10/05/2012 - Myclipp

Reuters General/ - Article, Qui, 10 de Maio de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)
Insight: Super PACS: Follow the money -
if you can
By Marcus Stern, Kristina Cooke and Alexander
Cohen LAWRENCEVILLE, Georgia | Thu May 10,
2012 6:41am EDT LAWRENCEVILLE, Georgia
(Reuters) - December 2011 was a busy month for
supporters of presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.
The former speaker of the House had surged ahead of
his Republican rivals in several polls. Suddenly he was
being barraged by negative TV ads produced by
Restore Our Future, a Super PAC for rival candidate
Mitt Romney. Gingrich did not have the money to
retaliate. Individual donations in federal elections are
restricted to $2,500. He needed his own Super PAC
that could receive unlimited contributions.Ever since
the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in the Citizens
United case paved the way for Super PACS, they have
been a legitimate new tactic for political campaigns. As
far as can be determined, Winning Our Future (WOF),
the pro-Gingrich political action committee, did not do
anything impermissible under campaign finance laws.
But a look at its regular reports to the Federal Election
Commission reveals a degree of legerdemain that
appears commonplace in FEC records and makes it
difficult for the public to know who ends up with the
record amounts of money flowing into the political
system today."Opaque transactions in politics
undermine public confidence in the process," said
Meredith McGeehee, owner of McGehee Strategies,
which works on public interest advocacy, and policy
director at the Campaign Legal Center.FLYING
UNDER THE RADARBecause Super PACs are
required to operate independently of the candidates
they support, three longtime Gingrich allies scrambled
to assemble one on his behalf. Winning Our Future
filed papers with the Federal Election Commission on
December 13, 2011. Texas billionaire Harold Simmons
seeded it with $500,000 and gave twice more, for a
total of $1.1 million. The family of casino mogul
Sheldon Adelson donated $21.5 million. By the end of
March 2012, WOF had raised an additional $1.2
million, for a war chest of $23.8 million.Who received
that money is difficult to discern.Within six weeks of the
Super PAC's launch, three new companies were set
up to serve as vendors for WOF. (A fourth had been
formed earlier in 2011, after Gingrich declared his
candidacy in May, by an individual behind one of the
three later outfits.) These four new companies
received 84 percent of WOF's total disbursements,
according to FEC records.Some political consultants
said they set up separate companies for different races
for accounting purposes or to create a kind of firewall
between their political work and their commercial
activities. Others said the maneuver can be used to
conceal work being done simultaneously for rival
camps. And it can have tactical advantages."A new
entity means they can fly under the radar for a few
minutes," said one source. "Theoretically, it slows
down the opposition research on their buying style."
Where a candidate chooses to advertise says a lot
about the issues and voters he or she is targeting.The
key word is "buying." The biggest checks written by
any campaign or Super PAC go to the companies that
buy ads on TV, radio and the Internet. Under
long-standing industry practice, the broadcaster gives
the buyer a 15 percent discount that the buyer has
kept as a commission. These days, the percentage
kept by political media buyers is likely to be 5 percent
or less, according to various industry insiders. The rest
of the discount from the broadcasters may be
apportioned any way the leaders of the PAC or
campaign wish.PACs are required to report
expenditures, including recipient and amount. Bulk
checks to media buyers routinely run into the millions
of dollars without disclosing subcontracts and other
expenses. Side agreements over splitting of the
discounts from the broadcasters are not subject to
FEC disclosure."Our system is based on the idea that
(Super PACs) can basically spend money however
they see fit, and if your donors think the committee is
not spending it wisely, then they can decide not to give
further," said FEC Commissioner Cynthia
Bauerly.COMPENSATION MYSTERYTyler is a
seasoned political operative who began advising
Winning Our Future in December. He described in the
harshest terms what he says is the common industry
practice of PAC staff secretly divvying up portions of
the discount: "Kickbacks … come back either to the
campaign or the media vendor, in many cases the
campaign manager. So you'll get a congressional
campaign manager who on the surface you think is
making $50,000-$60,000. The fact is he could be
making hundreds of thousands of dollars - you have no
idea because he's being paid separate from what
you're seeing."Total broadcast and cable spending
during the 2012 race is projected to be $3 billion. That
means as much as $450 million could be divvied up
among political consultants and campaign or PAC staff
according to negotiated fee agreements and informal
side deals.Tyler disparaged this opaque system of fee
sharing as a hallmark of big-name political consultants.
He didn't name any specifically, but he says WOF
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