George Soros may be one of the nation’s top liberal political benefactors, but his company’s charitable program encourages employees to donate to any cause they would like — even if it potentially conflicts with his political ideology.

Soros Fund Management, a hedge fund firm founded by Soros in 1969, will match any donation an employee makes to a nonprofit organization, a common practice among large companies.

And while Soros strongly supports myriad progressive causes, including abortion rights and same-sex marriage, the Soros Fund Charitable Foundation contributed more than $255,000 to 35 different Christian organizations and churches, which typically lean right, in 2012, according to Internal Revenue Service records reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity.

For instance, 12 affiliates of the U.S. Catholic Church, which has heavily criticized President Barack Obama’s stances on contraception and abortion, together received nearly $50,000 last year from the foundation. They include the Archdiocese of New York, the Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., and various schools and churches throughout Connecticut, New York and New Jersey.

The foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit of which Soros is one of several directors, also donated $2,700 to the Campus Crusade for Christ, which shortened its name to “Cru” two years ago. Among its many religious affirmations, Cru states “that God has called us to help build … spiritual movements everywhere, so everyone knows someone who truly follows Jesus Christ.”

Cru spokeswoman Alison Geist said the organization does not take a prospective donor’s ideology into account when raising funds.

President Barack Obama’s new picks to represent American interests in Denmark, Germany and Spain are all major Democratic fundraisers.

Rufus Gifford — who served as Obama’s 2012 campaign finance director and chairman of the president’s 2013 inaugural committee — has been selected to be the new ambassador to Denmark, the White House announced in a press release late Friday afternoon.

Obama also intends to nominate John B. Emerson, an executive at the investment firm The Capital Group Companies, and John Costos, a vice president at Home Box Office, to serve as the U.S. ambassadors to Germany and Spain, respectively.

Emerson raised at least $500,000 for Obama’s 2012 re-election efforts, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of information released by the campaign.

So, too, did Costos, along with his partner Michael Smith — whom the Obamas selected in 2008 to redecorate the White House and who currently serves on the Committee for the Preservation of the White House.

The actual amounts raised by the men could be much higher as the Obama campaign only voluntarily released information about their bundlers using broad ranges, the highest of which was “more than $500,000.”

Gifford, Emerson and Costos are among the first individuals to be nominated for ambassadorships since Obama’s re-election that are not career diplomats.

Like Costos, Gifford is openly gay. His former partner, Jeremy Bernard, currently works as the White House social secretary.

Their nominations come as gay rights activists have expressed frustration with the president for being slow to implement campaign promises that would guarantee more equal treatment.

In the wake of tornadoes ravaging Oklahoma, a storm shelter company is heading to Washington, D.C., in search of financial assistance — and has hired a prominent lobbyist to help.

Del City, Okla.-based OZ SafeRooms hired firm McDermott, Will & Emery to press the federal government on “storm shelter tax relief legislation,” according to documents filed this week with the U.S. Senate.

To date, there's no bill pending in Congress this year that calls for residential tax breaks on storm shelters, although Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., introduced such legislation — it died in committee — in 2011. Federal tax breaks would ostensibly make OZ SafeRooms's products more affordable to homeowners.

OZ SafeRooms has little Washington experience, as the company has never lobbied the federal government before and does not sponsor a federal political action committee, according to federal records.

The storm shelter company will, however, be represented by one of the larger lobby shops in Washington.

McDermott, Will & Emery earned nearly $1.4 million in lobbying income through the first three months of this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The firm has wide range of clients, including the pharmaceutical company Allergan, the Brewers Association and the Coalition for Rational and Fair Taxation.

Teddy Eynon, a partner at McDermott, Will & Emery, will personally lobby for OZ SafeRooms on Capitol Hill.

During Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s race last year against incumbent GOP Sen. Scott Brown, the League of Conservation Voters spent more than $1 million on “independent expenditures” that either advocated for Warren’s election or Brown’s defeat, including mass mailings and paid canvassers.

The 501(c)(4) nonprofit’s treasury, as well as its related political action committee and super PAC, accounted for the spending, which helped push Warren to victory in a race that ranked among the League’s top electoral priorities. The League also bundled more than $100,000 in earmarked campaign contributions for Warren, federal records show.

Now tonight in Washington, D.C., supporters of the League — one of the nation’s most politically active environmental nonprofits — will gather for a fundraising gala during which Warren, a Democrat, is scheduled to address the crowd.

The event is the latest illustration of how politicians and special interest groups, which by law can’t coordinate election spending, nevertheless forge mutually beneficial ties.

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., will also speak at the League’s fundraiser — notable since the nonprofit could play a role in helping propel him to a second term next year.

League spokesman Jeff Gohringer said the two senators should be commended for being “two voices in Congress who are working hard on environmental priorities.”

Lacey Rose, Warren’s press secretary, told the Center for Public Integrity not to “read into” the senator’s appearance “too much.”

Politicians are practically Precambrian if they're not wooing potential donors with whiz-bang fundraising experiences, which these days might involve ski trips, skeet shoots, Star Wars send-ups or chichi dinners with Hollywood stars.

But tonight, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., is going old-school — boozing with some lobbyists.

The scene for "Beer with Bob" is the rooftop 1001 G St. NW in Washington, D.C., a property that plays home to the Podesta Group, the nation's No. 3 firm last year in terms of lobbying income.

"We'll have plenty of beer from PA, featuring Jack's Hard Cider and several other specialty brews, along with sandwiches from Taylor Gourmet and several other native PA treats," reads an invitation obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

Throughout his career, Casey has advocated for increased lobbying disclosure. During his 2006 campaign against former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., Casey had particularly harsh words for lobbyists, derided K Street as "a mess" and "place of corruption and influence peddling."

Federal law prohibits companies from donating directly to political candidates, which is why individual employees must voluntarily fund corporate-sponsored political action committees — and their bosses can't force them to donate.

Yet one enticement companies are using to attract PAC support is a program that will "match" employees’ donations with contributions to charities of their choosing.

Take Coca-Cola Co., for instance. Employees who donate to the company's PAC can designate charitable organizations to receive a gift equal to their PAC contributions.

In 2012, Coca-Cola gave $217,000 to charities in the name of employees who contributed to its corporate PAC, according to information disclosed online by the company. That's up from $148,000 in 2011.

Among the most popular charities in 2012 were Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (nearly $80,000); Special Olympics International (about $35,000); United Service Organization (roughly $30,000); and The Nature Conservancy (about $18,000).

At a national conference for PAC professionals earlier this year, a Coca-Cola official even evangelized such programs to "improve your fundraising numbers."

Coca-Cola spokeswoman Amanda Rosseter told the Center for Public Integrity that the PAC match program was started five years ago to "encourage employees to engage in the political process and at the same time provide support to civic and philanthropic organizations."

The Federal Election Commission has held that corporate PAC matching programs are legal because they “do not provide any tangible benefit to the contributing employee.”

Neither the employee nor the company receives a tax-deduction for such gifts.

A criminal record isn’t keeping one young moderate from operating new a super PAC.

Jonathan Fauber, a 22-year-old Mechanicsburg, Pa. native, recently filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to form the PA Victory Fund, which he tells the Center for Public Integrity will seek to support “pragmatic, practical” candidates from either party in federal and state races in the Keystone State.

But Fauber, who currently works as a bank teller at a Wells Fargo branch in Mechanicsburg, was banned from the Virginia Tech campus last year because of an incident in which a court found him guilty of trespassing.  

The Virginia Tech Police Department initially arrested Fauber in August for “threaten[ing] bodily harm,” according to the department's crime log. Virginia Tech police declined to provide further information regarding the arrest when contacted Monday.

Virginia court records indicate Fauber then faced a charge of extortion in writing — a low-level felony. But the charges were ultimately lowered to misdemeanor trespassing, for which Fauber was found guilty and ordered to complete community service, records show.

Fauber, who deemed the affair “a misunderstanding with an ex-girlfriend," says he plans to appeal his ban from the Virginia Tech campus.  

When asked if the incident could hinder his group’s fundraising efforts, Fauber responded, “Absolutely.”

“It’s on Google,” he added. “It will be there forever.”

When they aren’t busy handing down landmark decisions, professing the law or attending the opera, U.S. Supreme Court Justices can make millions in book deals.

The high court’s authors raked in nearly $2 million in publishing advances, appearances and royalties during 2012, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor taking home the lion’s share, according to new personal financial disclosure documents reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity.

Sotomayor collected more than $1.9 million in advances and promotion for her memoir, My Beloved World, published by Knopf Doubleday.

As the third woman and first Hispanic justice appointed to the Supreme Court, Sotomayor’s rags-to-riches tome became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller after its January release.

See Sotomayor's full disclosure filing here.

The publishing industry was also good, but not as good, to Justices Stephen Breyer and Antonin Scalia.

Breyer made roughly $30,890 in book royalties, while Scalia — his ideological adversary on the bench — collected nearly $64,000.

Most lobbying firms are not in a hurry to pad politicians' political coffers early this election cycle, with only a few either raising or spending significant cash, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission records indicates.

And that's for the lobby shops that have PACs: More than half of the nation's top 40 firms, ranked by 2012 lobbying income, do not sponsor one at all, the analysis shows. While this doesn't represent a major shift from the lobbying world status quo, the trend stands in stark contrast to the actions of other industries' largest corporations, which generally sponsor PACs as a means to support and interact with politicians and candidates.

Among the PAC-less government affairs powerhouses are Podesta Group; Ogilvy Government Relations; Peck, Madigan & Jones; Prime Policy Group and Dutko Worldwide.

For top lobbying firms that do sponsor PACs, only four — Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld; K&L Gates; Ernst & Young and DLA Piper — have reported spending more than $100,000 during the year's first four months, mostly on donations to political candidates and committees. This figure could rise slightly in July, as eight of the nation's top 40 PACs have chosen to report their finances semiannually this year.

DLA Piper's PAC, on balance, is the nation's most active among firm-sponsored committees, raising about $198,500 and spending more than $196,300 between Jan. 1 and April 30.

That's still a pittance compared to what is typically the most active corporate PAC overall — Honeywell's PAC, which has raised almost $1.3 million and spent more than $951,000 for the same period. 

All the same, DLA Piper's PAC has spread the cash it is spending far and wide, federal records show.