Conservatives are also fond of a certain Supreme Court decision that blew up campaign finance laws and opened the door for unlimited — and often undisclosed — donations to super PACs, the campaign organizations that played a marked role in the 2010 midterm elections and have already had a substantial impact on the 2012 Republican primary.

With that in mind, ThinkProgress asked several “Founding Fathers” who attended last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference what they thought about the rise of super PACs and if it they intended for elections to one day be dominated by small groups of wealthy individuals and corporations that could funnel huge sums of money into the electoral system. Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson all told ThinkProgress that super PACs were never their intention, as did a 19th century veteran of the fight for the Alamo. James Madison, meanwhile, said he anticipated the rise of super PACs, but that the domination of money in politics would “destroy the country.” Watch it:

The roundtable topics included education, energy, financial institutions and markets, defense/homeland security/foreign policy, health care, and infrastructure. Unsurprisingly, the panels were chaired and hosted by a few prominent Republican politicians and several wealthy investors and industry insiders. They roundtable leaders and industry finance chairs included:

– L.E. Simmons (energy), who has has “guided the investment of over $1.6 billion in private equity capital used to build energy service and equipment companies.”

– Patrick Durkin, managing director of Barclay’s Capital and a top Romney lobbyist-bundler.

– Richard Breeden, a hedge fund manager and a former SEC chairman under President George H. W. Bush.

– Tom Farrell, president and CEO of Dominion Power.

– Former Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO) (infrastructure), now a “distinguished fellow” at the right-wing Heritage Foundation.

– Former HHS Secretary and ex-Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt (R), now head of a “health care intelligence business.”

If the number $10,000 seems familiar, perhaps it was because he offered to make a bet with then-primary opponent Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) for that amount in a disagreement over his previous positions on federal health insurance mandates. Now, Romney is asking the wealthiest 1 percent to make a similar-sized bet on him. And, according to one of the event’s co-chairs, the event raised $1.5 million for Romney’s campaign.

– Zachary Bernstein

This Thursday, the PAC will host its second annual Scotch & Cigars fundraiser, according to an invitation posted by the Sunlight Foundation. A $1,000 PAC or individual contribution buys a spot on the event’s host committee. Just a $50 check “entitles you to a cigar and open selection of whiskey and wine, as well as good company with fellow conservative guests” in executive suite #3320 of Washington’s Marriott Wardman Park. To encourage healthy behavior by young people, the event has a $20 discounted rate for anyone under age 30.

Attendees will have to dress the part; the required dress code for the event is “lounge suit for men, cocktail dress for women.”

The “good company” includes several powerful political players: anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, twice-defeated former Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R-MD), and current U.S. Reps. Dan Benishek (R-MI), Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), and Bob Latta (R-OH). Despite the health dangers of tobacco and hard liquor, the event has the apparent seal of approval from Buerkle (a nurse) and Benishek (a medical doctor and surgeon).

There is just one hitch: the hotel is 100 percent smoke-free so the cigars will have to be taken out to the balcony (the current weather forecast for Thursday predicts an overnight low of 28 degrees) or remain unlit.

Donors might want to note, however, that in the 2010 campaign, the One Nation PAC spent more of its funds on fundraising consultants ($32,837) than on actual contributions to candidates ($20,299), according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The super PAC Restore Our Future has fundraised $30 million to Romney to the White House. The super PAC spent $800,000 on pro-Romney ads, but it has flooded his Republican opponents with attack ads totaling 17 million. Restore Our Future’s war chest comes from under 200 donors, 85 percent of whom had already donated the maximum amount to the Romney campaign.

Romney’s campaign has raised at least $500,000 from the oil and gas industry, according to Open Secrets. But his super PAC allows special interests another chance to exert their influence. While many of the super PAC’s donors come from the financial sector, coal, oil, and gas have also flocked to Restore Our Future:

Coal mining:
– Oxbow Carbon:$750,000

– Oxbow President Bill Koch: $250,000

– Consol Energy: $150,000

Oil and Gas:
– Ballard Exploration: $25,000

– Bassoe Offshore President Jonathan Fairbanks: $25,000

– Murphy Wade of Murphy Oil Corporation: $15,000

– Joseph Grigg of American Energy Operations: $5,000

– Total for oil, gas, and coal: $1,220,000

In total, coal, oil, and gas companies contributed at least $1.2 million to Restore Our Future’s $18 million haul in the last half of 2011. The coal company Oxbow Carbon, alone, contributed $1 million, including a $250,000 donation from billionaire Oxbow CEO Bill Koch — the brother of oil billionaires Charles and David of Koch Industries.

With Perry out of the race, Romney has received more money from mining and oil than any other presidential candidate. The pro-Perry super PAC “Make Us Great Again” took in an outstanding $1.3 million from oil companies and executives during the last six months of his run.

Although Restore Our Future has no “formal” ties to the candidate, the donations reflect Romney’s right pivot on energy and climate concerns. The Massachusetts governor that once supported regulations on coal pollution, has since questioned whether carbon is even dangerous. In addition to becoming a climate denier, he now blasts government support for cleaner energy — despite creating a state green fund as governor.

You can expect Romney to sound suspiciously like his rich polluting backers, as dirty money continues to flood Restore Our Future and Romney’s campaign stash.

Ignacio E. Sanchez (credit: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars)

While political candidates are not legally required to identify bundlers — volunteer fundraisers who collect bundles of campaign contribution checks for the campaign — a 2007 law requires that federal candidates disclose the names of any registered lobbyists who bundle large amounts for their campaign. On Tuesday, Romney’s campaign reported that 14 lobbyists combined to raise more than $1.6 million last year in bundled contributions.

One of those lobbyist-bundlers was Sanchez, who raked in $86,700 for the former Massachusetts governor. This major fundraising raises questions about the level of access and influence Sanchez — and by extension, his corporate and international clients — would have in a Romney administration.

Unlike the other 13 identified lobbyist-bundlers, Sanchez is a registered foreign agent. A form filed Monday with the U.S. Department of Justice reveals that he beyond just representing the interests of those domestic clients, Sanchez also represents the embassy of the United Arab Emirates and the presidential campaign of Dominican Republic former president Hipolito Mejia.

Mejia is seeking to reclaim the job he held from 2000 to 2004 and lost in a landslide defeat, amid a national economic crisis and financial near-collapse.

The United Arab Emirates has been among the stronger U.S. allies in the Middle East and is a key player in OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. But the interests of the two countries don’t always converge and groups like Human Rights Watch have raised concerns about the country’s suppression of free speech and political disagreement.

In the past, Sanchez also represented the governments of Turkey and Ethiopia. Current federal lobbying disclosure forms show that he lobbies Congress and the administration on behalf of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide (which includes the Sheraton, W, and St. Regis brands) and Diageo North America, the makers of Guinness, Jose Cuervo, Captain Morgan, and dozens of other alcoholic beverages.

President Obama does not accept campaign contributions donated or bundled by federal lobbyists or foreign agents. In last week’s State of the Union address, he called for a ban on bundlers lobbying saying “Let’s make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can’t lobby Congress, and vice versa — an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington.”

But Romney — who has not voluntarily disclosed any other bundlers — is apparently all too happy to accept money from those who are paid to influence policy decisions on behalf of special interests, foreign and domestic.

Charles and David Koch

The most recent meeting attracted two newcomers: Sheldon and Miriam Adelson. Between them, the Las Vegas casino-owner and his wife have reportedly plowed $10 million into a pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC and have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republican party committees and candidates already this cycle.

A Center for Public Integrity report suggests this may just be the beginning:

Adelson has recently indicated strong interest in backing other GOP allied groups, say fundraisers familiar with his giving. In 2010, Adelson wrote a seven figure check to Crossroads GPS, a non-profit advocacy group that doesn’t have to disclose its donors publicly which was co-founded by GOP super consultants Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie.

The story quotes unnamed fundraisers “familiar with Adelson,” the American Crossroads super PAC and the 501(c)(4) Crossroads GPS, as expecting Adelson to “pump a few million dollars more” into one of the Crossroads groups this year, to help defeat President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. They also say Adelson is also considering writing a check to the American Action Network, former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN)’s non-profit, to help preserve the Republican majority in the U.S. House.

Between the Kochs and the Adelsons, voters around the country should expect to see what voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida have seen in recent weeks: a seemingly unending stream of dishonest attack ads, paid for by billionaire-funded super PACs and tax-exempt organizations.

Of the 127 Restore Our Future donors who had also given $2,500 contributions to Romney’s campaign, two gave the super PAC $1 million contributions (hedge fund investors Julian Robertson and Paul Singer), two gave $50,000 contributions (home builder Bob Perry and venture capitalist Steven Webster), and another five gave $25,000 contributions. In all, about $9 million came from donors who had “maxed out” to Romney.

The majority of the “double donors” were venture capitalists, real estate developers, bankers, and investors — with those contributors accounting for about $6 million.

Restore Our Future has already spent a stunning $17 million on expenditures attacking Romney’s primary opponents — making them the most active super PAC to date — in addition to over $800,000 on activities to support the Romney campaign.

Federal campaign laws, enacted around the time of the Watergate scandal and indexed to inflation a decade ago, limit the amount an individual can contribute to each candidate for president, Senate, or the U.S. House of Representatives. For the 2012 campaign, that limit is $2,500 per election.

But with the Speechnow.org ruling in 2010, those same individuals may now give as much as they want to independent-expenditure-only “super” political action committees, like Restore Our Future PAC, on top of the $2,500. Since the super PACs claim they will not “make contributions, whether direct, in-kind, or via coordinated communications” to federal candidates, donations to them do not count toward federal limits.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL)

According to his latest disclosure, more than $173,000 of Bachus’ total haul came from the financial sector. Over the past quarter Bachus received at least:

– $144,805 from employees of and PACs for banks, financial services firms, and venture capitalists. This includes $7,500 from Wells Fargo’s corporate PAC, $5,000 from U.S. Bancorp’s PAC, $5,000 from UBS Americas’ PAC, and $5,000 from payday lender Advance America’s PAC.
– $15,810 from insurance industry political action committees and from insurance agents for State Farm Insurance Co.
– $12,500 from real estate PACs and individual real estate agents and realty investors.

In 2010, Bachus candidly admitted that he believes Washington’s role is “to serve the banks.” As chairman, he has sought to cut foreclosure prevention programs and to repeal many of the the key reforms in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Bachus, now in his tenth term in Congress, has also been in hot water for his financial investments. In November, CBS News’ 60 Minutes reported that one day after receiving a private briefing from the nation’s chief economic officials on the extent of the financial crisis in 2008, Bachus bet that the stock market would tank, “buying option funds that would go up in value if the market went down” and netting about $28,000. After the report broke, Bachus attempted to seize the high ground by moving a bill to ban the sort of insider trading he was accused of, but Republican leaders blocked his effort. One colleague reportedly said at the time that House Republicans were “not going to cover Spencer’s ass by passing a half-baked bill.”

Bachus is term limited as chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and has said that he won’t seek a waiver to keep the seat in the next Congress.

Proposed Keystone XL pipeline map

$644,400 went to 35 of those senators who have endorsed this measure. Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Rob Portman (R-OH) received the most, with $43,500 each. Manchin received $2,500 and the rest went to Republicans.

The most active companies and trade associations lobbying for the pipeline over the last three months were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ConocoPhillips, the Business Roundtable, Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, Deere & Company, TransCanada Pipelines, and Devon Energy.

Of those, the PACs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, Deere & Company, and Devon Energy all made contributions to federal candidates over the past three years.

Here are their totals:

Methodology: January 30, 2012 search of Center for Responsive PoliticsPAC data for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ConocoPhillips, the Business Roundtable, Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, Deere & Company, TransCanada Pipelines, and Devon Energy. For active PACs for those companies and trade associations, tallied all PAC to campaign committee payments over the 2010 and 2012 cycles to U.S. Senators supporting the Keystone XL legislation.

In fact, as McClatchy News noted, Romney has received more in donations from employees of the nation’s five biggest banks than all of the other presidential candidates combined:

Employees at the five largest U.S. banks by assets, including Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co., had given Romney about $600,000 through the first three quarters of 2011, according to the most recent filings available from the Federal Election Commission.

The second-largest recipient of bank employee contributions, President Barack Obama, had far less, about $200,000, the analysis showed. The Republican presidential hopeful with the second-highest total, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, dropped out of the race in mid-August.

Romney received more from employees of those top five banks than all the other candidates combined.

So far, the financial industry has made 69 percent of its donations in the presidential race to Republicans, a trend that, if it continues, “would mark the most skewed to one party the spending has been in more than two decades.”

The financial industry’s support for Romney is unsurprising, as he has made attacking the Dodd-Frank financial reform law a centerpiece of his campaign. He has even likened financial regulators to “gargoyles.” While he has paid lip service to needing some sort of financial reform, he has yet to propose any plan of his own.

Sheldon Adelson

A ThinkProgress analysis reveals that the super PAC spent over $6 million on “independent expenditures” in South Carolina attacking Gingrich’s primary foe, Mitt Romney. That exceeded the combined independent expenditures in the Palmetto State primaries by every other Super PAC (about $5.3 million in total).

Now, Nevada reporter Jon Ralston is reporting Adelson’s wife will give Winning Our Future another $5 million check tomorrow. This cash flow seems much needed, as the group has not yet reported any spending in Florida. Other groups have spent about $6.4 million on Florida independent expenditures and this contribution will allow the pro-Gingrich SuperPAC to instantly achieve almost immediate parity. That state’s Republican primary comes next Tuesday.

At this pace, the Adelson family could outspend Gingrich’s competition by themselves.

Super PACs have raised more than $30 million just three races into the 2012 presidential race, according to the website opensecrets.org, run by The Center for Responsive Politics. TV advertising alone in South Carolina, which is voting Saturday, is estimated at $12 million, or nearly $27 per voter when calculated using the 2008 Republican primary turnout numbers. [...]

Scalia said the blame for this type of system shouldn’t fall on the Supreme Court, which he said decides merely whether the system is legal under the U.S. Constitution. Instead, he said the ones who have to change things are the politicians who created the system and the voters who often reward the candidates who spend the most money.

“If the system seems crazy to you, don’t blame it on the court,” Scalia said, during a discussion in front of South Carolina lawyers that lasted for more than an hour.

Scalia’s attempt to shift blame is, frankly, ridiculous. While America’s pre-Citizens United campaign finance laws were far from perfect, they were at least adequate to prevent a handful of corporations from buying and selling elections. Congress passed a ban on corporate money in politics 65 years ago. The Supreme Court, with Scalia casting the deciding vote, killed that ban. If it wasn’t for the Supreme Court, the ban would still be in place.

Moreover, while Citizens United is best remembered for opening the floodgates to corporate money in politics, it also led to the creation of “Super PACs” which allow wealthy individuals and corporations to spend unlimited sums of money on shadow campaigns intended to elect particular candidates. Shortly after Citizens United was handed down, a key lower court decision used it to declare so-called “independent expenditures” a free for all for the very wealthy. Billionaires are still forbidden from giving unlimited money to a campaign, but donations to “independent” groups such as Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney’s Super PAC are entirely unbound.

To the extent that Citizens United still allows some leeway to regulate campaign finance, the fact that Congress has not done anything to enact new regulation after the Supreme Court blew our existing system up can be explained with just one chart:

That’s the top 20 spenders on the 2012 election — 17 of whom are conservatives or Republicans. In other words, Scalia’s action in Citizens United doesn’t just mean a flood of corporate and other money, it means that this money overwhelmingly favors one political party. Republican lawmakers are more than smart enough to figure this out, and that gives them all the incentive they need to block any attempt to fix the mess Citizens United created.

Since January 21, 2009, the Citizens United case has had a major effect on money in politics. Already in this year’s Republican presidential primary, we’ve seen a number of freespending super PACs play a major role in the race, including the pro-Mitt Romney Restore Our Future PAC, financed in large part by hedge fund billionaire John Paulson, and the pro-Newt Gingrich Winning Our Future, for whom casino mogul Sheldon Adelson recently cut a $5 million check. In fact, the total amount of money spent by outside groups thus far has outpaced spending by the campaigns themselves.

Despite the proliferation of super PACs and massive uptick in outside spending, former Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty still sees our campaign finance laws as too restrictive.

ThinkProgress spoke with Pawlenty following Thursday night’s debate in Charleston, South Carolina. In a turn of phrase that would give George Orwell satisfaction, the former Minnesota governor defended the Citizens United decision as “leveling the playing field.” Pawlenty also said he supported allowing people to make unlimited donations directly to candidates – individuals are currently permitted to give no more than $2500 – rather than having to do so indirectly through third party groups:

KEYES: Saturday is the two-year anniversary of the Citizens United decision. Do you think that’s going to help defeat President Obama in the fall?

PAWLENTY: What it’s going to help is free speech. The history of campaign finance reform is difficult and checkered for this reason. Every time they try to contain speech, it pops up somewhere else. This is just me talking personally, I’m not speaking for Mitt’s position on this. The better position is to allow full and free speech in whatever form, but have instant disclosure.

KEYES: You’re talking completely unlimited donations?

PAWLENTY: We have that now, it’s just a question of where the money gets pushed to the third party groups. This leveling the playing field to some extent because in the past, unions in particular and other interest groups had an advantage in the old system. Now the playing field’s being leveled a little bit.

KEYES: Just to clarify, you’re talking about allowing, for instance, a millionaire to be able to give a million dollars directly to Mitt Romney’s campaign?

PAWLENTY: Right now, with super PACs and third party groups, there’s essentially unlimited giving to various aligned super PACs and groups. The point is, the United States Supreme Court has spoken. They have said we’re going to have free speech as it relates to political contributions. The First Amendment should be respected and protected, but I think we should also have full disclosure.

Watch it:

Helped in part by the Citizens United ruling, the right-wing Koch Brothers have pledged to spend at least $200 million to defeat President Obama in November. Other outside spending groups will undoubtedly follow suit, just as they did in a major way during the 2010 election:

This massive influx of unregulated campaign spending will almost certainly be the new normal as wealthy individuals and corporations find new ways to influence elections, helped in large part by the now-two year old Citizens United decision.

Two years ago today, when the Supreme Court issued its Citizens United ruling, one bright spot was that the majority explicitly endorsed the constitutionality and necessity of disclosure rules that inform voters who paid for the political ads they see. “Disclosure is the less-restrictive alternative to more comprehensive speech regulations,” they affirmed.

Federal statutes require that for all significant “independent expenditures” and “electioneering communications” — the two major classifications for political expenditures made by outside groups unaffiliated with political candidates — the names and addresses of large donors must be identified.

But the FEC, through its rulemaking process, gave these groups a loophole. They said that the identities of donors behind the outside spending must be identified, but only if the money was specifically earmarked for the political expenditure. This means that a secretive right-wing group like the Karl Rove-linked Crossroads GPS need only identify the funders who pay for their attack ads if those donors explicitly say the money should be used for attack ads. Few do.

In April, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) asked the FEC to close the loophole for “independent expenditures” and filed a lawsuit challenging the loophole for “electioneering communications.”

Last month the six FEC commissioners killed — on a 3-3 vote — a motion to begin consideration of Van Hollen’s suggestions. By law, the agency may have only three members of any political party. By tradition, the president chooses three commissioners and the other party’s Senate leader chooses three. The three Republican appointees — Commissioners Caroline Hunter, Donald McGahn II and Matthew Petersen — were the three “no” votes. The same trio also made headlines last month when they took the view that even coordination between Super PACs and candidates might not qualify as coordination between Super PACs and candidates.

The lawsuit is still pending.

Because of these loopholes, virtually none of the funders behind the Super PAC attack ads in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina will be disclosed until well after the voters there have cast their ballots. And the funders behind 501(c)(4) attack ads may never be known.

So while it was the Supreme Court’s majority that opened the floodgates for corporate money in our elections, it is the deadlocked FEC that is keeping voters from even knowing where that money comes from.

Senate candidate Ted Cruz (R-TX)

Cruz, a former Texas state solicitor general, is seeking the Republican nomination for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison’s (R-TX) open senate seat. Although his two primary opponents have raised much more in campaign cash to date, every “independent expenditure” reported for the race, to date, has been aimed at helping Cruz’s candidacy or hurting his opponents.

Yesterday, Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-SC) Senate Conservatives Fund reported spending $500,000 on a pro-Cruz independent expenditure. Likewise, the conservative Club for Growth, Club for Growth Action, and former Rep. Dick Armey’s (R-TX) FreedomWorks have spent more than $634,000 on pro-Cruz ads and over $468,000 on ads bashing primary opponent Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for being a “moderate.”

So what’s so exciting about Cruz that far right groups are willing to pay top dollar to put him in the Senate? Cruz excited anti-government groups with his unconstitutional proposal for a backdoor method of state nullification of federal laws and the Affordable Care Act. He co-authored a white paper advocating a radical reading of the Constitution that would lead to Medicaid and most federal education programs being declared unconstitutional, and he supports an equally radical plan to privatize much of Social Security.

Moreover, if Cruz is elected, he would quickly find several new friends who share his inability to distinguish the Constitution from the Tea Party’s policy preferences. Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT), Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Rand Paul (R-KY) have all pushed even more radical efforts to declare much of the Twentieth Century unconstitutional.