The Center for Public Integrity

President Barack Obama collected more than $110,000 from employees of the Internal Revenue Service during his 2008 and 2012 campaigns — significantly more money than any other contemporary political candidate, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission filings maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The donations were split roughly evenly between Obama's two presidential bids.

Ahead of the 2012 election, IRS employees collectively gave Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney about $25,000 — less than half the amount received by Obama. For his part, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the GOP's presidential nominee in 2008, collected only about $6,000 from IRS employees.

The IRS has become the center of attention following an apology Friday by Lois Lerner, director of the agency’s division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, for what she acknowledged was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative nonprofits for additional scrutiny since 2010. Obama himself said on Monday that offenders in the agency needed to be held "fully accountable."

On Tuesday, a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration said the IRS used "inappropriate criteria" when reviewing organizations seeking tax-exemption.

During the past two decades, individual employees of the agency have collectively increased their political giving, which has overwhelming benefited Democrats and liberal-leaning organizations.

Amid withering accusations the Internal Revenue Service targeted tea party and other conservative groups with enhanced scrutiny, the agency faces another problem: it’s drowning in paperwork.

The IRS’ Exempt Organizations Division, which finds itself at the scandal’s epicenter, processed significantly more tax exemption applications in fiscal year 2012 by so-called 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organizations  — 2,774 — than it has since at least the late 1990s, according to an analysis of IRS records by the Center for Public Integrity.

Compare that to 1,777 applications in 2011 and 1,741 in 2010, federal records show. Not since 2002, when officials processed 2,402 applications, have so many been received.

Meanwhile, Exempt Organizations Division staffing slid from 910 employees during fiscal year 2009 to 876 during fiscal year 2012, agency personnel documents indicate.

In 2010, IRS officials projected exempt division staffing at 942 employees. But IRS officials cut the number to 900 after the agency began slashing its budget in response to fiscal woes affecting most corners of the federal government.

The agency said this weekend that a heavy workload prompted bureaucrats to “centralize” the “influx of advocacy applications” and, in the name of efficiency, scrutinize groups that contained more common phrases such as “tea party” in them.

Benghazi is a non-starter for professional lobbyists.

Despite this week's politicized fray on Capitol Hill, just two organizations have specifically lobbied the federal government about the Libyan city in the months after terrorists there killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, according to disclosure documents filed with the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

Of late, the families of people killed in Libya-related terrorist attacks from the 1980s brought to bear more formalized lobbying pressure, federal records indicate.

Among lobbying groups focused on Benghazi, ACT! for America spent $60,000 from October through March lobbying Congress on a variety of issues that include support for "legislation establishing a select committee to investigate and report on the attack on the United States consulate in Benghazi, Libya," congressional disclosures show.

As casino mogul Sheldon Adelson buoyed Republican politicians with unprecedented riches, he quietly funded warfare on a decidedly apolitical enemy: cancer.

Adelson and his wife personally fueled their little-known private foundation — The Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation — with about $4.3 million during 2011, according to documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

The Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation in turn disseminated most of the money to more than a dozen hospitals, laboratories and universities for medical research into cancer, as well as inflammatory bowel disease and neural repair and rehabilitation, IRS documents indicate. 

Donation recipients in 2011 include The Rockefeller University in New York ($500,000), Tel Aviv University in Israel ($457,608), Harvard Medical School ($280,328), the UCLA Foundation ($280,000) and Johns Hopkins University ($200,000). 

Such money is a fraction of the more than $93 million the Adelsons bestowed on pro-Republican super PACs during 2011 and 2012, ahead of last year's national elections. Nearly half of that amount went to a pair of conservative powerhouses: American Crossroads, the super PAC co-founded by Karl Rove received $23 million, while pro-Mitt Romney super PAC Restore Our Future took in $20 million.

In a district much more Republican than average, former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford tonight survived an onslaught from allies of Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert, to win a seat in Congress.

Supporters of Colbert Busch spent nearly $1 million on advertisements criticizing the GOP's scandal-singed Sanford ahead of the special election in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. Most of these groups were based in Washington, D.C.

But during the election's final week, Sanford’s allies more than achieved spending parity: They reported making $157,000 in independent expenditures that either advocated for his election or against that of Colbert Busch, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of FEC records.

Colbert Busch’s allies reported spending about $152,000 on such independent expenditures during the race's final week.

That 11th-hour rush of cash helped reverse what had, to that point, proven to be anemic outside support for Sanford. Super PACs, political action committees and nonprofit groups overall spent less than $200,000 on ads that expressly advocated for Sanford's election or Colbert Busch's defeat.

Sanford-aligned groups included FreedomWorks, Independent Women’s Voice and the National Right to Life Committee.

Some pro-Sanford ads made the argument that a vote for Colbert Busch equated to a "vote for Nancy Pelosi," the highest ranking House Democrat who hails from San Francisco.

Some support Republican Mark Sanford. Far more back Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch.

But the political groups that have together poured $1.1 million — 85 percent benefiting Colbert Busch — into South Carolina’s special congressional election are effectively uniform in where they’re from: Washington, D.C.

Only one of the 10 political action committees, super PACs, nonprofit groups or party committees that have urged voters to support or oppose Colbert Busch or Sanford is based in the Palmetto State, and it’s spent a pittance — just $20,000, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of federal spending disclosures through Monday indicates.

And of the more than 20 contractors and vendors these political powerhouses hired to produce television attack ads, print flyers or place telemarketing calls, all but one are located outside South Carolina. The others hail from seemingly everywhere but: North Carolina, Virginia, Alabama, Maryland, Minnesota, Ohio and California, among others, according to federal records.

So as many South Carolina voters hit the polls today to elect their newest 1st District congressional representative, they do so amid a torrent of out-of-state influence that’s increasingly commonplace following the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, which eliminated many restrictions on how outside political groups could raise and spend money to advocate for or against candidates.

Politicians aren't always the most grounded bunch. 

For Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., he's off in galaxy far, far away.

That's not necessarily a knock, however, since the brainy, bespectacled freshman — he's a Princeton University graduate and University of Oxford doctoral degree recipient — is parlaying his love for the cosmos into potentially exospheric campaign cash. 

To wit: Kilmer is set to benefit from a Star Wars-themed political fundraiser later this month originally conceived as not one, but two separate Star Wars-themed fundraisers, easily putting him on pace to become the first sitting congressman to make the Capitol Hill Cash Run in less than 12 parsecs.

The merged fundraiser will culminate May 22 in a "galactic trivia battle," with tickets starting at $50 and climbing skyward to $1,000 for political action committees and full trivia teams, according to an invitation. The National Cable and Telecommunications Association's Washington, D.C., headquarters will play host.

A spokesperson for Kilmer's re-election campaign could not be reached for comment, but Stephen Carter, Kilmer's congressional spokesman, confirmed his boss is, "yes, a pretty huge Star Wars fan."

Perhaps it's no surprise, then, that Kilmer is a member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

(See the current event's invite here. The other, once-separate-and-now-incorporated fundraiser's invitation advertised a screening of Star Wars: A New Hope.)

Once mired in blood and disrepute, professional mixed martial arts now ranks among the world’s fastest growing sports. And its advocates are likewise ramping up their activity in another combative arena: Capitol Hill.

Ultimate Fighting Championship, MMA’s leading promotion company, last year spent $620,000 lobbying on a variety of issues affecting its business, making it the No. 3 spender among sports leagues and recreational entities and eclipsing the government affairs  efforts of other well-established and conventional industry contemporaries, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

UFC outspent former heavy-hitters such as Major League Baseball ($310,000) and the National Basketball Association ($125,000) last year. The National Football League remains the top lobbying spender in the live entertainment industry, but the league’s total spending fell from $1.6 million in 2012 to $1.4 million in the previous year, according to federal disclosures.

UFC is continuing its aggressive advocacy this year, spending $80,000 on federal lobbying in the first quarter of 2013, records filed with the U.S. Senate indicate.Video piracy is among UFC’s chief concerns.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich dubbed the national debt a "burden for our children for life."

Ex-Rep. Dennis Kucinich vilified Republicans for adding, by his calculations, $4 trillion to it.

Rep. Michele Bachmann, meanwhile, predicted debt will precipitate a future of "indentured servitude to foreign lenders."

What unites these and other presidential candidates is that they themselves are in debt. Campaign debt.

It's a dubious distinction shared by Democrats and Republicans, eccentric nonagenarians and White House occupants.

Such debt isn't really hurting anyone but creditors — certainly not the nation nor its creditworthiness.

But it is a reminder that despite candidates' soaring rhetoric about fiscal responsibility, they often fail to follow their own prescription for sound budgetary management amid the relentless rush to remain competitive with political rivals during election seasons that are longer and more expensive than ever.

Until the debts are paid, the federal government requires former candidates in most cases to keep their campaign committees open and, technically, active, meaning some of the indebtedness stretches back decades.

Following are the nation’s top presidential campaign deadbeats who still find themselves at least $100,000 in the red, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission:

1.) Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.

Election year: 2012

Debt: $4,595,394

Rep. Mel Watt has plenty of friends in the financial services industry: The North Carolina Democrat whom President Barack Obama has appointed to oversee mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has received more campaign money from financial interests than any other industry or special interest.

Since he entered Congress in 1992, Watt has received $1.33 million in campaign contributions from the finance, real estate and insurance industries, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group that tracks money in politics. 

That’s almost a quarter of the total $5.47 million in total contributions he’s received through his career.

Watt’s biggest donors were commercial banks, with the finance and securities industries following at number five, according to CRP. During the last election cycle, the political action committees of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Wells Fargo each gave Watt’s campaign $10,000. Bank of America and Goldman each gave an additional $5,000 to Watt’s leadership PAC.

Watt sits on the House Financial Services Committee and he represents the Charlotte, N.C., area, which is home to Bank of America and was home to Wachovia, until it failed and was purchased by Wells Fargo.

If he’s confirmed to replace Ed DeMarco at the top of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Watt will be tasked with determining the future of the two mortgage giants that were taken into federal receivership in 2008 after catastrophic losses brought them to near collapse.