Junior Research Paper Notecards
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1 \"Only 40% of the wealthy think the minimum wage should be high enough to prevent full-time workers from being in poverty while 78% of the general public holds this view.\"
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Dominance of politics by the affluent and business serves to undermine economic mobility in America. As shown with this statistic, the wealthy clearly have different priorities when it comes to policy making; they don't prioritize policies for upward mobility, such as raising the minimum wage, as the majority of the general public does.
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1 \"In addition, wealthy interests have become more adept at influencing elections and the policy process through spending on legal groups, think tanks, and \"Astroturf\" advocacy organizations - an investment they have made for decades, far before progressive interests began to do so.\"
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Today, wealthy interests have more ways to amplify their voices in civic life. By contributing more money to super-PACs, lobbyist groups, and the organizations mentioned on the front of this notecard, they can sway elections and thus help shape policy outcomes.
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1 \"Yet if jobs and economic growth has clearly been the top priority of most Americans, this does not appear to be the case for affluent Americans. For example, a September 2012 survey by the Economist magazine found that respondents making over $100,000 annually were twice as likely to name the budget deficit as the most important issue in deciding how they would vote than middle or lower income respondents.\"
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Wealthy interests are heavily focused on concerns not shared by the rest of the American public. While jobs and economic growth are the top priorities of most Americans, the affluent name the budget deficit as one of the most important issues. Political priorities often seem to be dependent on class.
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1 \"While low-income Americans are voting at the highest rates since the mid-1960s, they are still underrepresented in civic life and struggle to be heard in the politic process. Low-income voters participated at far lower levels than affluent voters - as much as 30 percentage points less - in the 2008 and 2010 elections.\"
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The affluent participate more in politics and civic life; low-income Americans vote significantly less than the wealthy. This is of economic consequence for low-income Americans, as many of them depend on government assistance as well as favor policies for job creation and economic growth.
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1 \"For example, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which strongly opposes raising the minimum wage, spent at least $36.1 million directly on election activities in the 2012 cycle - a fraction of the money spent by the corporations associated with the Chamber and individuals who work for them.\"
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While the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent a significant sum of money on election activities in 2012, corporations and affluent individuals spent even more money in order to ensure that the minimum wage is not raised. While beneficial to low-income households, raising the minimum wage would impose costs on business owners and corporations. The affluent thus use their money to ensure that they will not be inconvenienced in this way.
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1 \"Indeed, after analyzing a massive volume of organized activity - including $3 billion in spending on lobbying and 12,000 congressional testimonies - the authors find that 'social welfare' and labor organization accounted for just 2 percent of all activity aimed at influencing policymaking. Corporations, along with trade associations and business groups, accounted for 48 percent.\"
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It seems that low-wage workers have very few paid advocates in Washington. While labor unions often speak up for these Americans, they spend significantly less money on lobbying than corporations, trade associations, and business groups do. Lower-income Americans are underrepresented in politics.
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1 \"This lobbying imbalance exacerbates the problem of elected officials being accountable to wealthy campaign contributors by ensuring that once in office, these officials are exposed to a constant flow of information supporting the donor class' views and positions.\"
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Business corporations or individuals associated with them spend significant amounts of money on lobbying and elections, whereas low-income Americans rarely make political contributions and certainly do not make large ones. Thus, the candidates that wealthy Americans help to get elected will most likely act upon the donor class' wishes. The affluent thus have more influence over policy outcome.
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1 \"Still, political participation rates by low-income Americans are alarmingly low, and our antiquated voting system contributes to this problem. The system is overly bureaucratic with unnecessarily restrictive registration procedures, which work to dissuade people from voting. Something as simple and common as moving within the same state jeopardizes voter eligibility due to registration requirements. Studies show that people of color, young people, and lower-income people move more often, leaving them more vulnerable to not being properly registered to vote.\"
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Low-income Americans are immediately placed at a disadvantage when it comes to political participation because of the restrictive registration procedures that are part of America's voting system. Because lower-income families are more likely to move, and moving within the same state jeopardizes voter eligibility, it is more difficult for lower-income Americans to vote. The affluent are thus able to participate more in politics and civic life.
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1 \"The Adelsons gave more to shape the 2012 federal elections than all the combined contributions from residents in 12 states: Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and West Virginia...During the 2012 election cycle, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson gave a combined $91.8 million super-PACs. It would take more than 322,000 average American families donating an equivalent share of their wealth to match the Adelsons' giving.\"
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There is a significant imbalance between the contributions made to campaigns and super-PACs by affluent vs. lower-income Americans. As a result, the affluent are able to do more to shape elections so that the outcome is in their favor (candidates who best represent the wealthy's interests will be elected, or those candidates which the affluent helped elect will champion the wealthy's interests once in office).
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1 \"The small percentage of households that benefit from a low capital gains tax rate happens to overlap almost perfectly with the 'donor class,' the wealthy individuals who comprise a tiny percentage of the public and yet account for the majority of campaign donations. Of those who contribute more than $200 to a campaign, 85 percent have annual household incomes of $100,000 or more. An annual income of $100,000 puts a household in the top 20% of income earners - the same class that receives 94 percent of capital gains.\"
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Evidently, the affluent, who contribute the most money to campaigns, receive 94% of capital gains, and benefit from a low tax rate on these gains. Their influence over election outcomes seems to have resulted in policies which lower taxes on capital gains, but not on income, which would benefit a greater number of Americans.
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1 \"Finally, wealthy interests have mastered new strategies for influencing public policy at the state level. These include introducing and financing ballot initiatives, pumping unprecedented sums of money into judicial elections, financing state think tanks and Astroturf groups, and choreographing legislative victories through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).\"
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The affluent have more influence over policy outcomes at both the federal and state levels. Specifically, at the state level, the affluent are able to employ strategies (see front of card) for influencing public policy that require large sums of money, which only they can afford.
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1 \"Perhaps most troubling is the way that wealthy interests have used their resources to block reforms aimed at reducing political inequality - or bankrolled efforts to suppress voting by low-income Americans. For example, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has repeatedly deployed its lobbying muscle to oppose campaign finance reform measures. Most recently, the Chamber helped defeat legislation that would require independent groups engaged in political activity to reveal their donors.\"
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The priorities of lower-income Americans are often blocked by the affluent. For example, the wealthy oppose campaign finance reform measures through lobbying as well as finance efforts to restrain low-income Americans from voting. The affluent use their money to suppress reforms aimed at minimizing political inequality.
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2 \"The analysts found that when controlling for the power of economic elites and organized interest groups, the influence of ordinary Americans registers at a 'non-significant, near-zero level.'
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Ordinary Americans (middle class and low-income) have almost no influence whatsoever in politics. On the other hand, as backed up by my previous source, economic elites and organized interest groups wield all the power.
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2 \"The study also debunks the notion that policy preferences of the business and the rich reflect the views of common citizens. They found to the contrary that such preferences often sharply diverge and when they do, the economic elites and business interests almost always win and the ordinary Americans lose.\"
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Preferences of the business and rich do not reflect the views of ordinary Americans. Still, despite the fact that they are not the majority, economic elites and business interests almost always get their way. Policies usually end up in their favor.
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2 \"Rich individuals and business interests have the capacity to hire the lobbyists that shadow legislators in Washington and to fill the campaign coffers of political candidates. Ordinary citizens are themselves partly to blame, however, because they do not choose to vote.\"
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This source is unlike my others in the sense that the author actually somewhat blames ordinary Americans for their lack of influence in politics. While economic elites and business corporations have the resources to hire lobbyists ordinary citizens can still vote, which should counterbalance this advantage that the affluent possess.
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2 \"America's turnout rate places us near the bottom of industrialized democracies. More than 90 million eligible Americans did not vote in the presidential election of 2012 and more than 120 million did not vote in the midterm elections of 2010.\"
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Statistics show that many eligible Americans do not vote, which the author of this source attributes to ordinary Americans' lack of political influence. Furthermore, other studies show that electoral turnout is highly correlated with economic standing, which further substantiates the claim that it is not just Americans in general that aren't voting, but specifically middle and low-class Americans. America is the world's leading democracy, so this voting deficiency should not exist.
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2 \"Average Americans also have failed to deploy the political techniques used by the elites. Political Action Committees (PACs) and super-PACs, for example, raise large sums of money to sway the outcome of any election in the United States. Although average Americans cannot match the economic power of the rich, large numbers of modest contributions can still finance PACs and super-PACs that advance our common interests.\"
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Yet again, the author subtly blames ordinary Americans, claiming that they can, in fact, do something about the lack of influence they currently possess in Washington. While the affluent are able to make huge contributions ($) to [Super] Political Action Committees (PACs and super-PACs), if enough average Americans make their own small contributions, they can still make a different because of the large number of average individuals who would be donating. All of these donations would add up, hopefully becoming at least close to the sums contributed to PACs and super-PACs.
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3 \"Our results provide substantial support for theories of Economic Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism.\"
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Here the theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy, Economic Elite Domination, Majoritarian Pluralism (in which the interests of all citizens are more or less equally represented), and Biased Pluralism (in which corporations, business associations, and professional groups predominate) are all introduced. This study provides support for Economic Elite Domination and Biased Pluralism, but not for Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism, which shows how the affluent/business definitely dominate politics.
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3 \"Most recently, Jeff Winters has posited a comparative theory of 'Oligarchy,' in which the wealthiest citizens - even in a 'civil oligarchy' like the United States - dominate policy concerning crucial issues of wealth - and income-protection.\"
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It is very interesting that the term 'oligarchy' is used to describe the current situation. An oligarchy is minority rule, and that is what domination of politics by Economic Elites, as well as the theory of Biased Pluralism, really is.
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3 \"We can note, however, that certain 'instrumentalist' Marxist theories, including the important version put forth by Ralph Miliband, make predictions resembling those of theories of Biased Pluralism: that interest groups and corporations representing 'large scale business' tend to prevail.\"
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This is scary. The fact that there can be a parallel drawn between Marxist theories and Biased Pluralism (interest groups and corporations dominate) demonstrates just how threatening this dominance of politics by the affluent/business is to America's claims of being a true democracy.
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3 \"Frank Baumgartner and his colleagues, in their meticulous examination of congressional policy making in which interest groups were active, investigated whether the magnitude of group resources that were deployed was related to outcomes across those cases. In their multivariate analyses, Baumgartner et al. found a modest tendency for policy outcomes to favor the side that enjoyed greater resources (PAC contributions, lobbying expenditures, membership size, etc.).\"
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This examination statistically shows how interest groups and business corporations, which enjoy greater resources that are no doubt contributed by the affluent, influence policy outcomes. By donating to PACs and super-PACs and lobbying, the affluent ensure that these groups bring about certain policy changes/outcomes.
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3 \"But net interest group stands are not substantially correlated with the preferences of average citizens. Taking all interest groups together, the index of net interest group alignment correlates only a non-significant .04 with average citizens' preferences!\"
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This is certainly a shocking statistic. While economic elite stands are somewhat correlated with those of average citizens, interest groups' preferences are less than 10% correlated with those of average citizens. It seems as if interest groups and businesses are more so of a problem -- an unfortunate throwback to The Gilded Age.
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3 \"By contrast - again with other actors held constant - a proposed policy change with low support among economically elite Americans (one-out-of-five in favor) is adopted only about 18 percent of the time, while a proposed change with high support (four-out-of-five in favor) is adopted about 45 percent of the time.\"
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Similarly, when support for policy change is low among interest groups (with five groups strongly opposed and none in favor) the probability of that policy change occurring is only .16, but the probability rises to .47 when interest groups are strongly favorable.\"
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3 \"In our 1,779 policy cases, narrow pro-change majorities of the public got the policy changes they wanted only about 30% of the time. More strikingly, even overwhelmingly large pro-change majorities, with 80% of the public favoring a policy change, got that change only about 43% of the time.\"
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The fact that a minority group controls policy outcomes is shocking. Despite majority preferences, the affluent and business/interest groups seem to always get what they want. Even if 80% of the public favor a policy change, they only get that change 43% of the time. Less than a 50% chance for an 80% majority is not representative or fair; this should not be the case in a country as \"democratic\" as America.
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3 \"Taken as a whole, then, our evidence strongly indicates that theories of Biased Pluralism are more descriptive of political reality than are theories of Majoritarian Pluralism. It is simply not the case that a host of diverse, broadly based interest groups take policy stands - and bring about actual policies - that reflect what the general public wants. Interest groups as a whole do not seek the same policies as average citizens do.\"
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This really says it all. Biased Pluralism is America's reality. Interest groups do not have policy preferences, or secure actual policies that reflect what the general public wants. A minority rules in Washington, despite our country's so-called \"democratic\" ideals.
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4 \"President Barack Obama in 2008 pledged to blunt the power of big money interests in politics. Instead, he's overseeing the return of a gilded age with billionaires running their own parties out of high-rise offices and candidates spending more of their time mingling with them behind closed doors.\"
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With some bias, the author of this source (Bloomberg Politics) accuses Obama of doing absolutely nothing to solve the problem of the affluent's dominance in Washington, despite one of the main focuses of his 2008 campaign being to condemn the corrosive influence of special interests. Obama said during his 2008 campaign that the country \"should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American.\" The author of this source claims that he has not acted upon this ideology at all.
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4 \"The president's abandonment of good-government groups on the issue of campaign finance will reach a new peak this week when he signs the so-called cromnibus legislation, a $1.1 trillion spending bill that will keep the government open for a fiscal year. The bill, which Obama urged Democrats to pass, also lifts campaign contribution limits to party organizations allowing fundraisers to hit up donors for just under $1.6 million in each two-year election cycle, up from the current $260,000 limit.\"
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To substantiate her claim, the author of this source explains how Obama is signing the cromnibus legislation, which lifts campaign contribution limits. Obama, the author claims, seems to be doing nothing to limit the influence of money in politics if, with this bill, he is actually making campaign finance reforms that are in favor of the affluent (which he campaigned against).
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4 \"The 2010 Citizens United case ushered in the era of super-PACs by allowing outside groups to spend unlimited amounts of money in campaigns. Earlier this year another Supreme Court decision, McCutcheon v. FEC, erased aggregate giving limits that had prevented donors from giving more than $123, 200 to congressional races in a cycle.\"
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On top of the Obama Administration supposedly doing nothing to limit the influence of money in politics, the Supreme Court has also made certain decisions that have only exacerbated the situation. The McCutcheon v. FEC decision will definitely not help to create more equal opportunities for all Americans, as it completely erased -- not just reduced -- donation limits for congressional races.
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4 \"Four years later, Obama changed his mind about the role of super-PACS, which can raise and spend unlimited sums on elections. He cast off his prior criticism of them as a distortion of the election process and sanctioned one to help him get re-elected.\"
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Despite his outward condemnation of super-PACs in the 2008 election, Obama seems to have changed his mind as he lifted his prior criticism and even sanctioned a super-PAC to help him get re-elected. I myself wonder if Obama felt that he could not win without the support of a super-PAC. If this is the case, then it seems as if campaign finance reform has proved to be very ineffective. Thus, if Obama felt the need to use a super-PAC to help him get re-elected, what does this say about American \"democracy?\" Possibly, while Obama may have wished to reduce the limit of money in politics, he understands just how difficult it is to do so.
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4 \"Obama also campaigned against the corrosive influence of special interests, signing an executive order on his first day in office decreeing lobbyists couldn't work in his administration...It then changed course in August of this year after losing a court battle and allowed lobbyists to work on government advisory boards in some circumstances.\"
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Once again, Obama seems to have changed his mind, and I still wonder if this is because his opinion has truly changed, or if he has realized that reducing the corrosive influence of special interests might result in strong repercussions. Having finally let lobbyists work on government advisory boards towards the end of his administration, he possibly could have realized that his initial dreams of limiting their influence are slightly unrealistic.
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4 \"Signing the cromnibus bill adds to the grievances. The measure will 'destroy critically important anti-corruption campaign finance laws that were enacted to protect the interest of 300 million Americans,' said Fred Wertheimer, a founding member of the community pushing for more transparency of and limits on political donations and president of Democracy 21 in Washington.\"
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This quote about the cromnibus bill shows just how much it clashes with Obama's initial hopes (2008) of reducing the influence of the affluent in Washington. The passing of this bill will eradicate certain campaign finance laws that would have protected the interest of 300 million Americans. With the destruction of these laws, there no longer seems to be any chance of providing equal opportunities to all Americans, which Obama once claimed as his goal.
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4 \"The notion of politicians talking tough on campaign-finance reform and then not delivering is a development that the 2007 Barack Obama seemed to have foretold. 'Too many times after the election is over and the confetti is swept away, all those promises fade from memory,' said Obama on a cold day in Springfield, Illinois when he announced that he was running for president. 'The lobbyists and the special interests move in, and people turn away disappointed as before, left to struggle on their own.'\"
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This is very sad to me. It seems to me that when a candidate who actually does wish to reduce the political power of the affluent is elected (in this case, Obama), they come in with high hopes of doing so, but they gradually see over the course of their term the difficulty of achieving this goal. I think this means that America has gotten to a point where it is very hard to enact change.
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5 \"Gerber found that in the average Senate race, incumbents' spending advantages gave them an estimated 6 percent increase in vote share - a significant improvement.\"
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Donations seem to directly influence election outcomes, as they give certain candidates a significant 6 percentage increase in vote share. Thus, one can conclude that the affluent and business corporations, the only groups able to afford spending so much on elections, have a heavy impact on election outcomes.
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5 \"The other problem is that it's less important how much elections cost than who is giving the money. My research found that in the 2012 election, just 0.01 percent of all Americans (31,385 donors) contributed more than 28 percent of the money spent in the election.\"
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Rightly so, he author of this source stresses the problem as one of the individuals who make donations rather than one of the overall cost of elections. The fact that just 0.01% of Americans (an extreme minority) contributed more than 28% of the money spent in the 2012 elections substantiates his claim. 1% and 28% should not go hand-in-hand. Who cares about how much the elections cost (even though the answer is not too much, this author says at one point) if 28% of their cost is being handled by only 1% of the population?
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5 \"These donors collectively play the role of political gatekeepers. It's not so much that these donors are asking for any specific favors. But they do have different views than most voters. Mostly, they are economically conservative and want less government spending and lower taxes, especially on their financial assets. And, as Martin Gilens (see Source 3) has shown, when rich people and poor people disagree, policy almost always aligns with the views of the rich.\"
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Analogies are always good to further a reader's understanding. I liked how the author described the affluent and business corporations as \"political gatekeepers\" in order to emphasize the extent of their control. A gatekeeper controls what goes in or out of a gate, so this analogy makes me think that similarly, the affluent and business corporations have a say over what policies/policy changes pass. They have different interests than the majority of Americans do, and these interests of theirs very often are reflected in policy changes/outcomes. The affluent always win.
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6 \"A series of decisions, most notably the Supreme Court's 2012 ruling in the Citizens United case, now effectively allow people and companies to spend as much as they like. Soon after the Citizens ruling experts forecast that a flood of money would follow.\"
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This author's argument contrasts with that of the author of Source 5. He explains that while it was predicted that lifting limitations on campaign contributions would increase the amount of money donated, this was actually not the case. In the 2012 presidential election, the amount of money spent underperformed many forecasts; spending has declined by 3% ($3.8 billion to $3.7 billion) in each of the last two congressional elections. While this may not seem especially significant, any sign of decline still goes against predictions. Also, this pattern should continue over the next few years, making the percent decrease even more significant.
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6 \"Over the past year, Americans spent more on almonds than on selecting their representatives in Congress.\"
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While this statistic certainly has a lighter tone, it nevertheless enables the author of this source to get his point across, which is: spending on elections has actually decreased over the past few years, because politicians cannot be bought. If Americans are spending more money on almonds, the author implies, then clearly they are no longer spending as much on elections. Still, I wonder what the numbers that make up this statement are. Did he leave them out for a reason? I am sure the amount of money Americans are spending on elections is an extremely significant digit. Perhaps we just happen to spend more on almonds. Obviously, coming from the other side of the argument this is my stance, and I am certainly somewhat skeptical of the vagueness of this fact, but I can see why the author chose it. It is very clever. I just wish I knew the numbers.
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6 \"Instead, individual contributions have increased over time merely in proportion to personal income. Excepting lower-income families, who rarely give to campaigns, Americans from the upper-middle class on up give approximately the same percentage of their income, about 0.04 precent, according to Ansolabehere's research, to politicians and political groups. Corporations also spend relatively little, and their spending has not increased substantially in recent years.\"
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The author claims that individual contributions have increased over time \"merely\" according to income, which is supposed to show that they spend relatively little/their spending has not increased significantly in recent years (similar with corporations). However, all this statistic says to me is that the affluent have more money to spend on elections.
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6 \"One reason is that buying elections is economically inefficient... 'Campaign spending has an extremely small impact on election outcomes, regardless of who does the spending,' the University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt concluded in a 1994 paper.\"
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I found this proposed idea to be very interesting: buying elections is economically inefficient, even for the affluent, because, this economist claims, money in the end does little to influence policy outcomes. Another study (2004) found that companies can't make money by investing in political campaigns; doing so has little to no impact on their share prices. It is important to look at the other side of my argument -- that politicians cannot be bought -- and this source does exactly that by explaining that it is economically inefficient to do so.
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6 \"The low level of campaign spending, however, may obscure the real power of wealthy individuals and corporations. Michael Munger, a professor of political science at Duke University, told me that companies are mostly satisfied with the status quo, so they behave more like firefighters than lie police officers. Instead of getting involved in each campaign, in other words, they sit back and wait for an alarm to ring.\"
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This source also aknowledges part of my argument, which is how incredibly powerful the affluent and business corporations are, and the overwhelming amount of influence they have in Washington. I liked the analogy the professor made here: companies are like firefighters. They only get involved when there is a certain election or policy outcome they need. They therefore spend as much as it takes to make this happen. When they do get involved, however, they are almost always successful.
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6 \"They spend around 10 times as much on lobbying, suggesting that it's less effective to influence the selection of policy maker than to influence the policy-making process itself. 'If you can give a key piece of information to a politician,' Groseclose told me, 'that seems to be more valuable than a campaign contribution.'\"
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Like the author of this source said before, low level of campaign spending is very deceiving. Here, he explains how lobbying is how the affluent use their wealth to impact election/policy outcomes. Lobbying enables the affluent to influence the policy-making process itself, which this author claims is ultimately more successful than helping to elect a certain candidate, or policy-maker. This is why there is not a significant amount of campaign spending in general, because the affluent (and business corporations) spend ten times as much on lobbying, where they can really make a difference.
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7 \"In all, this relatively small group has provided nearly a third of the more than $615 million raised by all super-PACs in the 2014 election, the analysis of the newly filed campaign reports shows.\"
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A small group of just 42 wealthy individuals in America contributed nearly $200 million to super-PACs in order to shape the recent midterm elections, which makes up nearly a third of the amount of money raised by all super-PACs in the 2014 election. How can only 42 people contribute such a large fraction of the total donations? These statistics are insane, and only further prove just how much power the affluent have; using their money to support super-PACs will certainly now impact the election outcome as well.
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7 \"'This is a handful of people who are really driving this train and driving the dialogue' of the midterm elections, said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. 'This is a harbinger of things to come' in 2016, when the presidency is at stake.\"
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This insight is scary, as it focuses on the bigger picture, and emphasizes how the current situation will only get worse (if nothing changes). Like the 2014 elections, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election could very well be controlled by the same, or similar, 42 people who have already donated an insane amount of money to politics. If nothing changes, in two years, the affluent's donations could potentially make up a fraction larger than 1/3 of total campaign spending. By that time we would be talking about a presidential election. Scary.
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7 \"In all, super-PACs have out-spent the national parties by more than $107 million through midday Tuesday, a tally by the Center for Responsive Politics shows.\"
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This is crazy! Super-PACs (funded by the affluent and business corporations) should not be spending more money than actual political parties on campaigning! It is as if wealthy individuals and business corporations are indirectly running campaigns themselves.
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7 \"The USA TODAY analysis highlights the small number of Republican-aligned megadonors who are banding together to bankroll a handful of super-PACs at the forefront of GOP efforts to win control of the Senate. Republicans need to net six seats to take the majority in the chamber in January.\"
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The affluent Republicans need something, and they will get it. This is a perfect example of the affluent/business corporations acting as \"firefighters,\" as mentioned in Source 6. They want to ensure that Republicans get six seats in order to take the majority in the chamber. This is is of utmost important to them, so they will spend whatever it takes to make it happen.
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7 A few of the 42 megadonors and the super-PACs they are associated with: Tom Steyer - NextGen Climate Action Michael Bloomberg - Independence USA J. Joe Ricketts (Republican) - Ending Spending Action Fund Paul Singer (Republican) - American Unity Pact Affluent Republicans in general - Crossroads
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Clearly, not only is a minority doing all the spending, but they also like deciding how all the money is spent. Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, says, 'I think donors are becoming more sophisticated. People are much more likely to want to decide how the money is spent.' This definitely seems to be the case. Just to name a few examples (as listed on front of card): NextGen Climate Action (Tom Steyer) emphasizes climate a change as a top priority, and Independence USA (Michael Bloomberg), makes gun control a top cause.
