MORE ON: campaign finance

Super PACs, independent expenditure groups that can raise unlimited sums from individuals and organizations, already have begun outspending presidential candidates in the 2011 race. Use our database to see who is giving to these groups across the country.  + read more

  UPDATE, Jan. 27, 2011: Mercury Insurance provided this response to questions about its record. The 90-year-old billionaire chairman of Mercury Insurance just won’t give up. George Joseph gave $8.2 million to put an initiative on the November ballot that supporters say... + read more

Behind the legislative record of newly chosen Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff is a host of special interests that have funded his campaigns and given him expensive gifts. Last year, for example, the California Dental Association spent $124 to send Huff to a Josh Groban concert, the day after... + read more

Ranked-choice voting was the cure for what ails American politics, boosters said. Now in use in four California cities, this new voting system was supposed to increase voter turnout, stanch the flow of special interest money and encourage high-minded, positive campaigns. But it didn... + read more

Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney is dominating the money race in California, but Texas Gov. Rick Perry also has mined millions out of the Golden State in just a few months, according to new campaign finance data released this week. According to the Center for... + read more

Various interest groups jockeyed at a California Fair Political Practices Commission hearing last week as commissioners debate changing campaign finance rules in response to the Kinde Durkee embezzlement scandal, but the agency first must determine whether the changes would require new legislation... + read more

The corporate suite of Godfather’s Pizza is a presidential proving ground, argues former CEO Herman Cain. But it hasn’t been a fount of campaign donations for the Republican presidential candidate, who shocked the GOP field over the weekend by winning the party’s Florida... + read more