Government: Following the Money a Year After Citizens United

Last January, critics of the controversial Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision — which knocked down long-running restrictions on corporate campaign money in elections — envisioned an ominous scene. Anonymous corporate millions would flood into closely contested elections, elbowing out the influence of average voters, warned many (including the president).

Now, at the decision's one-year anniversary, hard data is beginning to bear out the grave forecasts, contradicting even some of the Supreme Court's own predictions. In the wake of Citizens United, outside groups in last year's election spent more than four times what they'd funneled into the previous midterm cycle, in 2006, according to a new Public Citizen report. And voters will never know where much of it came from.

Groups that didn't disclose to the FEC any information about the sources of their money spent a combined $135.6 million (or 46 percent of the total).

Nearly half of the total, $138.5 million, came from just 10 groups. And seven of those organizations — including the ambiguously named American Action Network, American Future Fund and Americans for Job Security — provided no donor information.

For more, see Following the Money a Year After Citizens United by Emily Badger, January 19, 2011 at Miller-McCune.