In each recent election cycle, hundreds of organizations together spent hundreds of millions of dollars in independent political expenditures that fueled advertisements and other communications supporting or opposing particular political candidates.
And that was before the brave new world of the 2010 election cycle.
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations, unions and trade associations could fund independent expenditures straight from their treasuries -- something previously illegal.
Given the growing prominence of independent expenditures, the Center for Responsive Politics has created a new sectionon OpenSecrets.org dedicated to tracking and exploring them.
Source: Center for Responsive Politics / OpenSecrets.org
See Also: A Very Brief Definition of Independent Expenditures? (via OpenSecrets.gov)
Independent expenditures are ads and other communications that expressly advocate the election or defeat of specific candidates and are aimed at the electorate as a whole. Under federal rules, these expenditures must be made completely independent of the candidates, with no coordination, and they can be made by an individual, by an organization's PAC and -- post Citizens United -- by corporations directly.
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