For next time, Hershey, ch 6-7.
Focus question: what most surprised you this week about campaign finance? Be specific. Do not just say, "there are a lot of loopholes."
PACs and Super PACs (Hershey 297-302)
What kind of spending do dark money groups have to disclose?
...and Democrats
How new Democratic nonprofits funnel political donations to super PACs with anonymity
BILLIONAIRE
DONORS
Nonprofit
Super PAC
$10 million or less
Between $10 and 100 million
Our American
Future
Foundation
Our
American
Future Action
Bright
Future
Fund
Future
Forward
USA Action
$100 million or more
Other
nonprofits
Evidence
for Impact
Other PACs
Future Forward PAC
Non-Coordination Coordination
- Common vendors
- Microsites and Redboxing
- A Vance example
- Evading coordination limits by Microsite B-Roll
The broader party network: think tanks, partisan media, and interlocking directorates
Dark Money and January 6 (and CPAC)
Foreign money is illegal, but... Russia plays, too.
The IRA [Internet Research Agency, Russian troll farm in St. Petersberg] organized and promoted political rallies inside the United States while posing as U.S. grassroots activists. First, the IRA used one of its preexisting social media personas (Facebook groups and Twitter accounts, for example) to announce and promote the event. The
IRA then sent a large number of direct messages to followers of its social media account asking them to attend the event. From those who responded with interest in attending, the IRA then sought a U.S. person to serve as the event's coordinator. In most cases, the IRA account operator would tell the U.S. person that they personally could not attend the event due to some preexisting conflict or because they were somewhere else in the United States. The IRA then further promoted the event by contacting U.S. media about the event and directing them to speak with the coordinator. After the event, the IRA posted videos and photographs of the event to the IRA's social media accounts.
The Office identified dozens of U.S. rallies organized by the IRA. The earliest evidence of a rally was a "confederate rally" in November 2015. ... From June 2016 until the end of the presidential campaign, almost all of the U.S. rallies organized by the IRA focused on the U.S. election, often promoting the Trump Campaign and opposing the Clinton Campaign. Pro-Trump rallies included three in New York; a series of pro-Trump rallies in Florida in August 2016; and a series of pro-Trump rallies in October 2016 in Pennsylvania. The Florida rallies drew the attention of the Trump Campaign, which posted about the Miami rally on candidate Trump's Facebook account (as discussed below).
Posted on: Facebook
Created: October 2016
Ad spend: 64 rubles ($1.10)
