Party Symbols
And the highest bidder is ......
Campaigns have to file quarterly reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) regarding their fundraising and spending.
Campaign Finance 101
Campaign finance rules restrict individual donations directly to a candidate to $2,700 during the primaries and $2,700 during the general election.
Following the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United decision, outside groups can raise virtually unlimited funds to spend on election activities. These groups are usually organized as Political Action Committees (PACs or Super PACs) and can raise money from individuals, corporations, labor unions, etc. PACs may promote a particular candidate, but they are not allowed to coordinate with the candidate or campaign. This restriction is easily worked around. During the current election cycle, the Never Back Down PAC funded numerous activities for candidate Ron DeSantis that are normally funded by the candidate's campaign. Whether any of this crossed the legal line is open for debate.
A third component is "dark money." These are funds given to nonprofit organizations that can receive unlimited donations from corporations, unions, or individuals. The funds can be used to influence elections and, until a recent court decision, the nonprofits were not required to disclose their donors. It is uncertain how quickly this court decision will take effect or how widespread it will be applied.
Here are a few sites worth checking out.
California Campaign Finance (CA Secretary of State)
"Power Search is a privately developed open source search engine which accesses raw data of state-level campaign contributions ranging from 2001 to the present as reported to the Secretary of State’s CAL-ACCESS campaign finance filing and disclosure system."
OpenSecrets.org (Center for Responsive Politics)
OpenSecrets.org is a nonpartisan guide to money’s influence on U.S. elections and public policy.
Federal Election Commission
The FEC is an independent regulatory commission to oversee elections. Candidates and outside groups that raise and spend funds for election related activities must file reports with the FEC. These reports are available for public perusal. You can also search for contributions by individuals.