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This remains a five-alarm fire. We have just days left in our Fall Campaign and the numbers we’re seeing are not good. This is terrifying for us, especially when everything we cherish is on the ballot just one week from now.
Erin Kesler, Democracy 21: 202-355-9600 or ekesler@democracy21.org
David Vance, Campaign Legal Center: 202-736-2200 or dvance@campaignlegalcenter.org
Viveca Novak, Center for Responsive Politics: 202-354-0111 or vnovak@crp.org or press@crp.org.
Super PACs supporting presidential candidates continue to take in six- and seven-figure contributions from individuals who also have given the legal maximum to the candidate's campaign committee.
During 2011, the super PAC supporting GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney pulled in contributions from 172 individuals who also gave the legal maximum to Romney's campaign -- 84 percent of Restore Our Future's 205 donors.
The double-givers included five individuals who gave $1 million to the super PAC: hedge fund titans Paul Singer, John Paulson and Julian Robertson, homebuilder Bob Perry and former Bain executive Edward Conard, according to a new analysis by Democracy 21, the Campaign Legal Center and the Center for Responsive Politics.
On the other side of the aisle, the figures were less dramatic: 15 of the 55 individuals who donated to Priorities USA Action, the pro-Barack Obama super PAC formed by two of his former aides, maxed out to Obama's campaign committee. Those 15 include Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-founder of DreamWorks Studios, who gave $2 million to Priorities USA Action. The number of people giving to both committees could increase now that Obama has given his blessing to the super PAC's efforts, reversing his earlier stance.
Individuals are permitted to give $2,500 to a candidate for the primary season, and another $2,500 for the general election. For the purpose of this report, a donor is considered to have given the legal maximum if he or she has donated at least $2,500 to a presidential hopeful.
The U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, followed by an appellate court decision in the case SpeechNow v. FEC, led to the formation of super PACs, which are allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money from practically any source - individual, corporate or union. They can spend the money on ads and other activities that support or oppose candidates, as long as they don't coordinate their expenditures with a candidate's campaign or give the money directly to someone running for office.
"For most of these donors, $2,500 seems to be an almost insignificant amount compared to what they're contributing to the super PACs associated with the candidates," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. "Giving to the candidate is almost a perfunctory act on the way to giving a really substantial amount to a super PAC" that then will spend the money to help the candidate.
"Presidential candidate-specific super PACs are simply vehicles for circumventing the candidate contribution limits which were enacted to prevent the corruption of federal officeholders and government decisions," according to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer. "The findings of this study, showing that 84 percent of itemized donors to the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC also gave the maximum legal contribution to the Romney presidential campaign, bear that out," Wertheimer said.
"Recent announcements by the Obama and Romney campaigns that high-level campaign staff will be appearing at super PAC fundraising events make clear that these super PACs are simply shadow candidate committees set up to evade the $2,500 candidate contribution limit," said Paul S. Ryan, FEC Program Director at the Campaign Legal Center. "Million-dollar contributions to the super PACs pose just as big a threat of corruption as would million-dollar contributions directly to candidates."
Nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, the Center for Responsive Politics is the nation's premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy.
(202) 857-0044
"The industry's operations and the use of its products disrupt fragile ecosystems, destroy habitats, and pollute air, water, and soil, pushing countless species to human-induced extinction."
With just a few more days of the United Nations biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, 140 organizations collectively called on government representatives to pursue "an immediate halt" to new planet-heating oil and gas projects and "a managed decline of existing activity."
The letter—signed by civil society groups, Indigenous peoples, and social movements—advocates "prioritizing areas of high biodiversity importance" and stresses the need for "a full, fair, fast, funded, and feminist phaseout of all fossil fuels and to halt and reverse biodiversity loss."
"Oil and gas activity threatens biodiversity at every stage—from exploration and production to transportation and end use," the letter states. "The industry's operations and the use of its products disrupt fragile ecosystems, destroy habitats, and pollute air, water, and soil, pushing countless species to human-induced extinction. The risk oil and gas activity poses to biodiversity grows as these operations expand into vulnerable ecosystems."
"Effective biodiversity protection is not possible without halting the expansion of oil and gas activity."
"Places like the Amazon, including the mouth of the Amazon River, are experiencing significant environmental and social impacts from oil and gas activity," the letter notes. "Deforestation, habitat destruction, and pollution of water sources are threatening biodiversity in one of the world's most critical ecosystems, and severely disrupting the fundamental human rights and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples."
The coalition—which includes Amazon Watch, Center for International Environmental Law, Earthjustice, Greenpeace, Oil Change International, Waterkeepers Alliance, and World Wide Fund for Nature—has a list of recommendations for attendees of the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP16).
The groups want summit attendees to "recognize the threat that oil and gas activity poses to all biodiversity, particularly in areas of high biodiversity importance." Regarding such vital areas, they want attendees to "identify concrete actions currently being taken and that will be taken in the future to immediately reduce oil and gas activities" as well as "adopt a decision to immediately halt" new fossil fuel activities in such spaces.
The organizations are also calling for a "fossil fuel-free zone" in the Amazon and prioritizing "the protection of environmental and human rights defenders." According to Global Witness, at least 196 such activists were killed in 2023 alone, bringing the total since 2012 to 2,106.
Additionally, the coalition wants COP16 attendees to "enhance equitable international cooperation to ensure that countries with the greatest historical responsibility for driving biodiversity loss and the production and use of fossil fuels move first and fastest to halt the expansion of oil and gas activity, and pursue new enforceable international mechanisms, such as a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty."
"Faced with an unprecedented planetary crisis, the time is now for parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to fulfill their legal obligations and reaffirm their mandate to protect global biodiversity," the letter argues. "Effective biodiversity protection is not possible without halting the expansion of oil and gas activity, and eliminating the threat from ongoing oil and gas activity, particularly in areas of high biodiversity importance."
COP16 kicked off in Cali on October 21 and is set to wrap up on November 1. Reutersreported Tuesday that "countries were at an impasse over how to fund conservation and other key decisions... with nations pledging millions of dollars rather than the billions needed."
At COP15 in late 2022, countries finalized the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which aims to protect 30% of all land and water vital to species and ecosystems by 2030. To reach that goal, "protected and conserved areas must almost double in area on land and more than triple in the ocean, the U.N. Environment Program World Conservation Monitoring Center and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said Monday.
The IUCN also
warned Monday as part of its "Red List" that more than 16,000 of 47,000 analyzed tree species worldwide are at risk of extinction. The report followed similar warnings of wildlife population decline released ahead of COP16.
"The road to your arrest and The Hague won't be long either, you genocidal war criminal," one observer retorted.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Tuesday on social media that Hezbollah's pick of Naim Qassem to lead the Lebanon-based political and paramilitary group would be "temporary"—a remark seen by many as an assassination threat.
Hezbollah tapped Qassem, its longtime deputy chief, to lead the group following Israel's assassination of former Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut last month.
"Temporary appointment. Not for long," Gallant said on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, in response to Hezbollah's move.
The state of Israel's official Arabic X account said Qassem's "tenure in this position may be the shortest in the history of this terrorist organization if he follows in the footsteps of his predecessors."
"There is no solution in Lebanon except to dismantle this organization as a military force," the account added.
Since earlier this month, when Israeli forces launched a ground invasion accompanied by a massive ongoing bombing campaign against Lebanon, nearly 2,800 Lebanese have been killed and more than 12,700 others injured, the country's Ministry of Health said Tuesday. The ministry added that 82 Lebanese have been killed and another 180 injured over the past 24 hours alone.
Since shortly after October 7, 2023—when Hamas led the deadliest single attack on Israel in its history—Hezbollah has been launching rockets and other projectiles at Lebanon's southern neighbor, killing and wounding scores of Israelis.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands is currently
weighing whether to approve Prosecutor Karim Khan's application for warrants to arrest Gallant—who responded to the Hamas-led attack by ordering a "complete siege" of Gaza that has been blamed for the starvation and sickening of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians—and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Khan also sought ICC arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, at least two of whom have been assassinated by Israel.
Over 388 days, Israeli forces have killed at least 43,020 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children. At least 101,100 others have been wounded. More than 10,000 Palestinians are also missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the ruins of Gaza. Almost everyone in the embattled Gaza Strip has been forcibly displaced, often multiple times.
Responding to Gallant's threat, Somali-Australian journalist Najat Abdi said on X that "the road to your arrest and The Hague won't be long either, you genocidal war criminal."
Gallant's remarks came amid reports that Israeli and Hezbollah negotiators are "in the advanced stages" of hammering out cease-fire agreement that would lead to Israeli troops withdrawing from Lebanon, where they have been suffering high casualties at the hands of Hezbollah fighters.
One important unanswered question is whether Hezbollah will accept a deal to end hostilities with Israel without a cease-fire in Gaza.
"It's no secret that political spending is a huge way for billionaires to rig the system to their liking," said Americans for Tax Fairness. "Enough is enough."
A new analysis out Tuesday shows that 150 of the nation's wealthiest families have poured nearly $2 billion into this year's U.S. election—the latest evidence bolstering calls for new taxes on the super rich and an end to unlimited campaign spending.
The new report from Americans for Tax Fairness, published Tuesday, shows how spending by 150 of the richest families in the U.S. has smashed campaign spending records, with $700 million more spent than the $1.2 billion that wealthy donors poured into the 2020 campaign.
Republicans, including GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, have been the biggest beneficiary of spending by these billionaire families, including those of Miriam Adelson, widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk; and far-right activists Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein.
Trump "benefited from over $450 million of billionaire donations—more than three times as much as Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, who was the beneficiary of $143 million of billionaire contributions," reported ATF. "That's a 75%-25% split in Trump's favor."
Of the $1.9 billion that was spent on all federal campaigns by the richest families in the country, 72% or $1.36 billion went to Republican candidates, and 22% or $413 million went to Democrats.
The analysis was released weeks after The Associated Press and OpenSecretsreported Trump's small-dollar donations—those smaller than $200—made up fewer than a third of his contributions this election cycle, down from nearly half of his donations in 2020.
"Billionaire campaign spending on this scale drowns out the voices and concerns of ordinary Americans. It is one of the most obvious and disturbing consequences of the growth of billionaire fortunes, as well as being a prime indicator that the system regulating campaign finance has collapsed," said David Kass, executive director of ATF. "We need to rein in the political power of billionaire families by better taxing them and by effectively limiting their campaign donations. Until we do both, we can only expect the influence of the super-rich over our politics and government to escalate."
Trump has made clear that he would push for policies that enrich corporations and the ultra-wealthy if he wins on November 5, promising to extend the tax cuts he signed into law in 2017, which disproportionately benefited the rich. An alleged quid pro quo offer from Trump to oil executives, promising deregulation and expanded drilling if they donated $1 billion to his campaign, is being investigated by the U.S. Senate.
Harris has endorsed President Joe Biden's proposal to tax unrealized stock gains for people whose net worth is at least $100 million, and has proposed a minimum income tax for billionaires and a rollback of Trump's tax cuts.
ATF pointed out that the billionaire families in the report have managed to spend billions of dollars on the election while spending just 0.07% of their wealth.
"The median American household is worth about $200,000, making an equivalent political donation for them just $140," said ATF. "This means that a handful of billionaires have the financial political influence of more than 13.5 million ordinary families."
The group emphasized that the $1.9 billion included in the analysis "is almost certainly an undercount," both because it doesn't account for "typical flurries of last-minute fundraising" and "because there are ways of financially supporting campaigns that are anonymous or at least hard to trace back to the original donor."
"These methods include donations to so-called 'dark money' groups that spend the money on outside efforts or in turn donate it to campaign committees; and contributions to super PACs that contribute to each other in long chains," said ATF.
"It's time we end Citizens United and start taxing billionaires on their enormous, untaxed wealth gains," said ATF, referring to the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that reversed decades of campaign finance restrictions and allowed unlimited spending through super PACs.
"Our democracy and the voices of working families depend on it," said the group.