Individual Contribution Limit in U.S. Elections Raised to $4.9 Million

TRNN reporter Thomas Hedges takes a look at two new provisions in the 2015 spending bill that drastically increase individual limits and prohibit President Obama from using executive action to shed light on dark money in campaigns.

January 5,


Transcript: THOMAS HEDGES, TRNN PRODUCER: On December 16, President Obama signed the omnibus spending bill for 2015 into law, representatives immediately decried key provisions within the bill, including one provision that serves as an insurance policy for Wall Street derivatives trading.

ELIZABETH WARREN, U.S. SENATOR (D-MA): The original bill that is being incorporated into the House's spending legislation today was literally written by Citigroup lobbyists, who, quote, redrafted the legislation.

HEDGES: But one measure that didn't get as much attention was a change to individual campaign financing rules.

JAY RIESTENBERG, RESEARCH ANALYST, COMMON CAUSE: It's supposed to be in confusing, and it's inherently confusing, so people don't understand it. And that's why it was tucked away in the fourth of the last page of the sixteen hundred bill, and it was done in the middle of the night in what some people are calling a cigar-filled bathroom. And it took a while for anyone to own up to who actually wrote it, and we still actually don't know.

HEDGES: Jay Riestenberg is a research analyst at Common Cause, which is a nonpartisan government watchdog organization. It used to be that individual contributions to party organizations in any given election cycle were limited to $259,000. Now that amount is 500 percent more, standing at $1.5 million.

in full: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12922