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But while the voting records of Congressional Progressive Caucus members are better on democracy reform issues compared with those outside the caucus, that might be setting the bar too low. Aaron Scherb, the legislative affairs director for the watchdog group Common Cause, told The Intercept that 17 of the 28 members of Congress who earned perfect scores on his organization’s “Democracy Scorecard“ are in the Congressional Progressive Caucus. But there are 78 representatives in the caucus, meaning that nearly 4 in 5 caucus members actually failed to earn a perfect score.

"If you can get certain policies to succeed in Wisconsin — such as voter suppression, voter ID laws, extreme partisan gerrymandering, the destruction of the public employee unions, the right-to-work — then you can do it in almost any state in the country," Jay Heck, executive director of public interest advocacy group Common Cause in Wisconsin, said. "So I think that's one of the reasons why you see so much money pouring into Wisconsin and into Walker's campaign."

“Zooming out to 30,000 feet, I doubt the new broader donor disclosure standard will have any impact on big independent spenders,” said Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, a group that advocates for greater disclosure in campaign finance. “There’s an easy end run around these new broader disclosure requirements, and big spenders will undoubtedly take advantage in order to lawfully evade donor disclosure.”

An annual assessment by the Center for Political Accountability shows many S&P 500 companies are spending less on direct donations to political races and election-related causes than in recent years. Additionally, those S&P 500 companies that are still making political donations are moving toward more transparency. Changing political winds and growing publicity risks have created a climate in which major corporations are finding it’s safer to cut direct political ties. Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause points out that with valuable interests and influence to protect, corporations are still impacting political outcomes in other ways.

“Everyone should be asking why is this big money coming to both sides,” Bob Phillips, executive director of the government watchdog group Common Cause North Carolina said, adding that such donations leave the impression of “trying to buy access and influence.”

“That is a lot of money and pretty unprecedented for Nebraska fundraising,” said Gavin Geis, executive director of Common Cause Nebraska, a nonpartisan government accountability group. “That’s D.C.-level fundraising… It goes to show what a deep-pocketed candidate can do to buy influence.”