The Center for Public Integrity

The National Association of Realtors, a major outside spender in the election, reported $500,000 in television ads supporting Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., in his quest to be elected in California’s 30th District.

Sherman faces a challenge from another incumbent Democrat, Rep. Howard Berman, thanks to redistricting and California’s top-two primary system. That new system pitted all candidates — regardless of party affiliation — against each other during the June primary, with the top two vote-getters moving onto the general election.

Friday’s $500,000 investment came from the National Association of Realtors’ traditional political action commitee, though the group also has a super PAC called the National Association of Realtors Congressional Fund.

The National Association of Realtors is the primary trade group representing realtors and is also a powerful lobbying group. In 2011, it spent more than $22 million on lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. This election cycle, the PAC has spent $1.2 million on independent campaign expenditures, and the super PAC has spent $2.5 million. This makes the Realtors’ outside spending comparable to the National Rifle Association.

After two bruising years for organized labor in the Midwest, the movement has managed to land two pro-union measures on the November ballot in Michigan.

Michigan locals and their national leaders now face an ad campaign by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and its friends, urging voters to resist “D.C. union bosses.” Unions, however, have far outraised their detractors, bringing in a quarter of the $30 million total raised for the state’s six ballot initiatives, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.

Labor wants to repeal Gov. Rick Snyder’s landmark emergency manager law, which has been a bane to public sector unions, and to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the state constitution to stave off future attacks.

Efforts to curtail union rights “really did spike” since the GOP swept into power in 20 more state legislative houses in 2010, said Jeanne Mejeur, labor expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures. “Last year we saw about 950 [labor-related] bills nationwide, compared to about 100 a year over the last 10 years.”

What happens in Michigan may be an even greater measure of the labor movement’s influence than its unsuccessful attempt to remove union-busting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker from office earlier this year.

“The eyes of the nation will be on Michigan in November,” said Chris Fleming, a national spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Washington, D.C. “If there’s a chance to enshrine collective bargaining in any state, we will be there to support it.”

Unions in the region, a traditional stronghold, can use the help. In just two years, labor has been battered by the failed recall effort in Wisconsin and an anti-union right-to-work law in Indiana.

Democratic super PACs have begun to make up ground in the political arms race, raising substantially more in August than they did during the previous month, new filings with the Federal Election Commission show.

For much of the 2012 election cycle, Democratic super PACs have been outraised their GOP rivals. The groups, made possible in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, are allowed to collect contributions of unlimited size from individuals, unions and companies — so long as the funds are spent on advertisements that are not coordinated with any candidate.

Priorities USA Action, the primary super PAC supporting the re-election of President Barack Obama, took in $10.1 million through the end of August. That’s up from just $4.8 million in July. While the group finished August with $4.8 million cash on hand, during the first three weeks of September, it reported spending more than $7.8 million — suggesting that the cash has continued to come in.

Top donors to Priorities USA Action in August included James Simons, founder of the hedge fund giant Renaissance Technologies, who gave $2 million; Anne Cox Chambers, the owner of Cox Enterprises, who gave $1 million; and attorney Steve Mostyn, who also gave $1 million. The majority owner of the Baltimore Orioles, Peter Angelos, also gave big, contributing $500,000 in his first ever donation to the pro-Obama group.

Conservative nonprofit Let Freedom Ring attempts to link President Barack Obama to child soldiers in a new ad focusing on the United States’ military aid to certain countries in Africa and the Middle East.

The ad opens with brief background on child soldiers and notes that Sen. Obama supported a bill that restricted American aid to countries that use child soldiers in militaries and state-backed militias.

“This was the right thing to do. It’s what leaders do,” the narrator says. “But then, as president, Obama waived these restrictions, allowing millions of our taxpayer dollars to go to countries where children as young as 11 — 11! — are forced to fight.”

“Why, Mr. President? Why?” the ad finishes.

In 2011, Obama waived restrictions on military aid to countries that the U.S. has identified as using child soldiers, despite the 2008 Child Soldiers Protection Act that he, as senator, supported.

The states that received waivers — Sudan, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Yemen — were considered key to American national security interests. Burma and Somalia, the other two countries identified in a 2010 State Department report as using child soldiers, were not granted waivers, the Christian Science Monitor reported.

The move sparked controversy not only because it appeared that the Obama administration was overlooking human rights abuses, but also because it sidestepped Congress’ authority and appeared to not adequately consult human rights activists, Foreign Policy reported.

Crossroads GPS, a conservative nonprofit outside spending group, began a $2.3 million ad campaign Wednesday, including the Crossroads network’s first reported foray into congressional races and ads in four hotly contested Senate races. With its entry into the House race, Crossroads is now active at all levels of the national election.

This campaign is part of a larger $10 million-plus offensive from Republican strategist Karl Rove’s Crossroads network that began this week. Super PAC American Crossroads just announced an $8.8 million campaign targeting President Barack Obama.

Crossroads GPS’ ads target Senate races in Montana, Nevada, North Dakota and Wisconsin as well as New York’s 1st Congressional District, where Republicans have become adamant about ousting Democratic Rep. Tim Bishop:

How mainstream has advocating for public financing of elections become?  So mainstream that moderate North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan endorsed the idea in an op-ed in Politico last week.

“Government is now being bought and sold on the auction block by unlimited money from anonymous buyers,” Dorgan, a former U.S. senator who was not known as a campaign finance firebrand, lamented in the piece. “The world’s greatest democracy is now witnessing the disgrace of its government being sold to the highest bidder.”

In the op-ed, Dorgan advocated for the passage of the DISCLOSE Act, legislation that he twice supported against GOP filibusters in the Senate. The bill is designed to create new reporting requirements for groups that air political advertisements.

But the campaign finance reforms Dorgan has come to embrace don’t stop there.

For the first time, Dorgan also endorsed legislation sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) that would create public financing for congressional elections as a “worthy idea.” And he recommended passage of a constitutional amendment aimed at mitigating the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling that lifted restrictions on corporate and union spending on election ads. The op-ed also marks the first time that Dorgan has endorsed this proposal.

“I really think we’ve reached a tipping point,” Dorgan told the Center for Public Integrity in a telephone interview.

“I hope both political parties and people of all political persuasions will see this and be sickened by what’s happened to campaign finance,” he continued. “If we don’t fix this, there’s no honor in the way we select our leaders.”

Conservative nonprofit American Action Network and its sister super PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund, have launched a multi-million campaign targeting top congressional races.

The groups, which were both founded by former GOP Sen. Norm Coleman and ex-Nixon aide Fred Malek, are spending more than $3 million on ads designed to aid Republicans, with $1.6 million of that coming from the American Action Network, according to a press release from the group.

With just seven weeks until Election Day, the spending comes as part of an advertising barrage on down-ticket races, where groups can often get more bang for their buck. Conservative super PACs American Crossroads and YG Action Fund have also announced plans to target House races in hopes of helping the GOP maintain the majority.

The four ads released by American Action Network Monday targeted races in Minnesota, Illinois and California:

Tea-party aligned super PAC FreedomWorks for America released 11 new ads over the weekend targeting hotly contested U.S. Senate races in Florida, Arizona, Ohio, Indiana and Virginia:

It’s the tea party versus unions in the race to determine who will control Pennsylvania’s redrawn 12th Congressional District. Democratic Rep. Mark Critz, backed by union muscle, faces a challenge from attorney Keith Rothfus, a tea party favorite, in a race that has already seen $1.4 million in outside spending.

House races are especially vulnerable to outside spending because smaller districts and smaller campaign accounts mean less money is needed to make an impact.

The Service Employees International Union’s super PAC, SEIU PEA Federal, and its traditional PAC, SEIU COPE, dropped $277,000 on Thursday on ads and other campaign expenditures designed to help Critz stay in Congress, Federal Election Commission reports show. Critz has also gotten help from the AFL-CIO and its political committees and affiliates as well as the United Steelworkers and its PAC, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

House Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have also supported his re-election with a combined $385,000 in spending.

Most of the outside spending in favor of Rothfus has come via the National Republican Congressional Committee, which has spent more than a half-million dollars in his favor. Rothfus also has financial support from the tea party-aligned super PAC FreedomWorks for America, headed up by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, and Club for Growth, a free-market, conservative nonprofit.

The seat is considered a tossup.

With less than two months to go before the Nov. 6th election, nearly $3 billion has been raised by all the presidential and congressional candidates, along with the parties and super PACs, a staggering figure.

Here is a rough tally at this moment in time, with help from OpenSecrets.org:

• All super PACs have raised about $350 million so far this cycle, with conservative groups bringing in the major share.
• All House candidates have raised about $784 million.
• All Senate candidates have raised about $445 million.
• And all presidential candidates have raised about $700 million. This figure includes $350 million by President Barack Obama and $194 million by Mitt Romney.
• In addition, the Democratic National Committee has raised $242 million and the Republican National Committee has raised $265 million. All these fundraising numbers are here on OpenSecrets.org.

And, each of these numbers will grow substantially in the next 54 days. The financial arms race at the presidential level is likely to be something of a draw by the time the final figures are counted, but the Republicans to date are at a distinct advantage with well-funded outside spending groups, which have blanketed the airwaves with mostly negative ads.