Rep. Jim Renacci (R-OH)

TNR explains:

Renacci’s biggest single source of support, however, has been Suarez Corporation Industries, a large direct-marketing company in North Canton that sells a motley mix of products (space heaters, collectible coins, jewelry, and more). Last year, The Toledo Blade noticed that many large contributions were being made to Renacci by Suarez’s non-executive employees. Seventeen employees, plus six spouses, had given to Renacci, Mandel, or both, with most giving at the maximum allowable level, for a total of $100,000 for each candidate. (Company founder Benjamin Suarez had himself given the maximum to both candidates.) This sort of pattern raises red flags: Federal law bars employers from reimbursing employees for giving to a certain candidate—a method employers could use to evade limits on their own giving.

While companies often encourage employees to “bundle” contributions to candidates who support their interests, it is illegal to coerce employees to donate or to reimburse them for their contributions. Many of the donors had no history of political giving and lived in modest homes. One of the Suarez employees, copywriter Michael Blubaugh, joined with his wife Donna to give $10,000 to Renacci and $10,000 to Mandel. She told TNR that she had been interviewed about the donations by the FBI and that the donations were all made freely, out of their savings. She did acknowledge that, though $10,000 of the money was donated in her name, her husband “made the decision,” not she.

The company has denied reimbursing employees and has refused to “respond to gossip, rumors, or innuendo concerning its operations.”

But if indeed it turns out these were improper contributions, the Mandel and Renacci campaigns may find themselves having to refund a combined $200,000.

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been meeting with Democratic colleagues to discuss legislation to require disclosure for outside group political spending, he told The Hill yesterday.

“I’ve been having discussions with Sen. [Sheldon] Whitehouse [D-R.I.] and a couple others on the issue,” the one-time campaign finance reform advocate said, noting talks have been ongoing for a couple of months and that he wants any legislation to be “balanced and address the issue of union contributions as well as other outside contributions.”

McCain, who famously co-authored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 with then-Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), has been noticeably AWOL on these issues since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling.

In 2010, after the high court ruled, McCain declared campaign finance reform dead and essentially washed his hands of the cause, telling CBS’s Bob Schieffer, “I don’t think there’s much that can be done.”

Without McCain’s help, Democrats created the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act. The bill — which sought to ban campaign expenditures by foreign-owned corporations and to require disclosure of the true sources of the money behind independent expenditures and electioneering communications — passed the House in June of 2010. When the bill came to the Senate, McCain refused to back the measure. Decrying provisions in it as “a bailout for the unions,” McCain attacked the bill as tougher on corporations than unions.

McCain joined a filibuster and the bill failed to achieve cloture by a single vote. Rather than offering amendments to the bill or working behind the scenes with sponsors to reach an agreement, McCain was the deciding vote to kill the bill without even allowing an up-or-down vote.

Now, with an even more closely-divided Senate and Speaker John Boehner running the House, the climb for any disclosure legislation will be steep.

If McCain is serious about rejoining the campaign finance reform fight, it is welcome news. But thanks to his earlier obstruction, he may find his efforts to be too little, too late.

Our Guest Blogger is Amy Rosenbaum, a Senior Fellow with the Center for American Progress Action Fund

Last night, a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit rejected a stay of a district court ruling on March 30, 2012, which essentially required groups running so-called “electioneering communications” ads to begin disclosing the donors who funded the ads. The original ruling, by Judge Amy Berman Jackson, struck down a Federal Election Commission (FEC) regulation that permitted groups to all but eliminate the disclosure of donors behind “electioneering communications.” A briefing on the appeal of the ruling at the DC Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to be completed by early August and the oral arguments are expected sometime in September.

Why is this case a win for disclosure?

Prior to the March 30th ruling, any group running an “electioneering communication,” or a broadcast advertisement that refers to a clearly identified federal candidate proximate to an election, generally did not have to disclose the funders of that advertisement, thanks to regulations promulgated by the FEC in violation of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA). As a result, groups like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS spent more than $1 million on broadcast advertisements during the last election cycle without revealing a single donor.

Recently, Crossroads GPS notified the FEC that it spent $500,000 on electioneering communications advertisements targeting President Obama in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, and Missouri, again without disclosing a single donor. The Crossroads GPS ad blames President Obama for the Solyndra bankruptcy, among other things. According to their tax returns, Crossroads GPS received two $10 million donations between June 1, 2010 and the end of 2011, but the identity of these donors has remained a secret, even though their money has been funneled into campaign advertisements.

Thanks to last night’s ruling, groups like Crossroads GPS making electioneering communications 30 days before a primary or 60 days before a general election will now have to disclose their donors. These groups will either have to set up a separate bank account to fund their ads – and disclose all the donors of $1,000 or more to that account or alternatively disclose all the donors of $1,000 or more to their organization.

So if Crossroads GPS goes after the President again in September, we’ll know who’s really behind the ads. And that is a win for disclosure.

That is, of course, unless the court reverses the lower court when it convenes to give the case a full hearing later this year. Although a majority of the three judge panel that considered whether to grant the stay rejected this plea, Judge Karen Henderson dissented from this rulling. The D.C. Circuit is notoriously conservative, and has several judges who are at least as far to the right as Henderson, so it remains to be seen whether last night’s decision has staying power.