Adelson to keep betting on the GOP
Wall Street Journal
Mr. Adelson, chairman and chief executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp., LVS -0.35% and his wife, Miriam, joined the top ranks of the 2012 campaign donors, alongside the industrialist Koch brothers on the Republican side and Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg for the Democrats.
Mr. Adelson's 2012 donations were double what he spent in 2008, and looking ahead, he said, he was ready to again "double" his donations…
Mr. Adelson, 79 years old, said he has many friends in Washington, "but the reasons aren't my good looks and charm. It's my "pocket personality," referring to his donations. READ MORE
Record spending in 2012 elections could spur rules changes, experts say
Roll Call
The $6 billion spending record set in the 2012 elections will soon be outstripped by future campaigns, but it also opens the way for new political money restrictions, a team of election law experts said at the National Press Club on Tuesday.
“It’s not a bad place to start when both sides don’t like the status quo,” said Trevor Potter, president and general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center. The failure of Republican- friendly super PACs to win either the White House or the Senate may soften GOP resistance to proposed rules changes, he added.
“The perceived great Republican advantage of having all this outside money didn’t, in fact, produce the expected results,” said Potter, a former Federal Election Commission chairman. “That opens up the possibility for changes.” READ MORE
Lobbyists could see more curbs arising from campaign finance movement
Roll Call
Lobbyists already chafing under the Obama administration’s lobbying restrictions and congressional ethics rules could soon have a brand new headache: a nascent grass-roots movement that’s placed reining in lobbyists at its center.
Spearheaded by a coalition of campaign finance experts and activists called Represent.Us, the campaign is working to build grass-roots support for a measure that would drastically limit lobbyist fundraising, among other provisions. Dubbed the American Anti-Corruption Act, the plan would also curb unrestricted super PACs and make it harder for such groups to coordinate with candidates. READ MORE
Post-election super PAC filings trickling in
Sunlight Foundation
Super PACs have until Thursday to submit their final 2012 election reports to the Federal Election Commission but some have filed early, disclosing for the first time who funded advertisements that flooded the airwaves in the final weeks before the election. Before these reports, the most recent peek at who funded the groups came in mid-October. Recent filings also detail the continued outside spending in one 2012 race--an all-GOP runoff election for a House seat in Lousiana. Here's what the reports reveal. READ MORE