The Center for Public Integrity

When six-term GOP incumbent Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah faced the prospect of a mutiny from conservative activists, his allies within the pharmaceutical industry stepped in to help defend him.

New documents obtained by the Center for Public Integrity show that the drug lobby’s main trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), gave $750,000 in 2011 to Freedom Path, a nonprofit group that spent big to help Hatch win another term.

Despite his solid conservative credentials, Hatch drew a primary challenge from former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist in the 2012 election. Hatch out-fundraised the challenger by an 11-1 margin, but Liljenquist was helped by super PAC FreedomWorks for America, which reported spending nearly $1 million on anti-Hatch ads.

The nation’s enforcer of election laws was largely paralyzed during the 2012 election, despite a Supreme Court ruling that left several key money-in-politics issues open to interpretation.

With five of six Federal Election Commission members working on expired terms (one since 2007), President Barack Obama had an opportunity to remake the agency with members more inclined to enforce campaign finance rules, say reformers.

But that hasn’t happened.

The situation hasn’t done much for the agency’s reputation.

“The Federal Election Commission is itself a campaign-finance scandal,” said longtime FEC critic and campaign finance reformer Fred Wertheimer, founder and president of Democracy 21.

“None of the players in the political arena had any reason to believe that the campaign finance laws would be enforced,” Wertheimer said. “The White House needs to address it or else must bear responsibility for this campaign-finance scandal continuing.”

As both Obama and GOP rival Mitt Romney raised hundreds of millions of dollars for their campaigns, long-time allies of each man launched supposedly independent super PACs that served as attack dogs during the long slog of the election.

Former White House aides Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney created the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action, while former Romney campaign advisers Carl Forti, Charles Spies and Larry McCarthy created the Restore Our Future super PAC to boost the former Massachusetts governor’s candidacy.

If Karl Rove was an NFL coach and not a political strategist, he would probably be looking for a new job about now.

Organizations co-founded by the GOP’s most effective fundraiser spent more than $175 million only to see President Barack Obama win a second term and Democrats actually gain seats in the U.S. Senate.

According to a Center for Public Integrity review of spending records, Rove’s super PAC, American Crossroads, went 3-10 during the 2012 election cycle, while Crossroads GPS, its nonprofit counterpart, went 7-17. The two groups, which were both active in a handful of contests, had a combined 9-21 record.

When asked by Fox News host Chris Wallace on Election Night if his groups’ spending was “worth it,” Rove was unapologetic: "Look, if groups like Crossroads were not active, this race would have been over a long time ago.”

Meanwhile, Jonathan Collegio, the spokesman for the two Crossroads organizations, has maintained that “sub-optimal candidate quality” contributed to Republican losses in the Senate and that his groups will be a “permanent entity on the center-right.”

“By leveling the financial playing field, conservative super PACs kept this race close and winnable all the way until the end,” Collegio told the Center for Public Integrity. “Our contributors are of course disappointed with the results, but satisfied with the impact we had.”

Marijuana legalization, gay marriage and a state version of the DREAM Act are this year’s ballot initiative winners. But those who gave the largest sums to state referenda poured tens of millions of dollars into their cause — and lost.

Molly Munger was the largest individual donor to a state ballot initiative, giving about $44 million to support a proposal to raise revenue for schools and early childhood education in California, according to the California Secretary of State.

Seventy-two percent of California voters rejected Proposal 38, which was backed by the Pasadena civil rights attorney.

Munger’s father is Charlie Munger, the billionaire vice chairman of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway investment firm. She co-founded the Advancement Project with her husband Steven English (who chipped in $3.3 million for Prop 38). In 2000, the group won a billion-dollar lawsuit over inequitable school-construction practices in California.

Munger’s millions equal 5 percent of all federal Head Start money California received in 2009 for its early childhood education programs. A $44 million gift to Los Angeles’ Head Start agency would equal a fifth of the federal grant the city received last year.

Munger outspent her brother, Stanford physicist Charles Munger Jr., a Republican activist who shelled out $23 million on ballot proposals. Munger Jr. opposed Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown’s initiative that sought to raise revenue for schools by upping the sales tax and levies on the state’s wealthy residents.

The measure passed with 53 percent of the vote.

The explosion of outside spending unleashed at the federal level by the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling also rocked state races.

Contests for the top executive and judicial spots, in states whose bans on corporate outside spending were invalidated by the ruling, were newly shaped by unlimited cash from out-of-state corporate and union treasuries.

The D.C.-based governors’ associations led the way, nearly keeping pace with candidate spending in several close races. Governors’ races in Montana, Washington and New Hampshire were neck-and-neck as voters were besieged by ads financed by outside spending groups through Election Day.

Montana governor's race

Republican Rick Hill held a slim lead in his race against Democrat Steve Bullock for governor of Montana in a race that had not been determined at this writing. The Republican Governors Association used a super PAC, created in the wake of Citizens United, to support Hill.

RGA Right Direction PAC ran ads in Montana attacking Bullock, and also used its super PAC to funnel millions directly to candidates and parties on the state level.

Super PACs and other outside groups — most made possible by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision — spent more than $1 billion on advertising in federal races through Election Day, with 10 organizations accounting for more than half the total.

Conservative groups accounted for roughly 70 percent of spending, including more than $440 million on the presidential race alone, a sum that helped keep Republican Mitt Romney competitive in his bid to unseat President Barack Obama.

The spending wasn’t enough to put the former Massachusetts governor in the White House — nor was it enough for Republicans to wrest control of the Senate away from the Democrats, despite the proliferation of Senate and House candidate-specific super PACs.

The Center for Public Integrity analyzed spending data from the Center for Responsive Politics, gathered from the Federal Election Commission.

David Keating, the president of the Center for Competitive Politics, which favors campaign finance deregulation, says this gusher of spending by outside groups was a boon for democracy.

"There were a lot of competitive races, and super PACs were one of the key reasons why," said Keating, who added that the nascent groups "helped keep Romney competitive," especially between April, when GOP rival Rick Santorum dropped out of the presidential primary race, and the Republican National Convention in August.

Editor's Note: Today marks the final installment of the Daily Disclosure. To keep up with post-election, money-in-politics news, please visit Consider the Source.

Money can't buy happiness, nor can it buy an election, apparently.

The top donors to super PACs in 2012 did not fare well — casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, the No. 1 super PAC contributor with more than $53 million in giving, backed eight losers at this writing.

Adelson was top backer of the pro-Mitt Romney Restore Our Future super PAC, with $20 million in donations. Romney lost to President Barack Obama. In addition, Adelson's contributions to super PACs backing U.S. Senate candidates in Florida, Virginia and New Jersey were also for naught.

He was not the only conservative billionaire who had a bad night.

Contran Corp. CEO Harold Simmons, (No. 2), homebuilder Bob Perry (No. 3) and TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, (No.4), also bet on Romney. Collectively, the trio gave $13.4 million to Restore Our Future, and Ricketts’ super PAC, Ending Spending Action Fund, spent an additional $9.9 million helping Romney’s failed bid.

Outside groups spent more than $190 million on the presidential election in the final three weeks of the campaign, with about $155 million aiding Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

The total is more than 40 percent of spending by super PACs, nonprofits and other organizations in the presidential contest since the general election began and is more than any other three-week period in the race.

Since Oct. 29 alone, GOP-aligned outside spending groups outspent their Democratic counterparts in the presidential race $84 million to $20 million, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission records collected by the Sunlight Foundation.

“Memories are short,” said attorney Dan Backer, whose clients include several conservative outside spenders. “The more you can define the message in the final days, the more likely you are to motivate your base, sway undecided [voters] and turn off supporters of your opponents.”

The outside spending no doubt helped Romney in his fight with his better-funded opponent, President Barack Obama — the Romney campaign reported about $53 million in the bank through Oct. 17 compared with the Obama campaign’s nearly $94 million.

The top spenders during the home stretch were super PACs Restore Our Future, which spent more than $45 million on ads in the presidential contest since Oct. 17 and American Crossroads, which spent $35 million.

Restore Our Future was created by several former Romney aides. American Crossroads was co-founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove.

The Center for Public Integrity's John Dunbar joins PBS NewsHour's streaming coverage at 12:30 p.m. ET to discuss the impact of super PACS on the 2012 election.

In the day before the election, more than $3.5 million was spent supporting GOP nominee Mitt Romney or opposing President Barack Obama while $34,000 was spent in support of the president, according to Federal Election Commission reports.

While Romney has enjoyed greater support with outside groups, the president’s campaign has raised more money, which has kept the two candidates about even in total ad spending.

Reports filed Monday show that in addition to the spending on the presidential race, groups also spent $800,000 to influence votes for U.S. Senate and House races.

Americans for Responsible Leadership, a conservative nonprofit, spent more than any other outside group yesterday with $2.7 million, most of it supporting Romney. The Arizona-based group did not become active in the election until mid-October.

Because it is a nonprofit, it is not required to disclose its donors; however, a court battle in California — the group has also been spending big on state-level ballot measures —culminated yesterday with the group disclosing its donors, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The disclosure wasn’t particularly illuminating — the nonprofit group’s donors were other nonprofits, which also keep their donors secret.

Americans for Job Security, for example, passed money to the Center to Protect Patients’ Rights, another nonprofit, which gave money to Americans for Responsible Leadership, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The original donors to Americans for Job Security are unknown.