Campaign Finance: More of the Same

Two recent news notes on campaign finance and funding.

First from Mike Allen's Political Playbook, Dec. 8th,:

BEHIND THE CURTAIN - New Koch: big enough to elect a president? Piece by piece, the magnates build the machinery - Mike Allen and Ken Vogel: "The Koch brothers and their allies are pumping tens of millions of dollars into a data company that has built state-of-the-art profiles of 250 million Americans ... The Koch network also has developed in-house expertise in polling, message-testing, fact-checking, advertising, media buying, dial groups and donor maintenance. ... 'The Koch operations are the most important non-party political players in the U.S. today, and no one else is even close,' said a top Republican who was involved in the last eight presidential campaigns.

"The least-known vehicle for the Kochs is a for-profit company, i360, that has spent more than $50 million on building data bases and tools over the past four years. 'Right now, we're talking about and btouilding things that you won't see in 2016, because it's not going to be ready until 2018,' [said i360 President Michael] Palmer. ... i360 links voter information ... with any interaction the voter may have had with affiliated campaigns and advocacy groups. Then comes estimated income, recent addresses, how often a person has voted, and even the brand of car ...

Second, also from Politico, "Tea party fumes over campaign finance plan," by Tarini Parti and Anna Palmer, 12/11/2014.  There is a provision tucked into the spending bill that passed the House today:

The provision would increase the amount of money a single donor could give to national party committees each year from $97,200 to as much as $777,600 by allowing them to set up different funds for certain expenses. The change would be a huge boost for party committees that have faced steep challenges in recent years from well-funded outside groups.

None of this is good news.