The Center for Public Integrity

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.

Watchdog groups are accusing a House committee that investigates wasteful government spending of apparently using taxpayer funds to produce a campaign video attacking President Barack Obama.

The video was produced by House Committee on Oversight and Reform, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. The one-minute video criticizes Obama for the cost of state dinners and was posted to the committee’s YouTube channel on Friday. It has made its way through Twitter and conservative blogs over the weekend.

“Spend like he says, not like he does,” the narrator says of the president, as a photo of Obama in a tuxedo holding champagne shares a split screen with dollar bills raining down.

“It is so far beyond the pale. I think it is clearly an ethics violation,” said Melanie Sloan, the executive director of the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “It is one of the most outrageous abuses of official resources I’ve ever seen.”

CREW plans to file a complaint, Sloan said.

When asked if taxpayer funds were used to create the video, committee spokesman Seamus Kraft said in an email that “the committee’s video presentation is fully consistent with House rules and did not incur any additional taxpayer expenditures for its production.”

According to Paul Ryan, an election law and ethics attorney at the Campaign Legal Center, the video amounts to an “electioneering” campaign ad — it supports or opposes a candidate even though it doesn’t explicitly say vote for or against that candidate.

It falls short only in that it wasn’t broadcast on television.

Thanks to a flood of outside spending, state supreme court races nationwide are awash in tens of millions of dollars’ worth of ads. Just how much is being spent isn’t clear, as many states allow certain types of ads to go unreported.

In North Carolina, one outside group has single-handedly outspent two candidates for a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court. The North Carolina Judicial Coalition has unleashed a torrent of ads on behalf of conservative Paul Newby, blanketing the state with a $1.3 million ad buy. Tobacco giant RJ Reynolds and the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce gave a combined $264,000 to the ad campaign.

Both Newby and his opponent, liberal Sam Ervin IV, accepted $240,000 from the state as part of North Carolina’s public financing program — established in 2004 to limit spending and rein in the excesses of special interest money in judicial races. 

Unlimited spending by unaffiliated groups has threatened the effectiveness of the program — one of 16 in the nation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The flood of spending was made possible thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010. Unlike candidates, outside spending groups can raise and spend unlimited sums from people, corporations and unions.

“Outside entities can spend as much as they want,” said Kim Strach, of North Carolina’s election board. “Candidates certified in our [public financing] program don’t have that ability.”

Michigan

The Michigan Supreme Court election is the nation’s most expensive judicial race this year. The state has seen millions of dollars in “off-the-books” outside spending before an election that could flip the 4-3 conservative edge on the state’s highest court.

Update (Nov. 5, 4:10 p.m.): This story has been updated to include comment from William S. Rose, Jr., of Specialty Group Inc.

The biggest corporate contributor in the 2012 election so far doesn’t appear to make anything — other than very large contributions to a conservative super PAC.

Specialty Group Inc., of Knoxville, Tenn., donated nearly $5.3 million between Oct. 1 and Oct. 11 to FreedomWorks for America, which is affiliated with former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

FreedomWorks’ super PAC has spent more than $19 million on political advertising including $1.7 million on Oct. 29 opposing Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat running for Congress in Illinois against tea party favorite Joe Walsh, a first-term incumbent.

The buy was more than four times greater than the group’s previous largest single expenditure.

Specialty was formed only a month ago. Its “principal office” is a private home in Knoxville. It has no website. And the only name associated with it is that of its registered agent, William S. Rose Jr., a lawyer whose phone number, listed in a legal directory, is disconnected.

Rose released a press release Monday saying the company was created to "buy, sell, develop and invest in a variety of real estate ventures and investments."

In the six-page statement, Rose said he was a "disappointed, yet staunchly patriotic, baby boomer" with concerns about the administration's handling of the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, as well as the Department of Justice's botched "Operation Fast and Furious" gunwalking program.

Despite his vast wealth, Sheldon Adelson was not exactly a household name when the Republican presidential primary campaign got under way. But the casino magnate’s multimillion-dollar contributions to a pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC ended that.

Adelson’s support was linked to a shared stance with Gingrich as staunch supporters of Israel. Not quite so well publicized was Adelson’s financial stake in who wins the presidency.

A second Obama term, thanks to the incumbent’s proposed tax policies — could cost Adelson billions if he brought home profits earned at his overseas casinos, according to tax experts.

Since Gingrich flamed out in the primaries, Adelson and his wife Miriam have shifted their allegiance to GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, giving the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future $20 million.

With Romney as president, Adelson, the billionaire chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., could bring his profits home tax-free.

The Las Vegas Sands’ overseas operations account for 86 percent of its revenue from casinos, hotels and shopping, according to its 2011 annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Sands’ most lucrative holdings are in Macau, a special administrative region in China.

Super PACs like Restore Our Future can accept unlimited contributions from billionaires, corporations and unions and spend the money on ads helping their favorite candidates, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision.

In the final weekend before Election Day, President Barack Obama was hit with more than $37 million in attack ads; Romney faced less than $1 million in attacks, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Outside spenders dropped roughly $56.3 million on the presidential election in recent days, according to reports filed Friday, Saturday and Sunday. More than two-thirds of the ads are negative, a Center for Public Integrity analysis shows.

On all federal races, outside groups reported over the weekend spending roughly $73.3 million.

The biggest outside spender, not counting party committees and traditional political action committees, was the conservative super PAC American Crossroads, co-founded by GOP strategist Karl Rove. It reported spending nearly $23 million, almost entirely opposing Obama.

In a distant second was American Future Fund, a conservative nonprofit, which reported spending $7.9 million, most of it supporting Romney. Two new anti-Obama ads, “Fed Up” and “Delphi” debuted Friday.

The primary pro-Romney super PAC, Restore Our Future, reported spending $4.4 million opposing Obama. It released the ad “Flatline” on Friday.

Securities and Investments

Rank: 1

Total: $94 million*

Favorite candidate: Mitt Romney

Top donors: Ken Griffin, Paul Singer, Robert Mercer, John Paulson, Joe Ricketts

Donors’ interests: Most favor limited regulation of financial markets and keeping taxes low, particularly on income from investments.

Industry’s interest: Same as donors.

Casinos and Gambling

Rank: 2

Total: $55 million

Favorite candidate: Mitt Romney

Top donors: Sheldon Adelson and family

Donors’ interests: Keeping taxes low on overseas profits that are repatriated to the U.S., strong support for Israel.

Industry’s interests: Removing online gaming restrictions and expanding the visa waiver program (so foreign tourists can more easily come to the U.S. to gamble), according to the American Gaming Association.

Chemical and Related Manufacturing

Rank: 3

Total: $31 million

Favorite candidate: Mitt Romney

Top donors: Harold Simmons and his company, Contran Corp.

Donors’ interests: Simmons’s companies want to eliminate certain environmental regulations that have resulted in millions of dollars’ worth of environmental cleanup costs for Contran subsidiary Valhi Inc. and led to numerous personal injury lawsuits against Valhi subsidiary NL Industries, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Industry’s interests: Keeping the costs of environmental and safety regulations to a minimum while improving the industry’s image relative to climate change.