News Clips

“The recent oil boom in New Mexico has unleashed more than an ocean of oil and gas money: It has unleashed a gusher of campaign contributions, a flurry of lobbyists offering expensive dinners and a mammoth public relations offensive financed by one of the largest and most powerful professional associations in the state,” Common Cause Executive Director Heather Ferguson said in a statement Tuesday.

Bloomberg’s campaign presents “novel challenges” because it was funded entirely with his own money, according to Beth Rotman, campaign finance expert at Common Cause, a nonpartisan good government nonprofit. This makes the $18 million donation through his campaign look like a new way to evade the contribution limits put in place to deter corruption and ensure equality in political campaigns. “It’s very troubling that Bloomberg appears to be evading the federal contribution limits of an individual to a party committee,” Rotman said. Common Cause is considering filing a complaint with the Federal Election Commission challenging this donation.

"As long as Team Bloomberg doesn't talk to Team Biden about what it's doing -- how it's spending Bloomberg's fortune to support Biden -- it's not subject to any limits at all," said Paul Ryan, a veteran campaign-finance lawyer who is now vice president for policy and litigation at Common Cause.

Paul Ryan, vice president for policy and litigation at Common Cause, said he saw the vows by candidates at the start of the race to disavow big money as more about messaging than substance. “This is where we have been at in every cycle since super PACs were born,” he said. “I was skeptical of the promises at the outset. I thought whoever the Democratic nominee is will be supported by huge outside money.” Even Sanders is getting help from outside groups. The super PAC affiliated with the National Nurses United union spent heavily on his behalf in 2016 and may do so again. And Common Cause has filed a federal complaint against the nonprofit Sanders helped found, Our Revolution, charging it with violating existing laws — weak as they are — requiring disclosure of donor identities and spending related to helping a candidate.

“Bloomberg can keep his offices open and his staff employed--all to support Biden--with Bloomberg continuing to pay for it, but the work needs to be done independently of the Biden campaign,” Paul S. Ryan of nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause told ABC News. “In other words, Bloomberg can run a pro-Biden super PAC, using his campaign office space and campaign staff. Bloomberg's pro-Biden effort staff couldn't coordinate it's spending with the Biden campaign.” “What Bloomberg can not do is simply merge his team and offices with the Biden campaign, with Bloomberg continuing to pay for the operations. That would be an illegally-large in-kind contribution,” he said.

We showed these tax records to Paul Seamus Ryan of the watchdog group Common Cause. "When casinos are giving money to one of these groups right before an election that the casino has a vested interest in, the governor's race, and then the DGA or the RGA spends the money in that race, that's a pretty clear connection."