• Election's enigmatic biggest corporate donor has contributed $5.3 million

    In the campaign's closing weekend, President Obama and Governor raced across several battleground states to rally supporters as voters get ready to head to the polls in less than 24 hours. NBC's Peter Alexander reports.

    By Michael Beckel and Reity O’Brien, The Center for Public Integrity

    Updated 5:20 p.m. ET -- The biggest corporate contributor in the 2012 election so far doesn’t appear to make anything — other than very large contributions to a conservative super PAC.

    Specialty Group Inc., of Knoxville, Tenn., donated nearly $5.3 million between Oct. 1 and Oct. 11 to FreedomWorks for America, which is affiliated with former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey.

    FreedomWorks’ super PAC has spent more than $19 million on political advertising, including $1.7 million on Oct. 29 opposing Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat running for Congress in Illinois against Tea Party favorite Joe Walsh, a first-term incumbent.

    The buy was more than four times greater than the group’s previous largest single expenditure.

    Specialty was formed only a month ago. Its “principal office” is a private home in Knoxville. It has no website. And the only name associated with it is that of its registered agent, William S. Rose Jr., a lawyer whose phone number, listed in a legal directory, is disconnected.

    Rose released a press release Monday saying the company was created to "buy, sell, develop and invest in a variety of real estate ventures and investments." 

    In the six-page statement, Rose said he was a "disappointed, yet staunchly patriotic, baby boomer" with concerns about the administration's handling of the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, as well as the Department of Justice's botched "Operation Fast and Furious" gun-walking program. 

    Specialty is the biggest and most mysterious corporate donor to super PACs, but it is not unique.

    A new analysis by the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics shows that companies have contributed roughly $75 million to super PACs in the 2012 election cycle.

    Super PACs, which were created in the wake of the controversial U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010, can accept donations of unlimited size from corporations, unions and individuals. They spend the funds mostly on negative advertising.

    The centers’ analysis found that 85 percent of money from companies flowed to GOP-aligned groups, 11 percent went to Democratic groups and the remainder went to organizations not aligned with either party.

    First Read: Full coverage on the campaign trail

    Prior to Citizens United, corporate spending on candidate advertising was not allowed. The decision raised fears that massive donations from corporate treasuries would flood the election in 2012.

    In fact, the largest amounts have come from wealthy businessmen. However, about 11 percent of the $660 million raised by all super PACs through mid-October has come from company treasuries — mostly privately held businesses, sometimes organized as limited partnerships or limited liability companies.

    High-profile donors
    Yet a few high-profile companies haven’t been afraid to jump into the partisan fray.

    In mid-October, oil and gas giant Chevron donated $2.5 million to a super PAC close to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the Congressional Leadership Fund, which has aired a bevy of ads attacking Democratic House candidates.

    Oxbow Carbon, the energy company owned by billionaire William Koch, the lesser-known brother of conservative industrialists David and Charles Koch, and Contran Corp., the business of Republican super donor Harold Simmons of Texas, have both steered significant sums to the coffers of super PACs.

    With polls showing a neck-and-neck presidential race, NBC's Chuck Todd runs through some potential paths to presidential victory, including how it might go if President Obama won the Electoral College vote and Governor Romney won the popular vote.

    Oxbow Carbon has donated $4.25 million to GOP super PACs, making it the No. 2 corporate donor to super PACs, while Contran, No. 3, has donated more than $3 million to Republican-aligned groups.

    Another top corporate donor is a retirement community in central Florida known as The Villages — a Republican stronghold where Paul Ryan held his first campaign rally the day after GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney named him as his running mate.

    Developer H. Gary Morse created The Villages more than 50 years ago, and this election cycle, more than a dozen companies connected to Morse and The Villages have collectively steered $1.6 million to GOP super PACs. That’s in addition to the $450,000 that Morse and his wife, Renee, have donated from their personal funds.

    Notably, Morse is also the Florida co-chairman of the Romney campaign, and during the Republican National Convention, Morse’s Cayman Island-flagged yacht, named “Cracker Bay,” was the site of a soiree for some of Romney’s top donors and fundraisers.

    Other high-profile corporate donors include:

    • The Apollo Group, a for-profit education company, which gave $75,000 to the pro-Romney Restore Our Future and another $5,000 to JAN PAC, the super PAC of Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer;
    • Convenience store giant 7-Eleven, which donated $25,000 to Hoosiers for Jobs, a super PAC that supported Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., during his failed primary campaign;
    • Hamburger chain White Castle, which gave $25,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund;
    • Defense contractor B/E Aerospace, which gave $50,000 to Restore Our Future;
    • Payday lender QC Holdings, which gave $25,000 to Restore Our Future; and
    • Weaver Holdings, the parent company of the Indiana-popcorn company known for its brands “Pop Weaver” and “Trail’s End,” sold by Boy Scouts across the country, which has donated $2.4 million to American Crossroads, the super PAC founded by GOP strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie.

    Only a few other Fortune 500 companies have joined Chevron, which ranks third on the elite list behind only Exxon Mobil and Walmart, in making contributions to super PACs, and none has given as much as the energy giant.

    Caesar’s Entertainment Corp., for instance, ranked by Fortune at No. 288, has given $150,000 to Majority PAC, a group that is spending to help Democrats retain the majority in the U.S. Senate.

    “Fortune 500 companies are the least likely to be the ones who will be out in front giving publicly,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California-Irvine. “They want to have influence over elections and elected officials, but they don't want to alienate customers.”

    By category, companies in the finance, insurance and real estate sector donated more than $15 million, “general business sector” firms gave about $14 million and energy sector companies contributed more than $11 million, according to the analysis.

    Unions, by contrast, have donated about $60 million to super PACs, from their treasuries or political action committees.

    The top union donors include the National Education Association ($9 million), the United Auto Workers ($8.6 million) and the AFL-CIO ($6.4 million). All of these groups have spent heavily on Democratic candidates.

    Money 'hiding in plain sight'
    Additional corporate money may be flowing through politically active nonprofits that don’t disclose their funders.

    “I strongly suspect that most of the corporate money is hiding in plain sight in trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,” said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor at the Stetson University College of Law.

    For its part, the Chamber — which collects dues from companies such as Aetna, Chevron, Dow Chemical and Microsoft — has reported spending more than $35 million on political ads, which have overwhelmingly favored Republican politicians.

    Facts about Specialty Group Inc. are scant.

    Records filed with the Tennessee Secretary of State’s office show it registered on Sept. 26, listing 61-year-old attorney William S. Rose, Jr., as its agent. Rose’s $634,000 home — about a 30-minute drive from downtown Knoxville — is listed as its “principal office.”

    Yet the company’s money has made a huge impact.

    TODAY's Matt Lauer speaks with Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen and Republican strategist  Mike Murphy on Ohio's influence on the presidential race. They also offer opinions on what each candidate can do to seal the deal.

    After the cash infusion from Specialty, FreedomWorks produced numerous advertisements, including one that blasts Duckworth as a crony of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached and sentenced to 14 years in federal prison following a corruption scandal.

    Duckworth is a double amputee and Iraq War veteran. She headed Illinois’ Department of Veteran Affairs and later served in President Barack Obama’s U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

    FreedomWorks’ new ad features grainy footage of Duckworth and audio of her saying, “Gov. Blagojevich has charged me with the mission of taking care of my buddies, and that is what I’m doing.” But it leaves out the fact that when she said “buddies,” she was referring to other veterans and members of the military.

    FreedomWorks for America treasurer and legal counsel Ryan Hecker says the organization only supports candidates who are “ethically right.”

    Anton Becker, Duckworth's campaign press secretary, says it’s conservative outside groups who are peddling "lies."

    When asked for details about Specialty Group and the source of its contributions, Hecker expressed ignorance, and doubted that voters care about where the money came from.

    “We are in compliance with the law, and we are doing what we can to report to the Federal Election Commission,” he said. “If there’s an issue with Specialty, it’s their issue. It’s not our issue.”

    Andrea Fuller of the Center for Public Integrity contributed to this report.

    This story is a collaboration between the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics. For up-to-date news on outside spending in the 2012 election, follow our Source2012 Tumblr and the hashtag #Source2012 on Twitter.

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  • America's most (and least) charitable states

    By Michael B. Sauter, Charles B. Stockdale and Ashley C. Allen,, 24/7 Wall St.

    The holiday season is a time for giving to family and friends. It is also apparently a time to give to those in need. Nonprofits rely on end-of-year donations to meet their budgets. While most Americans will not admit it, the IRS January 1st deadline encourages charitable gifts at the end of the year.

    24/7 Wall St. identified the 10 states where Americans give the most and least to charity, based on IRS data for charitable giving.

    24/7 Wall St. reviewed IRS data compiled by the Urban Institute, which reports on the most recent annual data available from the IRS every year. According to Katie Roeger, assistant program director at Urban Institute, “Only a handful of states saw increases in average donations in 2009. The increases came from both high-income states such as New York and Connecticut as well has lower-income states like Kansas or South Dakota.”

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    The most generous states, for the most part, are also the wealthiest ones. Five of the 10 states that give the most to charity on a per taxpayer basis are among the top 10 states with the highest average income per taxpayer. There are also a number of relatively poor states that are generous, despite their low income. Alabama and Georgia have relatively low average incomes, but the average taxpayer gives more than taxpayers in other, wealthier states.

    A similar trend can be seen among the least generous states. Eight of the 10 states have incomes lower than the national average, and five of them are among the 15 states with the lowest income per taxpayer. At the same time, a few states appear to be less generous, despite their wealth. New Hampshire and Alaska taxpayers make more than the national average, and have more households that make over $200,000 than most other states, but taxpayers give less on average than other, poorer, states.

    24/7 Wall St. relied on Urban Institute’s methodology to determine the most charitable states. Using data collected by the IRS, the institute ranks each state by average charitable donation per taxpayer, highest to lowest. The number is calculated by dividing the total number of taxpayers in each state by the total charitable donations listed in itemized deductions for taxpayers.

    The IRS only keeps track of charitable donations filed by taxpayers as part of their itemized deductions. While charitable gifts that are not included in tax filings are not tracked by the IRS, they only account for approximately 15 percent to 20 percent of total annual charitable giving in the U.S each year, according to The Giving Institute. According to the Giving Institute’s Executive Director Geoffery Brown, because nonitemized deductions are not calculated at a state level, the Urban Institute’s methodology is a good proxy for the average charitable donations given per resident in a state.

    Profiles of Individual Charitable Contributions by State, the Urban Institute’s most recent report published this year, is based on IRS filings for 2009, filed in 2010. To reflect the extent to which wealth impacts charity, 24/7 Wall St. also included average adjusted gross income per taxpayer, as well as the percent of taxpayers reporting charitable donation, both from the Urban Institute. The percentage of households that earn more than $200,000 per year per state and poverty rates are from the Census Bureau. We relied on Convio’s list of the most generous cities in the U.S. for 2010, based on online donations per person, to demonstrate charitable giving on a local level.

    The Most Charitable States

    1. Utah

    • Charitable donation per taxpayer: $2,388
    • Taxpayers who donate to charity: 33.4 percent (4th highest)
    • Average income per taxpayer: $52,027 (21st highest)
    • Pct. of households earning $200,000 or more: 2.8 percent (23rd highest)

    According to the IRS, at least a third of Utah residents donated to charity in 2009 -- the fourth highest in the country. Utah is by no means the wealthiest state as income per taxpayer is just $52,027, the 21st highest in the country. Only 2.8 percent of residents make $200,000 or more. Nevertheless, the average taxpayer donated a remarkable $2,388 per person to charity in 2009, $600, or roughly 40 percent more than the next highest state.

    2. Maryland

    • Charitable donation per taxpayer: $1,661
    • Taxpayers who donate to charity: 40.8 percent (the highest)
    • Average income per taxpayer: $66,614 (4th highest)
    • Pct. of households earning $200,000 or more: 7.4 percent (3rd highest)

    Like Connecticut, Maryland is in extremely good economic shape. The state has the third-lowest poverty rate in the U.S., as well as the third-highest percentage of families that earn at least $200,000 per year. Average income per taxpayer in 2009 was $66,614, the fourth-highest rate in the U.S., and the average taxpayer gave $1,661 to charity in the same year.

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    3. Connecticut

    • Charitable donation per taxpayer: $1,517
    • Taxpayers who donate to charity: 36.3 percent (3rd highest)
    • Average income per taxpayer: $79,448 (the highest)
    • Pct. of households earning $200,000 or more: 7.6 percent (2nd highest)

    The average income per taxpayer in Connecticut is nearly $80,000 -- roughly $35,000 more than the U.S. average. The state has the fourth-lowest poverty rate in the country, as well as the second-highest percentage of households that earn $200,000 or more each year. The state’s general affluence enabled residents to give at least $2.5 billion in 2009. However, when these contributions are measured against income per taxpayer, Connecticut ranks only 26th.

    The Least Charitable States

    1. Maine

    • Charitable donation per taxpayer: $612
    • Taxpayers who donate to charity: 22.6 percent (16th lowest)
    • Average income per taxpayer: $46,683 (10th lowest)
    • Pct. of households earning $200,000 or more: 2.0 percent (6th lowest)

    Although Maine’s average income per taxpayer is relatively low -- the 10th lowest in the country to be exact -- this does not explain its exceptionally low average charity donation per taxpayer. At just $612, it is just 25 percent of the average donation of Utah’s average donation, $2,388, the most generous state. In addition to having the lowest average donation, the state also has the second lowest donation as a percentage of taxpayer income.

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    2. Vermont

    • Charitable donation per taxpayer: $662
    • Taxpayers who donate to charity: 21.4 percent (14th lowest)
    • Average income per taxpayer: $48,698 (16th lowest)
    • Pct. of households earning $200,000 or more: 2.8 percent (24th highest)

    From 2004 to 2009, the average charitable contribution per income tax return in Vermont decreased 4.8 percent, from $695 to $662 -- the second smallest amount in the country. Worse still, the state has the 14th lowest percentage of taxpayers who donate to charity. While the state is among the poorest as a measured by average income, the state has one of the lowest poverty rates in the country.

    3. West Virginia

    • Charitable donation per taxpayer: $662
    • Taxpayers who donate to charity: 13.1 percent (the lowest)
    • Average income per taxpayer: $44,895 (3rd lowest)
    • Pct. of households earning $200,000 or more: 1.4 percent (the lowest)

    Just 13.1 percent of West Virginia’s taxpayers reported making any kind of charitable donation in 2009, by far the smallest percentage in the U.S. In comparison, 40.1 percent of Maryland residents reported at least some form of monetary contribution to charity in that year. In its defense, the state is extremely poor, with the third-lowest average income per taxpayer, the fifth-highest poverty rate, and the lowest percentage of households earning $200,000 or more -- just 1.4 percent.

     Click here to read all of America’s most (and least) charitable states.

     

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