The Center for Public Integrity

Vanquished Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., is using his boatload of surplus campaign cash to fuel another political endeavor — building his newly created nonprofit organization.

West's still-active campaign committee made a "charitable donation" of $400,000 to the Allen West Foundation on March 27, according to a filing submitted to the Federal Election Commission today.

This is on top of $250,000 his campaign donated to the Allen West Foundation in January.

West formally established the Allen West Foundation in March as a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, saying he intends to use it to train and educate conservative candidates who are minorities or have military backgrounds. He also plans to have the nonprofit group directly involve itself in political races.

During the 2012 election cycle, 501(c)(4) groups, which by law cannot have a primary purpose of engaging in politics, spent hundreds of millions of dollars directly advocating for and against political candidates — advocacy made possible by the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling in 2010.

Texas homebuilder Bob Perry, who ranks among the nation's most generous donors to Republican candidates and causes, has died at age 80.

Perry is perhaps best known in political circles for helping bankroll an aggressive media campaign against Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry as part of a 527 political committee known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

During the 2012 election cycle alone, Perry contributed $23.5 million to a variety of GOP super PACs.

They include:

Sixteen people accounted for nearly a quarter of the $4.8 million collected by Organizing for Action, the self-described "grassroots" nonprofit group affiliated with President Barack Obama that was created to push the White House’s policy agenda.

About 109,000 people gave money to the nonprofit from January through March, Organizing for Action announced today.

Donors from California ($568,215), New York ($363,893), New Jersey ($221,737), Florida ($84,010) and Massachusetts ($75,975) gave the most, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis.

The top donor by far was Philip Munger of New York City who gave $250,000. Munger is a philanthropist, academic and long-time contributor to Democratic causes.

Next were John Goldman of Atherton, Calif., and Nicola M. Miner of San Francisco who both gave $125,000. Goldman is former chairman of Willis Insurance Service of California, Inc. a U.S. branch of a global insurance brokerage firm. Miner is the daughter of Bob Miner, co-founder of Oracle Corp. and wife of John Mailer Anderson, a novelist and screenwriter.

Of the top 16 donors, each who gave $50,000 or more, nine are Obama campaign bundlers — elite fundraisers credited with raising funds from well-connected friends, family members and associates, then delivering it in a "bundle." Organizing for Action bills itself as nonpartisan.

Among other top donors:

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and a dozen of his Republican colleagues have asked the Federal Communications Commission to resist implementing new rules targeting the makers of political advertisements in the absence of Congress passing new disclosure legislation.

"Political issues should be left to Congress," the senators wrote in a letter dated April 10 and obtained by the Center for Public Integrity. "If [the FCC] were to attempt to establish through rulemaking what Congress has declined to act upon, it would seriously undermine the integrity of the Commission and imperil its independence."

The new letter, which was also signed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., calls the yet-to-be-passed DISCLOSE Act "one of the most politically charged, partisan issues in recent Congresses." It criticizes the legislation for raising "grave Constitutional concerns for speech protected by the First Amendment."

The letter also admonishes the FCC not to become an arm of the Democratic Party.

"The FCC has a long tradition of being nonpartisan," the letter states. "We strongly urge you to categorically reject instituting the DISCLOSE Act by fiat."

Representatives for Cruz and the FCC could not immediately be reached for comment.

The senators' message comes a month after FCC officials testified before the Senate Commerce Committee about political advertisements. At the time, Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Jay Rockefeller, D-W. Va., advocated that the commission play a larger role in unmasking the funders of political advertisements.

Digital strategists Teddy Goff and Zac Moffatt worked for warring candidates during the 2012 presidential election, but they both agree that successful politicians going forward will fully embrace online engagement — and reap financial rewards from it.

Moffatt, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s digital director, points to Sens. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., as candidates with particular online fundraising savvy — and both rising stars in the U.S. Senate who may be considering 2016 presidential bids.

“It’ll be interesting to see how much Rand Paul raised off the filibuster,” Moffatt said, alluding to Paul’s nearly 13-hour talk-a-thon in March against the confirmation of John Brennan to be the new CIA director.

Moffatt also remarked on how Rubio, who faced criticism and ridicule in February about drinking from a water bottle during his rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, turned a potential gaffe into an online fundraising opportunity.

Rubio's tactic? Offer reusable Rubio water bottles for a donation of $25 or more, with the cash benefiting his Reclaim America PAC.

Campaign finance law is a “mockery,” a Democratic senator declared today during a hearing on Capitol Hill, while also urging federal officials present to criminally investigate politically-active nonprofits, shell corporations and super PACs.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on crime and terrorism, cited several “areas of mischief” regarding politically active nonprofits, known in Internal Revenue Service parlance as 501(c)(4) organizations.

Several such organizations spent into the millions of dollars directly advocating for or against political candidates during the most recent election cycle — activity not seen in U.S. politics prior to the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision.

Among Whitehouse's complaints about these nonprofits:

• Discrepancies in reporting to the IRS and to the Federal Election Commission
• Discrepancies between reported and actual political activity
• Characterizing political TV ads as “educational activities” or “legislative activities”
• Characterizing as non-political donations made to other groups that spend it on political advertising
• Disbanding and reforming under other names before the reporting is due for the disbanded organization

Whitehouse suggested the DOJ explore a new legal avenue for prosecuting nonprofits and super PACs active in elections — specifically, fraudulent claims about their political activity in federal filings.

Whitehouse pressed Mythili Raman, the assistant attorney general for DOJ’s criminal division, on what he considered the department’s failure to investigate potential false statements.

More than four years after the fact, John McCain the senator is benefiting big time from John McCain the presidential candidate.

That's because the McCain-Palin Compliance Fund Inc. of a presidential election more than four years distant transferred $819,200 this winter to the Arizona Republican's U.S. Senate campaign committee, according to a document filed today with the Federal Election Commission.

Cash transfers between established political committees are in general, legal, and McCain for several years after the 2008 election routinely shuttled funds among the several political committees under his watch. They include his 2008 presidential committee, a Senate committee, joint fundraising committees and a leadership political action committee.

But the McCain-Palin Compliance Fund was supposed to raise private dollars to pay for legal and accounting costs associated with McCain complying with presidential campaign finance rules.

It now will ostensibly fuel a Senate re-election bid, which would next come in 2016 for the 76-year-old senator.

As it was, McCain —  the last major presidential candidate to accept public presidential matching funds in exchange for limiting private donations — used a portion of the McCain-Palin Compliance Fund's money in 2008 for advertising, travel, facility rentals, finance consulting, website services and other such expenses, exploiting a legal loophole in federal election law.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association's "March Madness" will come to an end tonight as the University of Louisville's Division I men's basketball team faces off against the University of Michigan in Atlanta. But the game of politics won't stop for the NCAA's lobbyists.

The NCAA has employed in-house lobbyists since 1995. During the past decade, it has spent about $1.6 million on lobbying, including $150,000 in 2012 alone, according to records filed with the U.S. Senate.

Two lobbyists have worked to advance the NCAA's interests: Abe Frank, a veteran of Citigroup's government relations shop, and Edgar Burch.

The lobbyists spend "a significant amount of their time" on "educational efforts," NCAA spokeswoman Stacey Osburn told the Center for Public Integrity.

Last year, the NCAA's top concerns included legislation related to the safety of athletes, bills to legalize betting on athletic competitions (which the organization opposes) and the "overflight ban on general aviation aircraft flying over large stadiums," records indicate.

The NCAA conducts 89 national championships in 23 sports. The "Frozen Four" tournament for men's Division I hockey will be held later this week in Pittsburgh.

The two most prolific outside spending groups in state elections have found a new method for influencing elections and ballot initiatives — nonprofit groups.

As reported by the Center for Public Integrity on Thursday, the Washington, D.C.-based Republican Governors Association and Democratic Governors Association together have poured tens of millions of dollars of secret money into nonprofits to wage state-level battles over union rights, tax policy, gay marriage and, of course, gubernatorial seats.

The two nonprofit groups — the RGA’s Republican Governors Association Public Policy Committee and the DGA’s America Works USA — are not required to make their donors public, giving these contributors a secret avenue for funding RGA and DGA efforts.

The Internal Revenue Service, however, incorrectly released donor information for the RGA nonprofit, which the Center obtained.

The disclosure reveals several high-profile corporate executives and two healthcare giants supporting the RGA nonprofit’s efforts in 2011.

“Social welfare” nonprofits are not supposed to have a primary purpose of engaging in politics, according to IRS rules. But this has not stopped political operatives from using the groups to influence elections at all levels, and the RGA and DGA are no exception.

During 2011 and the first half of 2012, the DGA nonprofit America Works USA spent 70 percent of its budget on ads in gubernatorial races in West Virginia and Missouri, according to IRS records.

Texan Ron Paul's congressional career is over, but he's still helping himself from his well-stocked campaign account.

On March 11, the Committee to Re-Elect Ron Paul donated $150,000 to the Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, a nonprofit charitable group Paul himself founded in 1976, according to documents filed today with the Federal Election Commission. Carol Paul, his wife, is the group's president, Internal Revenue Service documents show.

The Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, which shares a Texas address with Paul's congressional committee, describes itself as "dedicated to individual liberty and free-market economics." It is also the publisher of "Ron Paul's Freedom Report," a periodic newsletter.

Additionally, it this year is publishing Paul's wonky weekly column, the most recent of which focused on the financial meltdown of Cyprus. Paul, long a backer of a gold standard and currency competition, used it to deride the island nation's "fiat paper money system combined with fractional reserve banking" and advocate that the United States "end the Federal Reserve, stay away from propping up the euro and return to a sound monetary system."

The Foundation for Rational Economics and Education's most recent filing with the Internal Revenue Service lists assets of nearly $653,000 at the beginning of 2011, up from the more than $564,000 a year earlier. Like other nonprofits, the foundation is not required to disclose its donors on its IRS filings.