in state court by claiming that the law there violated the state constitution.

    While opponents of the law are hoping they can prevail on appeal in the state courts, one election law expert believes today's ruling will ultimately survive.

    "The decision is almost certain to stand," said professor Rick Hasen of the UC Irvine School of Law, author of "The Voting Wars."

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, he said, is divided 3-3 between Democrats and Republicans, who are likely to support today's ruling.

    But even if they did split along party lines, Hasen said, "a 3-3 tie leaves the lower court opinion in place. I don't expect there would be any fuller ruling on the merits in this case before November, or that any such ruling would lead to a different result."