"South Carolina’s House speaker is affiliated with a political action committee that has doled out hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and private contracts to sitting state lawmakers."

"According to publicly filed data analyzed by The Post and Courier, the Speaker's PAC has channeled about a half-million dollars in the last four years to the S.C. House Republican Caucus, to the state Republican Party and to more than 130 mostly incumbent Republican candidates for legislative office."

"To keep tabs on super PACs, and as of today, super donors, The Center for Public Integrity has a project to "out" the shadowy political organizations that have flourished in the wake of the Citizens United ruling."

Consider the Source "provides narrative to behind the flow of money and how the election is influencing a flood of new spending." To see their latest donation/spending figures, click here.

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The 13 Undercover unit recently wrapped up a five part series that investigated the office of Victor Trevino, a Houston constable. Trevino’s office is now under a criminal investigation by the Harris County DA. Tips started appearing at the 13 Undercover office during early summer in the form of “anonymous letters.” The letters “appeared to be coming from someone inside the office of Precinct 6 Constable Victor Trevino.” The tips suggested that employees were being required to donate money to a charity that operated “out of Precinct 6 headquarters.”

After extensive reporting by 13 Undercover, the district attorney’s ...

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"Reporter Lori Jane Gliha and photographer Matt Anzur at KNXV-TV in Phoenix spent months digging into local ties to the controversial ATF "Fast and Furious" case that was run out of the Phoenix ATF office. After the ATF denied Gliha's Freedom of Information Act request for gun trace records, she began investigating the old fashioned way, by building sources. Those sources pointed her to local police department records and eventually, she was able to definitively link assault weapons allowed to "walk" as part of the government's strategy to crime scenes here in Arizona. Weapons were found after drug ...

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John Lauerman and Jonathan D. Salant of Bloomberg News found that for-profit colleges, faced with new federal restrictions, more than doubled their lobbying spending, bringing in six former members of Congress to help make their case on Capitol Hill. Ten education companies and their trade association spent $3.8 million on lobbying in the first nine months of 2010, up from $1.5 million in the comparable period last year, according to reports filed with Congress.

Jonathan D. Salant and Traci McMillan of Bloomberg News, using a database built for the 2010 elections, found that U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other Republican-leaning outside groups spent millions of dollars on House and Senate races and had a winning record in the 2010 midterm elections.

Joe Yerardi, of the Columbia (Mo.) Missourian, found that retired St. Louis businessman Rex Sinquefield has spent millions to bankroll numerous campaigns in Missouri in the past two years. "The donations, which total more than $13.3 million, are the result of Sinquefield's personal wealth, his ideological passions and Missouri's lax campaign finance laws, experts and politicians say." His donations have been bipartisan, though favoring Republican campaign committees nearly 3-to-1.

Jonathan D. Salant of Bloomberg News found vulnerable House Democrats outraising their opponents, only to see outside groups making up the financial disparity. "Between Sept. 1 and Oct. 20, Republican-leaning outside groups that aren’t limited in the amount of money they are allowed to spend on candidates paid out $118 million, while those backing Democrats spent $45 million."

An investigation by The Dallas Morning News found that Governor Rick Perry has given more than $16 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund to companies with investors or officers who are large campaign donors.  The governor has denied any sort of political influence on how the tech funds are awarded.