WASHINGTON — With a week to go before the elections, independent groups, most of them with sharp partisan leanings, have spent $257.7 million to influence political campaigns, nearly quadrupling such interest groups’ total spending in the last midterm election, according to a Washington watchdog group.
In 2006, the last nonpresidential congressional election year, the groups spent a total of $68.8 million for the election, according to information from the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks the data.
Spending by conservative groups this year is more than 2-to-1 ahead of spending by more liberal groups. In 2006, when Democrats regained control of Congress, liberal spending led by about 2-to-1.
Court ruling removed curbs
The 2010 spending spree is shattering records, thanks partly to an unusually competitive year when control of Congress appears up for grabs, but largely due to the Supreme Court’s ruling in January in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission.
The 5-4 decision removed curbs on independent expenditures by corporations and unions, freeing them to spend without limit from their own treasuries on campaign ads and advocacy efforts so long as they aren’t coordinated with candidates’ campaigns.
Under tax and campaign-finance laws, most such groups don’t have to disclose their donors until after the election.
Just how much all this spending matters to the outcome of the elections Nov. 2 is unclear.
Experts have long thought that money can help define lesser-known candidates, for better or for worse. They also stress that money alone won’t win a race, however, particularly since voters often become numbed by repetitive advertising.
“Television ads are important in driving voter perceptions of candidates in a race,” said Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for the groups, though he added, “At a certain point, any advertising will result in diminishing returns, especially in the last weeks of an election cycle.”
Are voters misinformed?
The other question that the spending barrage raises is whether voters are being badly misinformed, confused by the bombardment of charges and countercharges and uncertain whom the groups with haughty-sounding names represent.
“People don’t like to think they’re being bought,” said Trevor Potter, a former Federal Election Commission chairman who is now the president of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.
However, he warned, evidence long has shown that advertising compels people to buy certain products, and “it seems unlikely a lot of those calculations are wrong.”
Two of the more active independent groups are American Crossroads, a political campaign group whose board chairman is former Republican Party chairman Michael Duncan, and its sister organization, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, an issue-advocacy organization.
Karl Rove, who was President George W. Bush’s political guru, is an informal adviser to both.
