The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "campaign finance reports" ...
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Congressional Campaign Marred by Scandal
When federal authorities charged the finance director for Connecticut House Speaker Chris Donovan's congressional campaign with trying to hide campaign contributions, the Courant sought to uncover details of the probe and provide its readers stories that explained the significance of the arrest, peeling back the layers of a conspiracy that reached the highest levels of state government.
Tags: Federal authorities; campaign finance; state government
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Big Money 2012
Big Money 2012 is an unprecedented multi-platform project to investigate campaign finance in the post-Citizens United era. Spanning television documentary, radio and online news outlets, this initiative draws on the award-winning talents of some of the best in the industry to dig deep into a story that goes to the foundations of our democracy. FRONTLINE’s pre-election TV broadcast of Big Sky, Big Money in partnership with American Public Media’s Marketplace formed the center of this multiplatform investigation, Big Money 2012, which continued on the radio and on the web. Further coverage of this timely story also continued online as part of ProPublica’s Dark Money series featuring reporting by ProPublica investigative reporter Kim Barker with Rick Young and Emma Schwartz reporting for FRONTLINE. Big Money 2012 tells a tale of money, politics, and intrigue in the remote epicenter of campaign finance, Montana. The investigation led the teams from big sky country—to a meth house in Colorado and to a UPS store in D.C. as they followed a trail of documents. What they find exposes the inner-workings of a dark money group. In all, it’s a unique collaboration a year in the making, which has led to robust journalism with real impact. And, the story is still unfolding.
Tags: campaign finance; politics; politicians
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"Local Sheriff Abusing His Power?"
This investigation reveals that the Middlesex County sheriff had been accepting money from his employees who were interested in staying in his "good graces." The corruption also benefited the sheriff's "political future." When the accusation of corruption was exposed by WFXT, the Mass. Attorney General launched its own investigation. Less than a week later, the sheriff committed suicide, and WFXT-TV received criticism for their reporting of the incident. Critics eventually determined the story was fairly investigated and reported.
Tags: Middlesex County; sheriff; James Dipaola; Office of Campaign and Political Finance; Attorney General
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The Mayor and the Money
Campaign finance reports of the Shreveport Mayor suggested that the campaign finance laws had been broken. Anonymous contributions, multiple entries for the same donation, donors that circumvented laws on contribution limits, and donors with questionable backgrounds were found in the reports.
Tags: election; mayor; contribution limit; campaign contribution; donor
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The Fall of Ohio's Attorney General
While top state officials from Elliot Spitzer to Rod Blagojevich fell from grace in 2008, no one was pushed out the door through dogged reporting by the press -- in this case, The Columbus Dispatch -- quite like Ohio's attorney general, Marc Dann. Information from a variety of sources and examination of voluminous e-mails and documents led to stories detailing sexual harassment and a shockingly unprofessional, party-like atmosphere of high-ranking Dann officials, including ribald festivities at the so-called "Dannimal House," the condo where he lived along with a pair of top aides. The Dispatch also broke stories about other misdeeds ranging from questionable campaign expenditures, shaky hiring practices and suspect purchases, as well as a proposed trip by Dann to a "law enforcement conference" in Turkey with his female scheduler. Although her trip, bankrolled by homeland security money, was nixed, the paper documented how Dann called her (on the taxpayers' dime via satellite phone) more often than his wife. Dann, 45, later admitted an affair with the scheduler, 28.
Tags: misconduct; attorney general; Ohio; Marc Dann; resignation; sexual harassment; campaign finance
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The Federal Contractor Misconduct Database
The Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (FCMD) is a Web-based resource that tracks the civil, criminal, and administrative misconduct of the federal government's largest suppliers of goods and services. POGO created the FCMD to ensure that the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars the federal government awards every year in contracts (over $530 billion in fiscal year 2008) go to companies with solid records of responsibility, integrity and performance. POGO developed the FCMD because government contracting officers are required by law to award contracts to responsible vendors only but lack a centralized repository of information on vendors' misconduct histories. To make decisions that are in the best interest of the public and prevent fraud, wasted and abuse, the government must have as much information as possible reflecting the past performance and responsibility of prospective vendors. The FCMD provides this information free to the public in a concise and user-friendly format. The FCMD spotlights each of the top 100 federal contractors. It complies each contractor's instances of misconduct -- actual and alleged -- dating back to 1995. In addition to misconduct instances, the FCMD includes primary source documents and links to the contractors' Web sites, annual reports, SEC filings, and lobbying and campaign finance information. Search and sort features allow users to search the data for key words, or to organize the data in interesting ways. The FCMD is an evolving resource. POGO continually adds and updates instances and contractor information. POGO also periodically updates the contractor list to reflect the most current fiscal year ranking. Each year, the roster of contractors will change, but POGO will keep all old rankings on a special archive page so that eventually the FCMD will include hundreds of contractors.
Tags: government contracts; computer-assisted reporting; database work; government oversight; misconduct
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Secret Money Project
The Center for Investigative Reporting and National Public Radio launched the "Secret Money Project" as a joint initiative to track the hidden money in the election season. In 2004, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisements hurt Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's campaign. In the 2008 presidential campaign, independent groups also did everything possible -- sometimes well under the radar -- to influence the election. Independent groups raised and spent tens of millions of dollars, unleashing attack ads, robocalls and direct mail across the country. Although NPR is best known as a radio network, the primary venue for the Secret MOney Project was npr.org. The project Web site featured a blog of breaking news and analysis. It serves as a searchable database of independent groups and attack ads, which provided a real-time public resource during the election and will continue to be a research tool that can shed light on future political races.
Tags: campaign finance; attack advertisements; new media; political reporting; Senate races; presidential races
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Overseas Donors
The Associated Press investigated whether any donors to presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain with foreign addresses were illegal foreign donors; whether the two campaigns were guarding against illegal foreign money by asking overseas donors for copies of their current U.S. passports as the Federal Election Commission instructs; and to what extent the two campaigns were failing to disclose basic information about donors such as their employers and occupations. The AP reviewed hundreds of thousands of donations from around the globe and found evidence that both campaigns took money first and asked questions later. The reporters found a smattering of illegal foreign donations to Obama as well as missing details in federal paperwork the law requires from Obama and McCain. During interviews with 123 donors in 11 countries, The AP found that Obama accepted illegal contributions from at least three foreigners. In one case, a Canadian noted with is donation that he was not an American; the Obama campaign accepted his money anyway, and the Canadian's note about his foreign citizenship actually appeared in Obama's campaign finance report. A donor in Australia admitted to the AP that he entered a phony passport number when making an Internet contribution to Obama. Just five donors, three for Obama and two for McCain, told the AP that the campaigns asked to see copies of their current U.S. passports.
Tags: Barack Obama; John McCain; campaign finance; illegal donations; foreign donations; campaign regulation; 2008 presidential election
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Lobbying Disclosure and Financial Bailout
Narayanswamy went line by line through the reported contributions to nonprofit organizations that honor members of Congress made by lobbyists. She found that the contributions were numerous and that incumbents received the most. However lobbyists also contributed to new candidates.
Tags: Philip Meyer Award entry; lobbyist; politics; money; campaign finance; Congress; Mark Warner; Jeanne Shaheen; John Sununu; Federal Election Commission
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Campaign Cash
"Though Oregon legislators had promised to limit the use of their campaign donations to actual campaigning during the 2007 sessions, they balked and passed no such reform during. Thanks to new reporting requirements, legislators had to begin itemizing how they spent their campaign money at all times."
Tags: legislators; campaign finances; donations; reforms