The Independent View: Corporations Secret Way To Contribute to Candidates

This post is from an article in The Huffington Post Politics section by Paul Blumenthal.

The story starts on June 14, 2012, someone created a corporation in Ohio called American Dream Fund LLC. Six months later, this corporation made a $250,000 contribution to a super PAC called Advancing Freedom Action Network, which supports the re-election of Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R).

The actual person behind American Dream Fund LLC remains unknown. The limited liability corporation was created by an incorporation firm called CT Corporation System. The LLC's listed agents are simply hired incorporators working for CT Corporation System.

The contribution itself was hard to detect. Advancing Freedom Action Network, which was registered with the Federal Election Commission in August 2012 by an ally of Husted, Kevin DeWine, failed to file reports electronically, as required by law. The American Dream Fund contribution appeared only on a paper report, where it was apparently missed by the FEC staff and automated software. It is not noted on the FEC's webpage for the super PAC or in other campaign contribution databases across the Internet.

The American Dream Fund contribution may be one of the largest and hardest to trace of the many corporate donations made to super PACs in the current election cycle, but it is not alone.

By the end of June, corporate contributions to super PACs, that is, contributions directly from corporations and not from their executives or in-house super PACs, had reached $10.9 million for the entire 2014 election cycle, according to a review of FEC records by The Huffington Post. This remains just a small percentage of the more than $300 million contributed to all super PACs over the same period of time. But a number of these groups relied heavily on corporate contributions, including from the difficult-to-trace LLCs.

In the 2014 election cycle, 40 super PACs have received at least $50,000 from corporations, with 13 of these groups getting at least half of their contributions from corporate entities and 27 getting at least 10 percent. The vast majority of the groups receiving substantial portions of their funds from corporate coffers support a single candidate or are linked to a single elected official.

Advancing Freedom Action Network is one of the six super PACs receiving more than 90 percent of their funds from corporations. Five of these back just a single candidate, while the sixth, Freedom Partners Action Network, is part of the billionaire Koch brothers' political network.

CLICK HERE to read the entire article and view the chart of contributions.