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Dark money is political spending designed to connect candidates to the voters but where the source behind the money isn’t known. Already this year, more than $6.3 million in dark money has been spent on the U.S. Senate race in Nevada, according to the organization OpenSecrets.
Wednesday, June 8, 2022 | 2 a.m.
One television ad proclaims this candidate will keep Nevada safe and get the state “back on track.” At the end of the advertisement, there is notice saying the message is not from the candidate, but an outside group not affiliated with the candidate.
And nationally, a nonprofit group aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is preparing to spend $43 million on similar ads targeting five competitive U.S. Senate seats.
These are examples of “dark money,” political spending designed to connect to the voters, and where the source behind the money isn’t known.
The money passes through a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization and comes from unknown donors, said Kenneth Miller, an assistant professor of political science at UNLV who focuses on campaign finance and elections.
In the 2020 general election, it was reported that $1 billion in dark money was spent nationally attempting to influence voters. In the presidential election, Donald Trump received more than $22 million from dark money groups, and Joe Biden receiving more than $8 million, according to OpenSecrets.
“Voters don’t know who it is that’s supporting different candidates,” Miller said, “and that’s useful information for a lot of voters. If you have some candidate who’s coming out with policy positions that favor some industry, it’d be worth voters knowing if that candidate is receiving a lot of financial support from that industry. And so dark money can be a way to disguise that.”
Dark money has again flowed into Nevada for the midterm election cycle. OpenSecrets reports more than $6.3 million in dark money has been spent in this year’s Nevada’s U.S. Senate race.
One known dark money group is the American Exceptionalism Institute, a 501(c)4 organization. It gave money to political action committees, or PACs, which then donated to candidates in Nevada, such as Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo’s gubernatorial campaign.
In 2020, American Exceptionalism Institute donated $985,000 to the Stronger Nevada PAC, and in February it donated $1 million to the Better Nevada PAC. In September 2021, Better Nevada PAC donated $10,000 to Lombardo’s campaign. The campaign declined to comment and directed the Sun to reach out to the Better Nevada PAC.
Former Lt. Gov. Mark Hutchison, who is president of Better Nevada PAC and chairman of Lombardo's campaign for governor, said the group and Stronger Nevada PAC had been “straightforward about their mission.” Hutchison then went on to accuse Democrats of setting up political action committees that masquerade as conservative operations that seek to confuse voters and interfere in GOP primaries for the Democrats’ preferred candidates.
Mallory Payne, a spokesperson for Nevada Democratic Victory, which works to get Democratic candidates elected and has been targeting Lombardo, did not address the accusations lobbed by Hutchison but said that Lombardo had not been transparent and had relied on dark money and special interests to “bankroll his candidacy.”
But Lombardo doesn’t have any control over that, Miller said. If a dark money group contributed to a PAC that then contributed to Lombardo, “that’s not under his control,” he said.
“He has no say over what happens at that PAC,” Miller said.
Political action committees can be great for candidates because they can spend a ton of money on ad campaigns, Miller said. The Better Nevada PAC, for instance, runs many pro-Lombardo advertisements.
“But the downside is that they’re inefficient team members because they don’t communicate with each other,” Miller said. Federal law makes it illegal, in fact, to coordinate directly with a candidate. But the PACs can coordinate with each other, and sometimes candidates are at risk of not liking what exactly the money is going toward.
One such example is in Colorado, where a PAC ran ads for a candidate but later started running advertisements on abortion. The candidate did not want to focus on abortion but on other issues like the environment, Miller said
Jeremy Hughes, a consultant for Better Nevada PAC, said Democratic groups have spent millions of dollars in both the governor and attorney general races in which the source of the funding has not been disclosed.
“They are spending more dark money on this election than the Republicans are,” Hughes said, “so maybe they should clean up their own house first before coming over to ours.”
He pointed to the Patriot Freedom Fund,which has spent millions attacking Lombardo and other Republican candidates without disclosing its donors. The treasurer of the fund, Truman Fleming, did not return a request for comment.
At the federal level, a candidate’s campaign cannot accept corporate donations, Miller said. But in Nevada, businesses, social organizations, firms, partnerships and unions can directly contribute to candidates in state-level races.
It is more transparent which businesses donate to candidates, and Nevada voters can compare those donations with the candidate’s policy positions that may favor an industry. Las Vegas casinos, for instance, have donated to both Gov. Steve Sisolak, the Democratic incumbent, and Lombardo in hopes that either candidate will protect their interests in the governor’s office.
Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, who is seeking the Republican nomination for Nevada’s U.S. Senate seat, has received donations from PACs dedicated to oil and gas companies. The incumbent, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, has received money from PACS dedicated to renewable energy.
The Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC received $14.3 million from Majority Forward, a dark money group, according to OpenSecrets.
Majority Forward has spent more than $2.1 million on television ads and about $250,000 on Facebook ads so far this cycle. It funded $74,000 in advertising for Nevada Unido, a Facebook page that has promoted Cortez Masto, according to OpenSecrets.
John Burke, communications director for Laxalt’s campaign, said in a statement to the Sun that 30 organizations have spent over $10 million on Cortez Masto’s behalf, including $2.9 million from the dark money giant Majority Forward. He also pointed to a group that supports Cortez Masto called the Somos PAC, which is tied to a dark money network and has spent $2 million on ads attacking Laxalt during the Republican primary.
Federal law prohibits contibutions made directly or indirectly by or from foreign nationals in any federal, state or local election. Yet foreign money influencing the 2016 election was a great concern.
A 501(c)4 can be set up and foreign money can easily be routed into that organization, and there’s almost no way anyone would know about it, Miller said.
There have been attempts to rein in dark money at a federal level, but they haven’t gone far, Miller said. The Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections Act (DISCLOSE Act) was introduced in 2021 and aims to amend the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 to provide for additional disclosure requirements for corporations, labor organizations and super PACs.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has introduced the bill every Congress since 2012. The efforts began in the wake of the 2010 landmark decision in Citizens United vs. FEC, in which the U.S. Supreme Court reversed decades-old campaign finance restrictions and allowed corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections. The decision led to a dramatic expansion of PAC financing of elections.
Candidates can pledge to refuse corporate PAC money. Barack Obama did so in his successful 2008 run for the White House.
According to End Citizens United, a liberal organization looking to end dark money spending, current senators who refuse corporate PAC money include Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., Michael Bennet, D-Colo. and Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. Cortez Masto is not on the list of senators who refuse corporate PAC money, but she is listed by the group as a candidate who champions campaign finance reform.
In 2021, Cortez Masto joined three other senators in introducing the Democracy for All Amendment, which would limit dark money in politics.
“The American people deserve a fair and transparent political process, and overturning Citizens United and getting dark money out of politics are vital first steps,” Cortez Masto said in a statement.
