Secret donors fuel pro-Democratic Party campaign powerhouse

The spending proved generally unsuccessful as Democratic incumbents lost in races across the country, including Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina, where the nonprofit group was the most active.

The opacity of Patriot Majority USA’s funding contrasts with many Democrats’ rhetoric decrying secret money in politics and organizing to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The ruling, in part, freed certain nonprofit groups to spend massive amounts of money on politics while withholding information about their contributors.

The biggest donor to the nonprofit gave $8.25 million, according to the new filing with the Internal Revenue Service, which lists the amounts received by Patriot Majority USA last year but not the donors’ names.

Six other unknown donors gave seven-figure sums. One gave $2.7 million. Another gave $2.2 million. One gave $1.2 million. And three gave $1 million.

About three-dozen other donors gave at least $100,000.

Other government filings indicate that some of Patriot Majority USA’s financial support came from labor unions.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, for instance, gave Patriot Majority USA $750,000 in 2014, according to documents it submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Meanwhile, the American Federation of Teachers states it gave Patriot Majority USA $550,000 last year, according to its Department of Labor filings.

Filings further show that the National Education Association gave Patriot Majority USA $50,000 last year and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters gave $10,000.

Campaign finance filings submitted to the Federal Election Commission also show that Democratic super PAC Senate Majority PAC contributed about $35,000 to Patriot Majority USA last year.

In the past, Patriot Majority USA has also received money from trade groups such as the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare and the American Health Care Association.

Varoga, in an emailed statement, defended Patriot Majority USA’s work.

“Our c4 has been recognized by the IRS and has a very well-defined, multi-year, bipartisan primary purpose, which is to work on economic solutions and encourage job creation throughout the United States,” he wrote. “The political work that we do is secondary to the larger economic mission of the Patriot Majority Action Plan.”

Patriot Majority USA’s significant spending on elections in 2014 drew fire from political observers on both the left and right.

“Under current law, that is unfortunately what is allowed, so groups on both sides of the aisle do what is allowed,” said Lisa Gilbert, director of consumer group Public Citizen's Congress Watch division.

“It’s part of the reason why we need to fight to change the rules,” Gilbert continued, noting that her group has supported a push for the IRS to adopt more stringent rules on how much electoral activity such nonprofits can engage in. “Until we do so, money will flow in the directions it can.”

Conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell — who vehemently disagrees with Public Citizen’s call for new limits on nonprofits’ political spending — also criticized Varoga’s group.

“I don’t have an objection to an organization spending 40 percent of its money on political activities,” Mitchell said.

“What I do object to is the hypocrisy,” she continued. “Democrats are total hypocrites on all of this.”

This story is from the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative media organization in Washington, D.C. Read more of its investigations on the influence of money in politics or follow it on Twitter.