Forget Congress. These 27 States Could Begin Dragging Dark Money Into the Daylight—Today

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


In the past decade, election spending by so-called 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups—so named for their particular section of the tax code—has spiked by a whopping 9,980 percent, from a few million dollars in 2002 to $256 million in 2012. Here at Mother Jones, we call this type of spending “dark money.” That’s because, the way the tax code works, donors to 501(c)(4) nonprofits are anonymous even as these nonprofits pour millions into elections.

As dark money has flowed into elections in greater amounts, Congress has tried to drag this spending into the sunlight with versions of the DISCLOSE Act. Each time, Republican filibusters blocked those bills. As things stand, the most promising strategy—and it’s not even that promising—for shining light on secret political spending is through the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is considering a rule requiring that publicly-traded companies disclose their election-related spending.

But transparency advocates are wrong to pin their hopes on the SEC or Congress. According to a new report by New York City Public Advocate Bill deBlasio and the Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending, 27 states already have laws on the books that should allow them to require far more disclosure from politically active nonprofits about their spending and their donors. That includes nine battleground states where, in 2012, the bulk of political spending took place—Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Ohio.

Here’s a useful map from deBlasio’s report:

Coalition for Accountability in Political Spending, Office of New York City Public Advocate Bill deBlasio

DeBlasio’s report cites New York State as an example of a state that took advantage of existing laws to beef up dark-money disclosure. In June, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman rolled out new regulations requiring nonprofits registered in New York State to disclose how much of their spending went toward to influencing elections at the local, state, and federal level. Schneiderman’s regulations will also force nonprofits that spend more than $10,000 on elections in New York State to file itemized spending and contribution reports, disclosing donors who give more than $100. Schneiderman didn’t need a new law to authorize all this—as New York’s attorney general, he’s also in charge of regulating the state’s charities.

This year, Connecticut, Maryland, and Utah have also passed various laws ratcheting up transparency of nonprofit groups. The states identified in deBlasio’s report don’t need to do that much—like New York, they can start implementing new transparency regulations right away. The only thing standing between these states and greater dark-money disclosure, the report concludes, “is the courage to act.”

Here is the full report:

 

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate