Who Owns Your Presidential Candidate?
It’s a new era of American politics. With regard to campaign finance, the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling — and the arguably worse McCutcheon v. FEC ruling — opened the doors to unrestricted corporate funding of our national elections.
The primary mechanism in place facilitating this flood of private money is the super PAC. You’ve probably heard of super PACs and how they’ve essentially taken over the role traditionally filled by individual campaign donors in Political Action Committees (PACs). But super PACs aren’t the end of it. There are puppet political non-profits, business associations, and now, single-candidate “dark money” outfits that, as of September 21, have already raised $25.1 million — five times the amount spent by this time in the 2012 election cycle.
BERNIE SANDERS
One point concerning Bernie Sanders can’t be denied: his campaign financing is leagues above the others in terms of ethical sourcing. Sanders has refused super PAC money and continues to reiterate he will not use a super PAC or any shady billionaire money for the 2016 election. His full list of of regular PAC and individual donors, most of which is labor union money, is listed below, courtesy of OpenSecrets.org:
Machinists/Aerospace Workers Union $105,000
Teamsters Union $93,700
National Education Assn $89,242
United Auto Workers $79,750
United Food & Commercial Workers Union $72,500
Communications Workers of America $68,000
Laborers Union $64,000
Carpenters & Joiners Union $62,000
National Assn of Letter Carriers $61,000
American Assn for Justice $60,500
American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees $58,198
Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $53,100
United Transportation Union $48,500
Sheet Metal Workers Union $47,000
Operating Engineers Union $46,100
Service Employees International Union $44,014
UNITE HERE $42,875
United Steelworkers $41,750
American Postal Workers Union $37,700
American Federation of Teachers $36,112
A report from October 1st shows that Bernie Sanders has nearly matched Hillary Clinton’s 3rd quarter campaign donations without using a super PAC.
Bernie Sanders, total funds raised so far: $26 million
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-10-03/who-owns-your-presidential-candidate
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