Interest Groups Pour $80M into Midterms

It seems the political passion that’s swept voters’ hearts this election cycle has also swept their pocketbooks. The Washington Post reports that interest groups are spending five times as much on this year’s midterms than they did on the last congressional elections. Groups outside the two main political parties have doled out $80 million so far, according to an investigation by the paper, compared to the $16 million spent in 2006. In addition, groups have been far more secretive than in the past about where the money is coming from—leading the Post to call the upswing “a spending frenzy conducted largely in the shadows.” Most of the money has been spent by conservatives, and the surge is largely the result of recent Supreme Court rulings, allowing corporations and interest groups to spend on politics.