The Center for Public Integrity

A Michigan financial adviser says Saddam Hussein long ago stole a chunk of his land that now houses a U.S. and Iraqi military installation — and he wants the real estate back.

What to do?

Hire a pair of well-connected lobbyists in Jason Poblete and Mauricio Tamargo, partners at the D.C. and Coral Gables-based firm Poblete Tamargo who both once worked for the federal government.

Their mission: Help Walid Habboo, who fled Iraq in the early 1970s to escape persecution and now works for Wells Fargo Advisors in Farmington Hills, Mich., recoup a disputed 35- acre plot in southeast Baghdad that Habboo says once belonged to his family.

Poblete and Tamargo registered to specifically lobby Michigan’s congressional delegation on Habboo’s behalf regarding issues that involve “confiscated property and related claims against the Republic of Iraq,” according to U.S. Senate disclosure filed Friday and an interview with Poblete.

The two men have also served as his lawyers for about a year.

“For a U.S. citizen to resolve a property claim in a foreign country, it’s a pretty tall order,” said Poblete, who served as a staffer for Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., and the House Administration Committee before joining the private sector in 2003.

Lobbyists-for-hire typically represent corporations, unions or moneyed special interest groups. Picket signs, petitions and public meetings account for more traditional methods for private citizens attempting to voice frustration to federal lawmakers.

A newly formed super PAC has invested more than $12,000 into 11th-hour efforts to turn out the vote for Republican House candidate Jason Smith in Missouri, federal records show.

But voters in the Show-Me State's 8th Congressional District won’t know the source of the money behind the pro-Smith messages until long after the polls close in Tuesday's special election.

That's because the Conservative StrikeForce Super PAC, which registered with the Federal Election Commission in March, didn't spend money until last week — well after the final pre-election reporting deadline. The groups isn't required to publicly disclose any of its donors until July 4, when post-election reports must be submitted to the agency.

The Conservative StrikeForce Super PAC spent about $10,000 on Thursday toward a tele-town hall event and telephone calls designed to get voters to the polls, according to a report filed Friday with the FEC. The group, whose address is a mailbox at a UPS store in northern Virginia, also reported spending about $2,000 for robocalls to be placed today and Tuesday.

When the Center for Public Integrity contacted Scott B. Mackenzie, the group’s treasurer, he declined to comment, saying, “I really don’t have anything to say to you. Nice talking with you.” Other Conservative StrikeForce Super PAC representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Leading two politically focused nonprofits has generated big money for former Republican Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota — with paydays better than when he served in Congress’ upper chamber.

Coleman collected more than $570,000 during a nearly three-year tenure at the helm of the American Action Network and the American Action Forum, for an average of about $190,000 annually, according to a Center for Public Integrity review of federal filings.

That includes a combined salary of more than $116,000 in 2011, according to the groups' most recent annual reports — though Coleman was only a paid, full-time employee of the organizations for a portion of that year.

According to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service, Coleman worked a combined 40 hours a week for the two conservative nonprofits during 2009 and 2010 — their first two years of existence, when he served as both groups’ chief executive officer.

He dialed back his time and responsibilities during the third year after taking a job at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm and lobbying shop Hogan Lovells, where his clients this year include Airbus Americas Inc. and Hong Kong-based investment firm Primus Holdings Ltd.

Chevron Corp. shareholders today rejected a resolution seeking to prohibit the company from using corporate funds for political activities.

Last year, the oil company was one of the largest corporate super PAC donors, as the Center for Public Integrity has previously reported.

Leslie Samuelrich, senior vice president at the financial advisory firm Green Century Capital Management — the firm was the lead filer of the shareholder resolution — said the measure garnered at least 3 percent of the not-yet-official vote.

But she spun this seemingly miniscule support as good news.

"We're thrilled," Samuelrich told the Center for Public Integrity. "It is the beginning of a turning of the tide."

Just weeks out from Election Day, Chevron donated $2.5 million to the Republican-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC led by former Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., and associated with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio.

Ahead of Chevron's annual meeting in California, the company's board urged shareholders to reject the measure.

"Chevron’s participation in the political process is an important means of protecting the interests of the Company and its stockholders," the company wrote in its 2013 proxy statement.

A new super PAC called "Grow NC Strong" has formed to promote North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis, a Republican who is considering a U.S. Senate bid in what could rank among the nation's more competitive races in 2014.

Grow NC Strong registered with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, new documents show.

The paperwork identifies Michael Luethy as the group's executive director and Cindy Marrelli Watko as its treasurer.

Luethy is a political consultant who previously worked for the National Republican Congressional Committee and North Carolina Republican Party, according to his official online biography.

Marrelli Watko is a former business executive who worked for companies including Triology, Electrolux, Accenture and IBM. She is also a real estate broker, a board member of the Christian nonprofit Project Mercy, which combats poverty in Ethiopia, and an activist with the Republican Party focused on "expanding the role of women in government and leadership," according to her LinkedIn profile.

Tillis, a former IBM executive, was first elected to the North Carolina legislature in 2006.

His top campaign contributors over the years include the North Carolina Association of Realtors, Duke Energy, Bank of America and AT&T, according to the nonpartisan National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan is seeking re-election in 2014, and several Republicans other than Tillis, including Reps. Virginia Foxx and Renee Ellmers and North Carolina Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, are reportedly considering getting into the race.

During his time at an upcoming “Louisiana Bayou Weekend” super PAC fundraiser, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., will be able to ask attendees how they like the Cajun cooking. And he’s free to inquire whether they bagged a gator during the weekend’s planned alligator hunt.

But he won’t be able to ask them to contribute more than $5,000 to its sponsor, the Fund for Louisiana’s Future, a super PAC created to support Vitter.

That’s because federal law prohibits federal candidates from officeholders from soliciting contributions in excess of $5,000 per year for super PACs, even though the groups may accept contributions of unlimited size.

It also doesn't matter "whether the funds are used for state or federal election work,” attorney Paul S. Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center told the Center for Public Integrity.

“The donor can always give as much as they choose to,” added Joe Birkenstock, an attorney at Caplin & Drysdale in Washington, D.C. “It’s a limit on what can be asked.”

Vitter, who is mulling a run for governor, will appear at the September fundraiser as a “special guest,” according to an invitation obtained by Politico.

The Fund for Louisiana’s Future is also registered with the state of Louisiana, which caps contributions to all political action committees at $100,000 per election cycle.

The American Future Fund, a Republican-aligned “social welfare” nonprofit, is circulating a petition to “fire Lois Lerner,” the Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the ongoing political storm about the agency’s targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

“Did you see IRS official Lois Lerner’s stunning and insulting actions before a Congressional committee yesterday where she made a personal statement of innocence, then plead the Fifth and left?” American Future Fund founder Nick Ryan wrote in an email to supporters Friday obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

“Does it leave you seeing red that Ms. Lerner refused to fully and honestly answer questions before the Committee about who knew what and when?” Ryan continued. “Then let’s do something about it.”

The American Future Fund itself has frequently been singled out by campaign finance reform groups, who have accused the nonprofit of masquerading under Section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code when it ought to be registered as a political committee — and subject to donor disclosure rules.

During the 2012 election season, the American Future Fund spent more than $29 million on political advertisements, as the Center for Public Integrity previously reported.

As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, it is allowed to make election-related expenditures, so long as politics are not its “primary” purpose.

Two senators serving on a subcommittee that Tuesday grilled Apple Inc. executives over the company's offshore tax practices are themselves owners of Apple stock, either directly or through a spouse, according to interviews and a review of federal disclosure documents by the Center for Public Integrity.

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., owns the most Apple stock among the 14 members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, with her holdings worth at least $250,001 and up to $500,000, according to personal financial disclosure documents for calendar year 2012. She also earned up to $5,000 in Apple stock dividends last year, records show. 

Heitkamp was one of six committee members to not attend Tuesday's hours-long hearing, during which Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook defended his company against accusations of tax dodging. Attendee or not, the senator's stock holdings do not pose a conflict with her committee service, a spokeswoman said.

“Senator Heitkamp was selected to serve on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee because of her unique position being from a border state and her past experience as a state attorney general working along aside law enforcement," spokeswoman Whitney Phillips said. "Her position on this committee is in no way impacted by her personal financial holdings.” 

During its past four fiscal years, the Internal Revenue Service has formally denied the applications of just 60 organizations seeking recognition under Section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code as “social welfare” groups.

In the same period, the agency processed 8,214 applications and approved 6,837 of them — about 83 percent, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of IRS data.

Sometimes applications were neither approved nor denied, meaning groups could still be awaiting recognition of tax-exempt status or still be providing the IRS with additional information. They may also have withdrawn their applications.

The IRS's approval processes have come under fire following an inspector general report that found IRS employees used “inappropriate criteria” to discern which organizations’ applications warranted additional scrutiny.

The IRS’s 2012 fiscal year, which covered the period between Oct. 1, 2011, and Sept. 30, 2012, saw a surge of new applications under Section 501(c)(4). During that period, 2,774 groups sought recognition as “social welfare” nonprofits, as the Center for Public Integrity has previously reported.

That represented an increase of more than 56 percent from fiscal year 2011 — and an increase of nearly 86 percent from fiscal year 2008.

The IRS processed 23,722 applications for 501(c)(4) nonprofit status between fiscal years 2001 and 2012, records indicate.

One of the largest super PACs active in Virginia’s high-profile U.S. Senate race last year has ceased operations and transferred its leftover funds to a Georgia-based nonprofit — though what the group plans to do with the money is unclear.

Rise and Shine America, Inc., the Georgia nonprofit, is organized as a “social welfare” organization under section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code. It received nearly $42,000 on April 30 from Independence Virginia PAC, according to records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Ahead of the 2012 election, Independence Virginia PAC spent approximately $5 million attempting to boost Republican George Allen in his unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid against Democrat Tim Kaine.

Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson accounted for $4 million of the group’s $5.2 million in receipts. Adelson was the top donor to super PACs during the 2012 election cycle, when he, along with his relatives, contributed more than $93 million to GOP-aligned super PACs.

Independence Virginia PAC’s donation to Rise and Shine America was first reported by Roll Call’s Kent Cooper, who posited that the funds might be used in connection with the state's upcoming U.S. Senate election.

However, Doug Chalmers, the attorney for Rise and Shine America, Inc., told the Center for Public Integrity that the nonprofit “does not intend to be involved in the Georgia U.S. Senate race.”