The Center for Public Integrity

Fresh off the first presidential election since the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, super PACs aren't expected to stay idle for long.

According to a new Center for Public Integrity analysis, only seven super PACs started 2013 with more than $1 million in the bank. But they won't have that problem for long.

Super PACs have shown an ability to raise millions of dollars in a moment’s notice, then spend it just as quickly. This makes them uniquely nimble — and powerful — political forces during any point in an election cycle.

Which groups have the most cash in reserve? The answer might surprise you.

Seven of the top 10 super PACs with the most money in the bank are aligned with Democrats, and the super PAC with the most cash reserves at the start of January belonged to the United Auto Workers, which rolled over nearly $9 million.

Check out the full list here.

Why is 2013 an important year for campaign finance? Dave Levinthal and Michael Beckel will answer that, and many other questions about the money-in-politics world in a live chat on Monday, Feb. 4, at 1 p.m. ET.

Update (Feb. 1, 4:30 p.m.): This story has been updated to include comment from Brad Martin of Fair Share Action.

Prominent super PACs are already preparing for their next act — the 2014 midterm elections — with Democratic-aligned groups leading the way.

Of the five super PACs with the most money in the bank through the end of 2012, all support Democrats, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of campaign finance reports released Thursday.

The United Auto Workers’ super PAC, launched last September, reported the most money in the bank at $8.9 million. The group spent almost $2.7 million ahead of Election Day.

Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC that backed the re-election of President Barack Obama, ranks second, ending the year with $3.7 million in the bank after spending $65 million on ads that pounded Obama’s GOP rival, Mitt Romney.

Rounding out the top five: the super PAC of the Service Employees International Union, which reported $3.2 million on hand; Fair Share Action, which reported $1.8 million; and American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic-aligned super PAC that specializes in opposition research, which reported $1.3 million.

The dust has barely settled on the 2012 election but the corporation-fueled fundraising engines of the Republican and Democratic governors associations continue to churn.

Between late November and the end of December, the Republican Governors Association pulled in nearly $2.7 million, while the Democratic Governors Association collected $910,000, documents filed Thursday with the Internal Revenue Service indicate.

Aiding the Republicans with their significant post-election haul were several large pharmaceutical companies.

Drug maker Pfizer donated $250,000 to the RGA in December, while Eli Lilly contributed $150,000 and Astrazeneca gave $100,000, records show. Pfizer also gave the same amount to the DGA.

Among the other notable donors?

Range Resources Corporation, a large natural gas company that has been involved with fracking the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, gave $250,000 to the RGA, as did health insurance company Aetna.

Meanwhile, the Florida Power and Light and Comcast each donated $125,000 to the RGA, while Publix Super Markets and the BNSF Railway Company each gave $100,000.

In addition to Pfizer, only three other companies have made six-figure contributions to the DGA since late November: Aetna-subsidiary Schaller Anderson, which gave $250,000; computer technology company Oracle, which donated $100,000; and Virginia-based Maximus, a government contractor that provides services to health and human services agencies, which also donated $100,000.

Sixty-nine lobbyists collectively raised more than $17.3 million for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign during the 2012 election cycle, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission records, including new reports filed tonight.

Six federally registered lobbyists bundled more than $1 million for Romney's election efforts, the Center's analysis found, with Bill Graves of the American Trucking Association raising the most at nearly $1.8 million.

Other top bundlers included David Beightol of Dutko Grayling ($1.6 million), Dirk Van Dongen of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors ($1.4 million), Bill Simmons of Dutko Grayling ($1.3 million), Patrick J. Durkin of Barclays ($1.1 million) and Robert T. Grand of Barnes & Thornburg LLP ($1 million).

The money the nearly six-dozen lobbyist-bundlers raised not only benefited the official campaign committee of the former Massachusetts governor but also the Romney Victory Fund, a joint fundraising committee that split its receipts between Romney, the Republican National Committee and several other GOP groups.

Tonight's newly filed documents reveal the names of five individuals who have not previously been reported to the FEC as bundlers.

They are:

A political action committee former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., created last summer has attracted little interest from donors, a new campaign finance filing indicates.

Gabby PAC headed into 2013 with just more than $8,000 in its account, having raised only $250 between Nov. 27 and Dec. 31, according to documents filed this afternoon with the Federal Election Commission.

Its spending likewise proved modest, with several thousand dollars in airline tickets accounting for its most notable expenses.

Gabby PAC officially formed in August, with Giffords' husband, Mark Kelly, suggesting at the time that it would serve as a vehicle for promoting solar energy, veterans affairs and border issues when not making donations to like-minded politicians. It raised about $29,000 on the year.

Giffords formed Gabby PAC — a traditional PAC that may raise up to $5,000 a year from individuals — months before the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

In its aftermath, Giffords, who continues to recover from a gunshot wound to the head sustained during a 2011 mass shooting at a community meeting, formed a gun control-focused super PAC she's calling Americans for Responsible Solutions.

If you're to believe the Green Party of the United States' latest campaign finance disclosure, the party is mired in financial crisis, carrying nearly $36,000 in debt and a negative cash balance of more than $58,000.

Not exactly a solid foundation for establishing yourself as a legit alternative to Republicans and Democrats.

But wait, the Green Party says: its financial situation isn't quite so bleak.

Errors in the party's previous reports to the Federal Election Commission are to blame, and in actuality, it's in the black by about $10,000, party official Brian Bittner tells the Center for Public Integrity.

"We are preparing to file several amendments over the next few weeks to correct those errors," Bittner said. "We do have to continue filing timely reports even while we are working to amend them."

To be sure, the Green Party has never been cash rich. At the end of 2004, the Green Party reported nearly $46,000 cash on hand, while at the end of 2008, it reported more than $33,000 in debt and deficits.

Green Party activists' tepid financial support for their own party committee doesn't mean they're turning to other political vehicles, such as super PACs, to boost their electoral prospects, either.

Deep in the heart of coal country, New Power PAC touts candidates who support clean energy.

While the Kentucky-based super PAC has registered with the Federal Election Commission like other super PACs, it's unlike most of its brethren in that its only activity during the 2012 election cycle was at the state-level.

It's also unlike many of its counterparts in that the only donor it has revealed is a group called Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a "social welfare" nonprofit group organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the U.S. tax code and, therefore, not required to reveal its funding sources.

More than 99 percent of the nearly $47,000 New Power PAC raised during the 2012 election cycle came from this related nonprofit, documents filed with the FEC indicate. State and federal records show the group paid for advertising online, in newspapers and on the radio in seven state-level legislative races.

Steve Boyce, who served as the chairman of Kentuckians for the Commonwealth during 2011 and 2012, says this lack of disclosure isn't for nefarious reasons.

Boyce said that his organization, which reported about $550,000 in revenue to the Internal Revenue Service in 2011, relies on "grassroots giving" and that the average household donation is "pretty modest," somewhere between $100 and $150.

"I wish there were more people who needed to be disclosed," Boyce told the Center for Public Integrity.

The group, he said, has focused its fundraising energies on raising money for the nonprofit, not the super PAC.

Former Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y., who resigned from Congress nearly three years ago amid accusations he groped colleagues and cohabited with junior-level male staff members, continues to cut his wife a monthly check from his campaign account, a new Federal Election Commission disclosure indicates.

Beverly Massa received a monthly payment of $692 in October, November and December for "accounting services," according to the Massa for Congress committee's latest report, filed this morning. She is listed in documents as the committee's treasurer.

Massa's campaign account contained more than $62,000 as of Dec. 31, the report states. But aside from the payments to Massa's wife, the committee's only other payments in late 2012 went toward low-dollar legal fees, taxes and payroll services.

Beverly Massa used to receive even more compensation from the committee: Politico noted last year that Massa once paid his wife about double what he does now.

Updated (March 20, 5:00 p.m.)

Four foundations run by billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch hold a combined $310 million in assets according to tax filings obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

The documents also show that the brothers, principal owners of the second-largest privately held company in the United States, combined in 2011 to donate $24 million through those foundations with much of the money going to support free-market and libertarian think tanks and academic centers.

A $4.4 million grant to the George Mason University Foundation makes up 15 percent of the university foundation’s grant revenue for 2011. The school is the largest recipient of Koch foundation money since 1985, and it houses several free-market and libertarian research centers including the Institute for Humane Studies, which received $3.7 million from the Koch foundations.

Fix the Debt Coalition, the political arm of the bipartisan and star-studded Campaign to Fix the Debt, has hired a trio of professional lobbyists to press its fiscal reform agenda with federal government, according to a new document filed this evening with the U.S. Senate.

This marks the first time Fix the Debt Coalition has formally registered lobbyists, the group's Senior Finance and Operations Adviser Simone Frank confirmed to the Center for Public Integrity. 

The group's lobbying efforts wouldn't focus on any one governmental branch or agency but would rather hit "across the board," Frank said.  

"Fixing U.S. long-term debt and deficits" and "educate on the need for a comprehensive plan to fix the U.S. long-term debt and deficits" are Fix the Debt Coalition's lobbying goals as stated in its lobbying registration documents.

Fix the Debt Coalition's lobbyists work directly for the group, not a hired lobbying firm.

The three lobbyists are Cynthia Brown, a former chief of staff to Rep. Ron Kind, D-Wis.; Nathaniel Hoopes, former legislative director for ex-Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass.; and Elizabeth Wroe, a former health policy director and counsel to the Senate Budget Committee, filings indicate.