If you want to support some candidate's election, doing opposition research on their opponent can turn up interesting information. As we heard in the movie All the President's Men, there are things to be learned from following the money.
The purpose of this diary is to show how to follow the money trail on the website of the FEC (Federal Election Commission.) There's other sources like the IRS, Open Secrets, and even the Huffington Post.
There's a guy in Houston called Bob Perry, one of the nation's largest housing developers/builders. He's a big Republican donor - one of the biggest of all. He was the largest funder of the Swiftboaters in 2004 at $4.45 million, bankrolled a bunch of money into TV ads into the 2006 race in NM-01 between incumbent Heather Wilson and challenger NM Attorney General Patricia Madrid and pumped nearly half a million into the NM gubernatorial campaign of Sarah Palin-endorsed tagbagger, Susana Martinez. So I chose Bob Perry as an illustrative example in this tour of the FEC.
I'm gonna use screen shots to guide you through the process. I've added red ovals to show where you need to click, starting at the FEC home page:
Select Search the Disclosure Database:
Since we're looking for Bob Perry, rather than say who the donors to some candidate or PAC are, we'll choose Individual Search:
This is the simple search form - there's also an advanced option:
The results from this search give us a variety of responses. And it turns out our man donates from two different zip codes - one a street address and the other a P.O. Box. We find $185k donated to "Non-Federal: Exempt from Limits", beginning with:
Click through for the actual report form. There's three on the form, but the first one's not a Perry. The third one is Bob Perry's wife Doylene, who's got plenty of contributions of her own. And, remembering Tom Periello's brother and the cut propane line, I've blocked out the address:
The advanced search might tell us more:
To get contributions from Bob Perry and his wife Doylene at their home address, this is the search. Then you have to search again on the other zip code, associated with a PO Box, 77234:
Searching on Doylene Perry alone, from 1993 till now, is $256,400. Bob from 77058 is $139,400, and at his 77234 P.O. Box $185,600. The total's $535k over nearly 2 decades.
So, the totals are nowhere near the numbers - millions each cycle - I've seen thrown around in the press. New York Times (10/11/2006):
A previously unknown group led by a Republican political consultant in Houston is financing television advertisements against nine Democratic House candidates from North Carolina to Arizona. The group, Americans for Honesty on Issues, is spending more than $1 million on the advertisements, which accuse Democratic candidates of carpetbagging, coddling illegal immigrants, being soft on crime and advocating cutting off money for troops in Iraq.
...
The leader of Americans for Honesty on Issues is Sue Walden, a close ally of Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader who left Congress amid questions on ethics and fund-raising. Ms. Walden has also raised money for President Bush and served as an adviser to Kenneth L. Lay, the former chief executive of Enron who died in July.
...
Among the most active Republican 527 groups is the Economic Freedom Fund, which was formed this year and received a $5 million contribution from Bob J. Perry, a major Bush donor and an underwriter of the Swift boat veterans group in 2004. The fund is running advertisements on behalf of Republican candidates in Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Oregon and West Virginia.
Americans for Honesty on Issues? I saw ads from this outfit about the 2006 race in NM-01. Let's look them up at the FEC:
This leads here:
There's only one result here, so this is a redundant screen, but on some searches you'll have to choose a result:
Now we're getting somewhere. The Committee ID# is C30000616, and we can click through to see what reports they've submitted:
Let's look at their first filing, dated 10/10/2006, only about 3 weeks ahead of the mid-term election. They had to file it then, because they had to put money out to air the ads:
The first thing of interest here is the group's address. Thanks to Google earth, here's a picture of it - it's nothing but a rented box!
The main contact for the group is Sue Walden, based out of Houston. In fact, she's the only contact:
Ha!! Even the fax cover sheet for submitting the forms has a Houston address and phone number, which is where both Sue Walden (associate of the likes of Enron's Key Lay and Tom "The Hammer" Delay) and Bob Perry live and work. And, lo and behold!
Here's that Houston address from the fax sheet. It seems likely that's where operations are run from, despite the Metro DC-area "official" address.
Hey, look who gave Sue and Americans for Honesty on Issues some money! It's Bob Perry, who cut them a check for $2 million on September 1.
Turns out, in that first report, that's all the donations they got - total $2 million:
In another report a few weeks later, there's one more donation, another million from Perry:
That's $3 million from Perry, to one organization in one election cycle. And it's way more than everything the FEC returns for all the official donations to campaigns. Fair to say the main action isn't in official campaign committees, eh?
So, what are they spending their money on? Video production, ad buys (plus some legal and accounting.) Here's a charge for ad production for NM-01:
I'm mostly not going into researching all the names mentioned in the forms in this already too-long diary. But I do want to mention Strategy Group for Media who did the video production. They've opened an office in Austin, Texas since 2006 and renovated a historic house in Ohio to include a production studio, so they're presumably doing pretty well with their business model. You might want to take a look at their page of video samples. The portfolio they present includes a Citizens United (yeah, them!) spot against John Kerry, and a schmaltzy bit of treacle for Mike Pence. I'm sure they're busy this election cycle, too.
Sue Walden also spent money for a media buy on the Albuquerque stations:
They did several other races, too, both House and Senate in the 2006 mid-term cycle.
I'm hoping there'll be some readers of this diary who'll learn something from it. If you're already familiar with this source, perhaps you can add something. I wouldn't mind if readers went and looked something up, and reported it back in the comments.
Link to FEC filing for Americans for Honesty on Issues