by Kim Barker ProPublica

Sure, there’sthe GOP symbol, but the real elephant in the room at any of the Republicandebates since December has been the super PAC, the turbocharged politicalaction committee able to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money onpolitical ads — as long as that spending isn’t coordinated with aparticular campaign.

Mitt Romneysupporters used Restore OurFuture [1] to tank Newt Gingrich in Iowa, whileGingrich supporters relied on Winning OurFuture [2] for revenge in South Carolina.

Jon Huntsman’scampaign [3] would probably not have lasted as long asit did without Our Destiny. Now that Rick Perry is out of the race, throwinghis support to Gingrich, the real question is what will happen to the war chestof Make Us Great Again [4].

But those arejust the super PACs you’ve already heard about — the ones that candidatesgrouse about at debates, with Romney calling one Winning Our Future ad thatportrayed him as a corporate raider [5] “probably the biggest hoax since Bigfoot.”

As thecountdown continues to the South Carolina primary Saturday, it’s worth taking astep back and considering all the confusing names, and all the confusing moneythat might be spent in the coming months. It’s also worth considering how wegot to this new frontier, which even campaign operatives say is messy: Twoyears ago on Saturday, the Supreme Court, in its ruling on Citizens United vs.FEC, cracked open the door for superPACs. Two months later, a federal appeal court’s decision in Speechnow.orgvs. FEC threw it wide open. Now,registering as a super PAC is as simple as sending a letter and a form to theFEC.

So far, atleast 283 super PACs [6] have registered, although60 are run by one Florida man, Josue Larose, [7] and seem to serve no other purpose but piling up paperwork forthe FEC. And so far, super PACs have spent more than $29 million [8] on thepresidential race. (You can follow the money with our PAC Track application [9].) Althoughit’s not yet clear how that compares with overall spending by the candidatesthemselves, reports indicated that super PAC spending in Iowa outstripped thecandidates’ by 2-to-1, said Paul Ryan, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center [10].

More spending,likely the most ever in an election season, is on the horizon. And even thoughsome super PACs seem to be parodies (like comedian Stephen Colbert’s Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, [11] which has probably done more to deliver “super PAC” into theAmerican lexicon than any politician), the groups insist they are real.

“There’s allkinds of games going on,” said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a nonprofitpushing to rein in super PACs. “Some group has put up a website telling you howto get around disclosure. Look, we have huge problems on our hands, and we getto celebrate the cause of many of these problems on Jan. 21, the secondanniversary of the Citizens United decision. We have to deal with them as bestwe can.”

Here’s arundown of some new super PACs and examples of how confusing things can get:

The Patriot SuperPAC, [12] which registered with the FEC on Tuesday,boasts a website [13] promising to be the “future home of something quite cool.” Itwill work to defeat [14] President Barack Obama, but it shouldn’t be confused with theconservative Patriot PAC [15], which promises to be the “point of the spear” and asks peopleto sign a petition without providingthe text [16]. Nor should either be mistaken for the Patriot Majority USA PAC [17], which supports Senate Democrats.

Protecting OurVote PAC [18] registered on Jan. 13, with one of thebest signatures [18] in any super PAC filing. Its mission is unclear: The websitesimply says, Protecting OurVote PAC [19]. American Sunrise [19]registered as a super PAC the same day, organized in part by Lora Haggard, theformer chief financial officer for onetime Democratic presidential candidateJohn Edwards.

Citizens forProsperity and Good Government [20], not to beconfused with the nonprofit conservative advocacy group Americans forProsperity [21], registered on Jan. 10.

Some peopleregistering super PACs appear to be confused themselves. Patricia McBride ofWasco, Calif., registered Citizens FireupSuper PAC [22] on Jan. 9 to support or oppose Obama butneglected to say which angle she’ll take. McBride also wrote that she wished toestablish the super PAC as a (c4), which is shorthand for a 501(c)4, the IRS code for a social-welfare nonprofit.Although 501(c)4s are allowed to make certain political expenditures, they are notallowed to be super PACs. Regardless, the FEC appears to have registered thegroup.

On Jan. 5, asuper PAC called “a SuperPAC” [23] registered with the FEC, with a website at www.asuperpacforhire.com [24], which includes a way to donate. It also features theexplanation: “Haveyou ever wanted a message to get out to the voting public about a candidaterunning for federal office but didn’t want the mess of production, compliance,or disclosure paperwork?  a SuperPACwants to get the TRUTH out too.”

Treasurer Matthew Balazikof Frederick, Md., said the group is real. Ads on its website [25], which proclaim “Paidfor by a SuperPAC,” target Democrats who’ve turnedRepublican.

“We’re prettyconservative around here,” Balazik wrote in responseto an email. “We believe fundamentally that you should be able to speakpublically (sic) and anonymously so long as you do not violate anyone else’srights.”

When asked if anyonehad tried to hire a SuperPAC super PAC, Balazik wrote simply: “That’s a good question.”

On Jan. 4, “The Internet” [26] registered as a super PAC. Unfortunately, its website [27] doesn’tappear to be working, but it does raise the specter of ads proclaiming, “paidfor by The Internet.”

On Dec. 22,the Real Leader PAC [28] registered as a super PAC, with a website [29] that stillleads to nowhere.

The previous week, Cain ConnectionsPAC [30]registered as a super PAC, with no website, days after Herman Cain had droppedout of the Republican race. Its mission is unclear.

Earlier in December, the AmericanCrosswinds PAC [31]— sounding remarkably similar to the Republican fundraisingjuggernaut AmericanCrossroads [32]super PAC — registered as a super PAC, although it has no website and noemail address.

On Dec. 1, Feel the Heat PAC [33] registered from a Washington P.O. box — just like manyreal super PACs. Its website [34] never got up and running, and reception must have been cool: OnTuesday, it terminated itself [35]. The Restore TrustPAC, [36] started by the same person, had similarissues.

Also in December, Americans for a BetterTomorrow, Today — clearly a play on Colbert’s super PAC, Americans for aBetter Tomorrow, Tomorrow — registered with the FEC. On Dec. 12, itannounced it wanted to be a super PAC, with a typo [37]: “Americans for a BetterTomorrow, Toady.”

Todd Bailey, who formed the super PAC, saidit’s working for the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has decried the CitizensUnitedruling and the effect of moneyon politics. In other words, a joke on a satire is operating in earnest,apparently under the theory, “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

“There’s atool that’s been created that everyone’s using,” Bailey said. “You have to makea choice. Either stand on sidelines, or get in the game and use a tool thatyou’re really not comfortable with.”

By Al Shaw and Kim Barker, ProPublica

Committee	Amount Spent

Winning Our Future

$2,752,908

OPPOSING    Mitt Romney

$2,752,908 (100%)

Restore Our Future, Inc.

$1,992,186

OPPOSING    Newt Gingrich	$1,681,617 (84%)
OPPOSING    Richard J. Santorum	$209,032 (10%)
SUPPORTING    Mitt Romney	$101,537 (5%)

Red White And Blue Fund

$950,842

SUPPORTING    Richard J. Santorum

$950,842 (100%)

Citizens for a Working America PAC

$455,000

SUPPORTING    Mitt Romney

$455,000 (100%)

Santa Rita SuperPAC

$317,541

SUPPORTING    Ron Paul

$317,541 (100%)

Priorities USA Action

$96,555

OPPOSING    Mitt Romney

$96,555 (100%)

Revolution PAC

$39,406

SUPPORTING    Ron Paul

$39,406 (100%)

Americans For a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Inc.

$36,600

SUPPORTING    Herman Cain	$15,000 (41%)
OPPOSING    Mitt Romney	$21,600 (59%)

Strong America Now Super PAC

$14,200

SUPPORTING    Newt Gingrich

$14,200 (100%)

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham (R) is currently South Carolina’s only senator to openly support The Stop Online Piracy Act.(SOPA)

Since 2008, Sen. Graham has received over $88,000 in campaign contributions from the entertainment and computing industries.

Sen. Graham’s contact information is below, as well as an in depth analysis by Propublica on which legislators support SOPA.

Thanks for supporting columbiacitypaper.com and internet freedom. -Paul Blake

Fax	202-224-3808
Office	290 Russell Senate Office Building
Twitter	http://twitter.com/GrahamBlog
Facebook	http://www.facebook.com/USSenatorLindseyGraham
Official homepage	http://lgraham.senate.gov/
Phone	202-224-5972

Financial Contributions by Industry

This reported campaign contributions information comes from the OpenSecrets/Center for Responsive Politics API (read more about their campaign-contributions-per-industry API). You can also visit the OpenSecrets profile for Sen. Graham.

Industry	Election Cycle	Amount
Computers/Internet	2010	$5,250
	2008	$14,000
TV/Movies/Music	2010	$21,993
	2008	$47,458

Timeline: Sen. Graham and PIPA

A list of statements and legislative actions made by Sen. Graham relating to PIPA. Contact Dan Nguyen if you have additions or corrections.

May 26, 2011 Votes to move PIPA out of committee

Part of unanimous vote of approval by Senate Judiciary committee to move PIPA forward.

Source: leahy.senate.gov

May 12, 2011 Co-sponsors PIPA

Source: Library of Congress: THOMAS

Nov 18, 2010 Votes to move COICA out of committee

The Senate Judiciary committee voted unanimously to move COICA forward.

Source: Senate Judiciary Committee report

Sep 21, 2010 Cosponsors Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, S. 3804

COICA contained similar provisions and battle lines as PIPA does. It never reached a full Senate vote and was re-written in 2011 as the PROTECT-IP Act (i.e. PIPA).

Source: Library of Congress: THOMAS

See a complete list of actions and statememts by members of Congress

 

Which Legislators Support SOPA and PIPA?

by Dan Nguyen, ProPublica

In the next few weeks, among the most talked-about legislation will be the “Stop Online Piracy Act ” commonly referred to as SOPA which, if passed, would give the Justice Department the authority to block access to foreign websites deemed to be dedicated to copyright infringement.

Both SOPA and its Senate version, PIPA (officially known as the PROTECT-IP Act), have widespread bipartisan support among lawmakers. But the proposed law has become a pitched battle between entertainment companies  who believe SOPA will curb the illegal distribution of movies and music and online media companies like Google and Facebook, who fear that the bills will be burdensome to implement and are tantamount to censorship.

by Lois Beckett, ProPublica

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a Texas redistricting case that could have major implications for minority voters — as well as determine which party is likely to control Congress after the 2012 elections.

Here’s our guide to why the case matters, why it could pose a challenge to part of the Voting Rights Act [1], and what impact the Court’s ruling could have on voters across the country.

Our update on Monday’s oral arguments is here [2].

How did this case end up in front of the Supreme Court?

At its most basic, the case is contesting which district maps Texas will use in the 2012 elections.

This seems like a dry question, but it’s not. Thanks to population growth, Texas is gaining four seats in Congress, and how the district lines are drawn is likely to determine whether those additional seats will be won by Democrats or Republicans — and how big an impact minority voters will have in deciding who the new representatives will be.

Because those four seats could help determine which party controls the House of Representatives, the Texas case is being closely watched across the country.

As it has done before [3], the Republican-dominated state legislature drew maps that heavily favor Republicans [4].

At least three of the four [5] new congressional districts were drawn in a way that seemed likely to favor Anglo Republican candidates — even though Latinos and African-Americans accounted for most of the state’s population growth [6].

The legislature’s maps immediately faced legal challenges from minority groups who argued that the lines were drawn to purposefully weaken the ballot power of Latino voters — as well as from the Department of Justice, which argued that Texas’ state house and congressional map plans [7] are illegal because they diminish the ability of minority voters to elect the candidate of their choice [8].

Because the ongoing legal battle over the legislature’s maps was interfering with the state’s election schedule [9], the federal district court in San Antonio drew an alternate set of maps for the state to use [10].

These maps are seen as being more favorable to minority voters [11] — as well as much friendlier to Democrats [12].

Rather than use these court-drawn maps, the state of Texas appealed the case to the Supreme Court [13], arguing that the state court overstepped its bounds, and that, because of the time-crunch, the legislature’s original plans should be used for the 2012 elections [14] — even though the federal government has yet to give the plans “preclearance.”

The Problem with ‘Preclearance’

This is where the case bumps up against the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 of the 1965 act [15] requires that certain states with a history of racial discrimination — including Texas — get federal “preclearance,” or approval [16], before implementing any laws that affect voting.

The Texas legislature’s original plans haven’t received preclearance yet — and it’s unlikely that they will before this year’s elections.

While most states simply ask for preclearance from the Department of Justice, Texas has taken the less-common, more-expensive route of asking for approval from a panel of federal judges in Washington.

In denying summary judgment on the case, those judges have already concluded that “the State of Texas used an improper standard [17] to determine which districts afford minority voters the ability to elect their preferred candidate of choice.”

But the final ruling on preclearance is unlikely to come soon enough to get Texas’ already delayed election season [18] underway.

By asking the Supreme Court to use the state legislature’s maps before they have received federal preclearance, Texas is essentially trying to perform a temporary end-run around the Voting Rights Act’s “preclearance” requirement.

Texas is arguing that this move is perfectly legal [14], and would not affect the state’s “undisputed obligation” to get federal preclearance before using its new maps “on a permanent basis.”

Nina Perales, the director of litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund [19], told the Washington Post [20] that this move “flips Section 5 completely on its head,” and argued the state was trying to squeeze in one more election cycle before having to reckon with the growing power of Latino voters.

Updated 1/10/2012: How is the Court likely to rule?

The fact that the Supreme Court decided to hear the case at all makes it seem unlikely [21] that the justices will simply endorse the maps drawn by the federal court in San Antonio.

During oral arguments yesterday [22], several members of the Court suggested that the San Antonio court may have overstepped its bounds in the way it drew its interim maps — particularly in its creation of new minority districts.

But the Court also made it fairly clear that it was not interested in overturning Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act — at least, not at the moment.

“The constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act is not at issue here, right?” Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. asked at one point.

Only Justice Antonin Scalia said that the San Antonio court should temporarily implement the Texas legislature’s plan.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan emphasized that Section 5 banned the use of a plan that had not received federal approval, and Chief Justice Roberts seemed to agree, noting, “You cannot assume that the legislature’s plan should be treated as if it were precleared.”

But the consensus of the court seemed to be that it was just as problematic for the San Antonio court to assume that the legislature’s map was an illegal gerrymander, and then redraw the map on the assumption that all of the minority groups concerns were legitimate.

Justice Samuel Alito suggested that the judicial branch had no business getting involved in making policy via map lines. “To say they are going to apply neutral districting principles is a subterfuge,” he said. “There is no such thing.”

Justice Alito suggested that the best solution might simply be to wait for the Washington, D.C., court to either grant or deny preclearance on the Texas legislative maps — and to delay Texas’ primary schedule again in the meantime.

Justice Kagan suggested a compromise plan, in which Texas’ court-drawn interim maps would more closely resemble the maps drawn by the legislature.

Attorneys for both sides said this plan would be preferable to simply implementing their opponents’ maps.

As the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake noted last month, such a compromise would still set a new precedent [23]. “Currently, court-drawn maps are drawn with deference to the last constitutionally-approved map available (i.e. the existing map). Changing the standard would give state legislatures greater power over the final product, even in the event that their maps are invalidated,” he wrote.

Updated 1/10/12: Earlier Speculation on the Court and the Voting Rights Act

At minimum, the Supreme Court will have to rule on what maps Texas should use in its upcoming election.

As Lyle Denniston of SCOTUSblog put it [21], “The Court must either draft maps of its own, accept — even grudgingly — something that already exists, or find a streamlined way to get the District Court in San Antonio to craft a plan that minimally alters the state’s maps.”

But there’s been speculation that the Court could also use the case as an opportunity to address the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, the part that requires certain states to obtain preclearance of plans that affect minority voters.

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake called this “the Nuclear Option [23].” One of the key elements of preclearance is that it places the burden of proof on the state governments to prove that their plans are not discriminatory, rather than requiring minority groups to organize and pay for expensive legal challenges. By invalidating the Section 5 preclearance requirement, the Supreme Court “would allow these states greater freedom to draw their maps and increase the burden on minority groups and others who may fight the maps in court,” Blake wrote.

The Supreme Court seemed to come close to overturning Section 5 two years ago [24], in another case from Texas [25]. That decision made it clear that the Court had serious reservations about the limits the Voting Rights Act places on a state’s sovereignty.

In that ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote [25] that “the Act now raises serious constitutional concerns,” and that it “differentiates between the States in ways that may no longer be justified.”

This time around, the conservative Cato Institute [26] has submitted an amicus brief to the Texas case asking the Court to review the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act, arguing that the statute “no longer serves its original purpose [27].”

But some experts doubt that the Supreme Court will tackle Section 5′s constitutionality in the Texas case.

Richard Pildes [28], a New York University law professor, told MSNBC [29], “The court recognizes that it must act more quickly than usual, given the time pressures involved with primary elections looming shortly down the road. For all those reasons, the court is likely to focus on the narrowest issues needed to resolve the particular legal issues presented.”

Cato isn’t alone in its opposition of the Voting Rights Act. Georgia Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, the Republicans’ point man for congressional redistricting, has long opposed the act [30], calling it “outdated, unfair and unconstitutional.” In a speech opposing [30] the extension of the act in 2006, Westmoreland argued that Georgia’s record of voter equality “can stand up to any other state in the nation” and that the Voting Rights Act’s renewal would “keep my state in the penalty box for 25 more years based on the actions of people who are now dead.”

But the Voting Rights Act also has strong, bipartisan support. President George W. Bush gave it high praise [31]. Executives from Wal-Mart, AT&T, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, Disney [32] and other large corporations wrote to Bush urging him to reauthorize the law and describing it as a cornerstone of American society. The Senate ultimately approved the 2006 extension of the act 98-0, and the House 390-33 [33].

Although the Supreme Court may have decided not to tackle the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act in the Texas case, it may soon have other opportunities to address the issue.

A case in which a county in Alabama is challenging the constitutionality [34] of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act is scheduled for oral arguments in the U.S. Court of Appeals on January 19.

The Department of Justice’s move to strike down South Carolina’s Voter ID law [35] under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act may also spark a case that could make its way to the Supreme Court.

One thing I noticed about today’s politics versus how it used to be.  Today politics is vicious and personal, which was not the case before.

The media has a big role to play; you do not see many good stories any more. They have a big influence. They are educating people on the wrong things sometimes. I always tried to be honest with the media.