A joint study of federal campaign contribution data conducted by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 finds that 55 major donors to the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney also provided more than half of the funds received by a Super-PAC established to aid the former Massachusetts governor’s second run for the White House.
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Restore Our Future is the name of the Super-PAC supporting Romney. Such groups are not allowed to coordinate with a candidate or give money directly to his or her campaign, but they can raise unlimited amounts of money to be spent buying advertising or otherwise independently advocating.
The Super-PACs arose after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v Federal Election Commission decision last year affirmed that First Amendment protection must be extended to independent advocacy on behalf of candidates.
The decision has raised the ire of liberals who support increased government supervision of political speech via campaign funding laws and regulations because they believe it allows too much freedom for wealthy individuals and corporations to influence elections.
“These double-dipping donors represent almost three-quarters (73 percent) of all of Restore Our Future’s individual donors,” CRP said in a release describing the study. Fifty-four of the 55 also maxed out their contributions to the official Romney campaign committee.
“Their contributions to Restore Our Future ranged in size from as little as $3,500 to as much as $100,000, $500,000 and even $1 million. These contributions are far in excess of the $2,500 limit per individual, per election, that applies to contributions made to Romney or any other federal candidate.
“Overall, these 55 donors to Romney’s presidential campaign contributed a combined total of $6.4 million to the Super PAC supporting Romney — a majority (52 percent) of all the money Restore Our Future raised as of June 30, the joint analysis shows.”
Data on other Super-PACs that are advocating on behalf of other presidential candidates is not yet available, according to CRP, because the groups are only required to file semi-annual reports to the FEC of their donors and expenditures.
The study found a similar pattern among donors to President Obama’s official re-election committee and Priorities USA Action, a Super-PAC established to keep him in the White House for a second term, with nine individuals giving to both entities.
The study said “as of June 30, 24 individuals had donated to Priorities USA Action, meaning the double givers account for 37 percent of all individual donors to the group. This handful of donors, though, is responsible for the vast majority of the money Priorities USA Action has raised. Collectively, these nine individuals donated $2.6 million to Priorities USA Action — or 82 percent of the total money the group raised.
DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CRP study noted, provided the maximum contribution allowed by federal law for an individual to a candidate, and another $500,000+ in donations he arranged as a bundler for the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
For more information on the study, including a downloadable Excel spreadhseet of the Romney and Obama donors mentioned above, go here.
