密歇根新闻广播 政界人士背后的筹款

 

If you’ve been online recently, chances are you’ve seen a few political ads popping up in your social media feeds. Behind the scenes, big money is flowing to some of Michigan’s contested races. Detroit News reporter Craig Mauger has been tracking where that money ends up.

He said the best-funded contender right now is Republican John James. A super political action committee (PAC) established to help James unseat U.S. Senator Gary Peters has raised $800,000. The group is called Better Future Michigan, and the latest disclosure showed it had six donors¹. All six were members of the DeVos family.

Mauger said the amount of money being spent by the PAC is a signal of how competitive the race could be this November. When John James challenged U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow in 2018, he lost by six points. But this time around, Mauger said, James won’t have to win a competitive primary. That’s made donors more comfortable with investing in him earlier in the year.

Groups spending big money on political races certainly isn’t anything new. The 2010 U.S. Supreme² Court case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission opened the door for corporations and organizations to directly advocate for or against specific candidates. But there’s a whole other category of political spending to consider. In Michigan, Mauger explained, the state allows dark money groups to run ads as long as they don’t tell you how to vote.

“Citizens United doesn’t specifically affect those groups because they’re not considered, in Michigan at the state level here, to be election spending. They don’t fall under campaign finance disclosures.”

You can see just how influential³ the spending of outside groups is by looking at the state’s competitive U.S. House races in 2018. The race for the 8th District seat, which Elissa Slotkin won, drew $28 million in political spending. Of that, Mauger said, only $11 million came from the campaigns themselves. He expects we’ll see similar ratios in outside group vs. campaign spending in 2020’s most competitive races.

In addition to the race for U.S. Senate, Mauger said there are a few other races likely to draw significant outside funding. They include the 3rd District seat currently held by Independent Representative Justin Amash, and the 6th Congressional District where Republican Representative Fred Upton is running for reelection. Also, there are two seats up for election on the Michigan Supreme Court.

“And Michigan is kind of notorious for having very expensive state Supreme Court races. And often in those races, a lot of the money flows in from dark money, untraceable groups. And it’s very possible that we could have a large amount of outside spending in our state Supreme Court races as well.

1 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

3 influential   

adj.有影响的，有权势的

参考例句：

• He always tries to get in with the most influential people.他总是试图巴结最有影响的人物。
• He is a very influential man in the government.他在政府中是个很有影响的人物。