TIME / Center for Public Integrity: GOP Megadonor Miriam Adelson is Winning a Medal. But are Republicans Losing the Political Money War?

President Donald Trump will today present the nation’s highest civilian honor to Miriam Adelson,  one of the Republican Party’s pre-eminent megadonors.

Trump is hardly the first president to honor a political supporter, and the White House statement announcing Presidential Medal of Freedom winners praised Adelson as a “committed doctor, philanthropist, and humanitarian,” highlighting her support for medical research and Jewish causes.

But Adelson’s Presidential Medal of Freedom — which liberals are mocking as an award for the $113 million Adelson and her billionaire casino mogul husband, Sheldon Adelson, contributed to conservative candidates, super PACs and other political committees during the 2018 midterm elections — comes as some Republicans are  fretting about the party’s reliance on a handful of aging billionaires. …

“Both major parties have a dependence on big money donors that undermines democracy,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president for policy and litigation at the nonprofit watchdog group Common Cause.