The Center for Public Integrity

With President Barack Obama earning high marks on his response to Hurricane Sandy, conservative outside spending groups and Republicans are seeking to contrast it with charges that he dropped the ball in Benghazi.

Americans for Limited Government’s “Obama Campaign Has Its ‘Perfect Storm’” and Campaign for American Values PAC’s “Obama Has Left Americans Behind” follow the line of attack launched by Michael Brown, the director of FEMA under George W. Bush, who was widely criticized for botching the response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

While the new ads do not go quite as far as Brown, who charged the president with acting too quickly on the response to Sandy, they do capitalize on his juxtaposition of the president’s response to Sandy and his response to the terrorist attack on the American consulate in Libya.

Obama was “openly working with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during hurricane recovery,” the ALG ad begins. Christie, a Republican with presidential aspirations, heaped praise on the president for his response, which was seen as a hit to GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

“Obama didn’t react to terrorist attacks in Libya the same way he reacted to Sandy,” cursive text on the screen continues. “The Obama admin. [sic] tried to blame the attack on a movie released on YouTube. Maybe they can try to blame Hurricane Sandy on one of those Al Gore movies.”

A movie poster from “The Day After Tomorrow,” a high-budget, special-effects driven disaster film from 2004, is shown in the background.

Conservative outside spending groups have taken to the airwaves in an attempt to kick four Supreme Court justices off the bench in Iowa and Florida for taking positions the groups find objectionable.

In Iowa, one organization, joined by former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum, hopes to oust a justice who supports same-sex marriage. In Florida, justices face the wrath of a pro-business group and a physician who object to President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.

Supporters of the justices have paid for ads and mailers and are defending the judges’ records while accusing their opponents of politicizing the court system.

The campaigns include television ads and dueling bus tours.

Eighteen states, including Iowa and Florida, require their appointed Supreme Court justices to periodically face voters in what are known as “merit retention elections.” Voters are asked whether a judge should remain on the bench. If a majority says no, the governor appoints new justices from a list of names submitted by a nonpartisan nominating commission.

Historically, retention elections generate little political spending and limited voter interest. From 2000 to 2009, retention elections accounted for about 1 percent of campaign spending on all state Supreme Court elections, according to Justice at Stake, a Washington, D.C.-based group critical of judicial elections.

In 2010, conservatives waged a successful campaign to oust three Iowa Supreme Court justices who voted the previous year to legalize gay marriage. Spending on retention elections that year jumped to roughly 13 percent of the total spent on all state Supreme Court elections.

The lone remaining justice in Iowa who voted with his ex-colleagues in supporting same-sex marriage has been targeted, as have three Florida justices.

A secretive nonprofit group that wants to nullify Montana’s campaign finance laws received a $300,000 donation from an anti-union organization aligned with a Colorado furniture executive, an Internal Revenue Service document shows.

American Tradition Partnership, a pro-energy group known for successfully suing Montana to force it to abide by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, has also sued the state to protect the identity of its donors — who have funded the ATP’s attack mailers in state races.

An IRS document obtained by the Center for Public Integrity indicates one of its early donors was a nonprofit 501(c)(4) called Coloradans for Economic Growth, which spent millions of dollars from undisclosed sources to support a failed 2008 ballot initiative that would have made Colorado a “right-to-work” state.

Among the initiative’s supporters was Jacob Jabs, president and CEO of American Furniture Warehouse. A 2008 letter to the IRS signed by former ATP employee Athena Dalton said Jabs was the “primary donor” and had promised to give $300,000 to ATP, but only if the IRS expedited its approval of ATP’s application for tax-exempt status.

Jabs has denied knowing anything about the group or giving it any money.

The appeal apparently worked. Three days later, the IRS approved the application.

ATP’s 2008 donors list shows a $300,000 contribution from Coloradans for Economic Growth, but makes no mention of any donation from Jabs.

Dalton did not return numerous calls. According to a report by ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization, Jabs said he contacted Dalton earlier this October and she told him that ATP officials had instructed her to use Jabs’ name in the letter.

A super PAC founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg reported spending $4.9 million on both Republicans and Democrats in Florida, Illinois and California, according to Federal Election Commission records filed Wednesday.

Independence USA PAC was formed Oct. 18, and voters won't know who its donors are until after the election. The group has spent $6 million so far this election.

The super PAC spent $2.5 million supporting the U.S. House run of California state Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, a Democrat; $1.8 million supporting the House run of former Orlando Chief of Police Val Demings, a Democrat; and $909,000 supporting Rep. Bob Dold, R-Ill., among other candidates.

The billionaire media mogul, now an independent, was a lifelong Democrat who switched to the GOP when he first ran for mayor.

He has pledged his super PAC will spend between $10 million and $15 million supporting state, local and congressional candidates who value bipartisanship and Bloomberg’s agenda, which includes supporting same-sex marriage, an overhaul of public schools, and his signature cause, gun control.

While Independence USA hasn't reported its donors, records show that a politically active nonprofit, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, is primarily supported by the mayor.

While Bloomberg has become increasingly involved in national politics this election, he had repeatedly declined to discuss the presidential election. He has expressed disappointment with both candidates. Today, he endorsed President Barack Obama.

Outside spenders are getting in the holiday spirit with Halloween-themed ads designed to scare voters away from the targeted candidates.

A foggy cemetery, a haunted house and shadowy figures loom in House Majority PAC’s ad, as the narrator speaks in a quivering voice pretending to be a ghost, explaining why voters should be afraid of Rep. Francisco “Quico” Canseco, the Republican candidate running in Texas’ 23rd District.

The narrator suddenly cuts the ghost voice and says, “This isn’t a Halloween story, though it is scary. It’s Quico Canseco’s — a person and a story that fits right into Washington.”

One of the ads main claims — that Canseco owes hundreds of thousands in liens over unpaid payroll taxes and contracting fees — was reported by the San Antonio Express-News in July 2010.

Canseco disputes the claim. He said the bulk of what is owed is a result of disagreements between contractors and tenants on properties he owns and that he was only named because he is the landlord.

Canseco faces Democratic challenger Pete Gallego, a Texas state representative. House Majority PAC’s Halloween ad is part of a $415,000 buy in Texas’ 23rd District, a Republican-leaning swing district.

The race has seen $6.6 million in outside spending, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Conservative spenders are also using the holiday to their advantage.

Super PACs and nonprofits unleashed by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision have spent more than $840 million on the 2012 election, with the overwhelming majority favoring Republicans, particularly GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

An estimated $577 million, or roughly 69 percent, was spent by conservative groups, compared with $237 million spent by liberal groups, or about 28 percent, with the remainder expended by other organizations.

Of all outside spending in the 2012 election, more than $450 million was dedicated to the presidential election with more than $350 million spent helping Romney and about $100 million spent to help President Barack Obama.

The spending helped close the gap on Obama’s considerable fundraising advantage over Romney. As Election Day approaches, Romney and Obama are neck-and-neck in national polls.

The totals are from a joint analysis of Federal Election Commission data by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public Integrity. The Centers' analysis covers the period from Jan. 1, 2011 through Oct. 28, 2012, and does not include independent spending by the political party committees.

The final tally will be higher as spending continues to accelerate before Election Day.

Candidate-specific super PACs, once exclusively associated with presidential hopefuls, have moved down-ticket and are now supporting candidates in congressional races this election.

Super PACs devoted solely to supporting a congressional candidate spent $28 million in the 2012 election with about $22 million going toward helping conservative candidates, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of campaign data.

Federal Election Commission rules prohibit "coordination" between a candidate and an outside spending group, but many super PACs have gotten around those rules by hiring operatives who previously worked for the campaign.

The groups became prominent during the Republican presidential primary when each candidate had a supporting chorus in the form of a super PAC. The largest by far was Restore Our Future, which backs GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Restore Our Future raised nearly $133 million this election cycle, or one of every five dollars raised by super PACs.

By far the biggest player in the congressional candidate-specific super PAC world is the Texas Conservatives Fund, which spent $5.5 million on independent expenditures, all of it during the Texas GOP primary battle for U.S. Senate.

The money was spent in opposition to Ted Cruz, the tea party candidate, in hopes of electing Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, who was considered the favorite of the Republican establishment. Cruz won the primary and is expected to easily win the general election.

In the 2012 election, nonprofits have been the preferred vehicle for donors who prefer to keep their identities secret. But with the right lawyers, super PACs, which are supposedly transparent about their donors, can accomplish the same feat.

Social welfare nonprofits, known as 501(c)(4)s by the Internal Revenue Service, file tax returns with the IRS. The names of their top donors are revealed to the IRS — but not to the public.

Super PACs, on the other hand, do report their donors. In some instances, though, those donors are nonprofits. Or the funds might come from shell corporations, which have passed through millions of dollars to the political organizations from unidentified donors in this election.

Aetna’s oops

Occasionally, the veil is lifted on the secrecy of these groups, sometimes inadvertently.

Insurance giant Aetna accidentally disclosed to insurance regulators earlier this year that in 2011, it had contributed $3 million to the American Action Network, a 501(c)(4) group that has spent $11 million targeting mostly Democratic candidates for Congress.

The company later scrubbed the disclosure from its filing and declined to elaborate on it despite demands from institutional shareholders for an explanation.

Editor's note: This story was also published by the Center for Responsive Politics, where Viveca Novak is the editorial and communications director.

Illinois' 17th Congressional District looks like it was drawn by an X-acto knife on crack, pitted with divots large and small and tendrils leading nowhere.

This misshapen plot of land, dubbed the "rabbit on a skateboard," is the result of a redistricting process that made it slightly more Democratic territory.

That means first-term Rep. Bobby Schilling, a Republican, doesn't exactly have a smooth glide-path to re-election. In fact, he’s in a fight — an expensive one. Through Oct. 17, Schilling and his Democratic opponent, Cheri Bustos together have spent $3.3 million on the race ($1.9 by Schilling, $1.4 million by Bustos).

But that's not the half of it. Another $6 million has been spent by outside groups, a cool $2.7 million more than the candidates themselves have laid out.

That makes the contest one of 26 House elections in which outside spending adds up to more than spending by the candidates, according to Center for Responsive Politics data.