The Center for Public Integrity

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee wants people to “say thank you” to Hillary Clinton for her service as secretary of state. Just “add your name” to an online card because it’s “the least we can do.”

Vice President Joe Biden, meanwhile, emailed Friday asking recipients to say, “Yes, I support President Obama’s plan” to reduce gun violence. Do it by registering your name and ZIP code with the Obama for America campaign committee.

Former Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina followed up with another email directing people to submit their names and ZIP codes though a separate online form and “let us know if your members of Congress support the president's plan to reduce gun violence.”

What do these digital come-ons have in common? Fine print that explains how the committees are granting themselves the right to liberally use personal information in just about any way they see fit.

Obama’s campaign committee, for example, notes in its online privacy policy that it might share your information with “candidates, organizations, groups or causes that we believe have similar political viewpoints, principles or objectives.”

Add “vendors, consultants and other service providers or volunteers who are engaged by or working with us and who need access to such information to carry out their work for us” to the list of entities who might know more about who you are than you think.

A conservative 501(c)(4) nonprofit called the American Future Fund had a bumper year in 2012, spending more than $29 million on political advertisements, according to a new Center for Public Integrity analysis of state and federal records:

That amount included more than $19 million on efforts designed to oust President Barack Obama, as well as millions more to oppose Democratic candidates for Congress and even two state attorneys general. 

That's a lot of activity from an organization that says influencing elections is not its primary purpose.

Who funded the advertising spree? It's unclear. 

What little is known on the American Future Fund's donors simply leads to another 501(c)(4) nonprofit that has no website and lists its address as a post office box in Phoenix. 

The Arizona-based Center to Protect Patient Rights "contributed more than $14 million to the American Future Fund between 2009 and 2011, or 51 percent of funds the group raised over the three-year period," the Center's investigation found.

Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin may have just lost her gig — and enviable paycheck — as a Fox News contributor.

But Sarah PAC, the political action committee Palin runs, remains flush with cash, with a little more than $1.15 million in cash on hand through December, new reports filed today with the Federal Election Commission indicate.

That figure is slightly smaller than the number Palin reported in early December, as the PAC's expenses ($67,807) exceeded its income ($20,790) late in 2012, according to the report.

Consulting and speechwriting fees account for much of Sarah PAC's spending from late November through the end of December.

Few PACs, be they traditional or super in nature, maintain a cash balance in the seven-figure range, meaning Sarah PAC remains a force in politics, even if its namesake's public persona has absorbed a setback.

During calendar year 2012, Sarah PAC took in nearly $2.6 million in contributions, its reporting shows.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's political future may not be clear, but her backers have already created a new super PAC to support a potential 2016 presidential bid.

A group called "Ready for Hillary" registered Friday with the Federal Election Commission. Its chairperson? Allida Black, a George Washington University professor and historian, who has been a vocal Clinton supporter for years.

Four years ago, Black called for President Barack Obama to name Clinton as his vice presidential pick, and she helped launch a political action committee called WomenCount that pushed back against calls for Clinton to drop out of the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. In its first month of operation, WomenCount PAC raised more than $350,000.

"She's the candidate that I have wanted for decades," Black, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, told The New Republic in 2008. "I had heard about Hillary for a good 15 years before Bill ran in '92, and I was for Bill because of Hillary."

Ready for Hillary's treasurer is listed as Judy A. Beck, who is married to Black, according to Black's Twitter profile.

This is the second Hillary Clinton-themed super PAC to materialize this month. Davenport, Iowa, resident Nigel Wallace formed Hillary Clinton Super PAC on January 10. He declined to comment on its creation.

The Center for Public Integrity's Consider the Source project today launches Primary Source, a daily diary of developments in the post-Citizens United world of money in politics.

Primary Source will augment Consider the Source's investigative reporting and feature original reporting from Center staff. The feature will include regular examinations and analyses of primary source documents pertaining to political contributions, spending, lobbying and other forms of influence. 

Look for several new Primary Source dispatches later today. In the meantime, bookmark Primary Source here, subscribe to its RSS feed here, follow daily updates on Twitter at @PublicI and "like" us on Facebook.

Also be sure to sent your tips, hints and suggestions to tips@publicintegrity.org.

Last fall, a cadre of wealthy business executives and conservative groups tried to sell California voters on new campaign finance reforms.

Couched in lofty rhetoric about the importance of cutting off money from special interests to politicians and other regulations favored by reformers, their proposal sought to ban the practice of using payroll deductions for political expenditures — a popular method of union fundraising.

Once alerted to the true nature of Proposition 32, the unions and political left rose up against it.

An innocuously named nonprofit, the Iowa-based American Future Fund, proved to be one of the biggest backers of the initiative, sinking more than $4 million into the ballot measure that voters ultimately rejected.

As a “social welfare” organization, the American Future Fund is not required to publicly disclose its donors. But to maintain its tax-exempt status under Sec. 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code, influencing elections cannot be its primary purpose.

The American Future Fund’s investment in California was part of a nationwide, political advertising spree in 2012 that exceeded $29 million, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of state and federal records.

That amount included more than $19 million on efforts designed to oust President Barack Obama, as well as millions more to oppose Democratic candidates for Congress and even two state attorneys general. Now the group is funding ads opposing Obama’s nomination of former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska for defense secretary.

Congress’ fiscal cliff fiasco, a flurry of lame duck legislation and election-season politics drove some of the nation’s most powerful lobbying forces to double down on their governmental influence efforts late last year, newly filed reports show.

Such an uptick foreshadows what could be ever-more-aggressive lobbying on federal finances, taxation, energy and social issues like immigration and gun ownership as President Barack Obama enumerated in his inaugural address Monday.

The trend may end a prolonged lobbying spending slowdown largely prompted by Capitol Hill gridlock and a dearth of meaningful legislation receiving consideration during much of 2011 and 2012.

In all, about half of the year’s top 100 lobbying organizations spent more on lobbying in the fourth quarter of last year than in the third quarter. About half also showed an overall increase in spending for 2012, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of congressional disclosure reports and Center for Responsive Politics data indicates.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s year-over-year lobbying spending skyrocketed more than 88 percent, from $66.4 million to more than $125 million, to easily lead all other organizations.

Prominent business and financial lobbies, meanwhile, rank among organizations that spent significantly more during the fourth quarter of 2012 than they did during the third quarter, including the National Association of Realtors ($15.4 million from $9.8 million), the Business Roundtable ($4.8 million from $4 million), JPMorgan Chase and Co. ($3.2 million from $1.4 million) the American Bankers Association ($2.1 million from $1.8 million) and Visa ($1.7 million from $1.1 million), records show.

Add Bank of America, Coca-Cola, FedEx and a collection of labor unions to the growing list of powerful lobbying forces underwriting the second inauguration of President Barack Obama — long a vocal critic of the influence industry and corporate political power.

The new inaugural bankrollers, the names of which the Presidential Inaugural Committee released this weekend, have together spent $124.3 million lobbying the federal government since Obama took office, a Center for Public Integrity review of federal disclosures shows.

Lobbying forces donating to Obama’s inaugural have spent nearly $283 million to influence the federal government since 2009 when including previously disclosed corporations, such as AT&T Inc., Microsoft Corp. and energy giant Southern Co.  — a figure likely to grow as the inauguration committee releases the names of more new contributors.

(Read: Corporate backers poured $160 million into lobbying since 2009.)

FedEx has spent more than $64 million on federal lobbying since 2009, while Coca-Cola has spent nearly $25 million and Bank of America more than $12.8 million, federal disclosures show.

The Forest County Potawatomi Community, a Native American tribe based in Wisconsin that operates casinos, also donated to the inaugural committee and has spent $1.5 million on lobbying during the past four years. Another inaugural donor, financial investment firm Ariel Investments, has spent $200,000.

Lobbying expenditures by newly disclosed union entities donating to the inaugural committee include: