Campaign Finance

Chuck Neubauer of The Washington Times reports that “superlobbyist” Paul Magliocchetti “is now the focus of a federal investigation into whether he made illegal campaign contributions by reimbursing people, or ‘straw donors,’ who made contributions in their names to his favored candidates – helping the lobbyist avoid federal limits on his personal donations.“

Politicians and their supporters in California have routinely funneled money through county-level political party committees around the state, avoiding strict limits on campaign giving and hiding the source of millions in donations, a California Watch analysis shows. By using county parties as middlemen, both Democrat and Republican donors can contribute far more money than the…

“During his first nine months in office, President Obama has quietly rewarded scores of top Democratic donors with VIP access to the White House, private briefings with administration advisers and invitations to important speeches and town-hall meetings,” reports Mathew Mosk of The Washington Times.  Additionally, according to internal Democratic National Committee documents, access to top…

Companies that received multimillion-dollar deals with CalPERS, California’s giant public pension fund, pumped more than $300,000 into a union campaign fund overseen by Sean Harrigan while the long-time California labor leader was one of the giant pension fund’s board members from 2000-2004, The Sacramento Bee’s Andrew McIntosh reported in an examination of the deals.