This is quite a strange situation:
Independent groups that don't disclose their donors have put nearly $1 million behind campaign ads for Senate banking committee chairman Richard Shelby, who faces upstart conservative John McConnell and three other challengers in Alabama.
Citizens for a Sound Government, a Colorado-based social welfare nonprofit, is the lead group backing Shelby. The conservative group has spent more than $400,000 on its own to fund ads for Shelby and contributed another $400,000 to fund Citizen Super PAC's pro-Shelby ads. In addition, One Nation, a nonprofit connected to a former aide of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has spent $140,000 on radio ads to support the five-term senator.
Since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened the door to unlimited corporate, union and individual spending on elections, the amount of untraceable money supporting political campaigns has soared.
While super PACs must disclose their donors, nonprofits like Citizens for a Sound Government do not. Usually, they direct this undisclosed dark money toward the most competitive races -- but, as Shelby’s campaign shows, unknown donors are supporting even relatively safe incumbents.
“The problem with dead-end disclosure situations is we have no idea who is behind it and no way to find out,” said Jordan Libowitz, communications director for the campaign finance watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
It's not clear who's funding the pro-Shelby ads, but tax forms show that Citizens for a Sound Government is connected to Republican party insiders working to influence government policy.
Citizens for a Sound Government was created in 2011 by Gentry Collins, James Anderson and Alan Philp, founders of the “grassroots” lobbying firm CAP Public Affairs. All three are also former Republican National Committee staffers.
You might be asking yourself why a conservative Republican incumbent running in a deep red state needs Super PACs to spend that much money to guarantee his re-election? This might explain it all:
Donald Trump is the odds-on favorite to win tomorrow’s Alabama Republican primary. But Super Tuesday also brings the first round of congressional primaries in 2016, and what Trump has unleashed is giving heartburn to GOP incumbents who will be on the ballot with him.
Richard Shelby has been in Congress since the 1970s and faced no significant challenge since getting elected to the Senate in 1986. Yet the 81-year-old has spent millions of dollars in an effort to receive more than 50 percent of the vote tomorrow so that he can avoid a runoff with an unknown, 33-year-old challenger.
In a previously unreported development, the National Republican Senatorial Committee quietly deployed many staffers from its Washington headquarters to pull Shelby across the finish line. The senator is saturating the airwaves with commercials that portray him as one of the biggest thorns in President Obama’s side and attacking his opponent – a retired Marine captain – as “a con man.”
After the surprise primary defeat of Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) in 2014, Shelby has left nothing to chance. But the continuing success of Trump’s outsider message has given additional anxiety not just to his campaign but also to members like Kevin Brady, the House Ways and Means Committee chairman who is hustling to fend off his own primary challenge in Texas tomorrow.
“Our polls look good, but you never know,” Shelby said in a brief interview before hopping into a BMW SUV after an event here. “There’s frustration everywhere. That’s why I go all out.”
Shelby’s colleague, U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R. AL) has already endorsed Trump. There’s no record of Shelby jumping on the Trump train and he thinks he doesn’t have to jump on the Crazy Train to hold on. We’ll see.