Andy Kroll

Reporter

Andy Kroll is Mother Jones' Dark Money reporter. He is based in the DC bureau. His work has also appeared at the Wall Street Journal, the Detroit News, Salon, and TomDispatch.com, where he's an associate editor. He can be reached at akroll (at) motherjones (dot) com. He tweets at @AndrewKroll.

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Obama for America's Magic Number: $1.4 Billion

—By Andy Kroll

| Mon Dec. 10, 2012 9:02 AM PST

Barack Obama.

There is no disputing it: Barack Obama and his campaign juggernaut are the kings of political fundraising.

Obama for America, the president's own campaign, raked in $1.4 billion in campaign donations during his two bids for the White House, according to the Huffington Post's Paul Blumenthal, who crunched the numbers. That $1.4 billion tally—which does not include spending by the Democratic National Committee or the other groups that backed the president—is the biggest presidential haul in history.

During the 2012 campaign cycle, when you include Obama's campaign and the Democratic groups backing him, Obama and his allies topped GOP nominee Mitt Romney and his GOP backers in the fundraising fight. Team Obama banked $1.2 billion for the 2012 campaign cycle, making the president the first billion-dollar candidate in history; Team Romney pocketed $923 million. By comparison, Sen. John McCain, the GOP's 2008 presidential nominee, raised a little more than a third of that, $368.1 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

McCain's haul was so small compared to Romney's because the Arizona senator accepted taxpayer-provided public funding in 2008. Romney opted out. As did Obama during both of his campaigns. Which leads to one of the big takeaways from the 2012 campaign season: Parsing the spending and fundraising tallies for 2012, it's obvious that the current public financing system—funded by taxpayers, capping the amount of money presidential candidates can raise and spend—is horribly outdated and badly in need of a reboot. The way it works now, it's dead as dust.

Obama is the first billion-dollar presidential candidate. But until public financing gets a facelift, he's unlikely to be the last.

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Michigan's Own Scott Walker-Style Showdown Is Coming

—By Andy Kroll

| Fri Dec. 7, 2012 10:12 AM PST

Union members rallied at the state capitol to protest sudden right-to-work legislation backed by GOP legislators and Gov. Rick Snyder.

The GOP's crusade against unions is taking center stage in Michigan, a stronghold of organized labor.

On Thursday night, with the blessing of Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, Michigan's Republican-controlled Legislature passed a trio of so-called "right-to-work" bills targeting unions in the public and private sectors. The bills would ban unions from collecting dues from nonmembers to pay for wage and benefits negotiations that benefit unionized and nonunionized workers. Right-to-work laws have the effect of draining labor unions of money and members, as seen in the 23 states where such laws are on the books. Snyder says he will sign the measures into law when they arrive on his desk, despite saying last year that right-to-work could divide the state. Michigan would become the 24th right-to-work state.

[Read more in the MoJo blog]

Will Big Oil Keep Its Subsidies in a Fiscal-Cliff Deal?

One of America's most profitable industries banks billions in subsidies—but there's little talk in Washington of putting these handouts on the chopping block.

—By Andy Kroll

| Fri Dec. 7, 2012 4:03 AM PST

Democrats and Republicans are duking it out in Washington over a deal to avert the slew of spending cuts and tax increases—the so-called "fiscal cliff" you've heard so much about—that will take start to effect on January 1. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have argued that "everything should be on the table" in negotiations toward a deal that trims the nation's debt and avoids the cliff. Yet notably absent from the debate over what to cut and what to spare in a deal are the tens of billions of dollars in subsidies, tax breaks, and other perks for the hugely profitable oil industry.

That silence begs the question: Will Big Oil's subsidies go untouched in the fight over a fiscal-cliff deal?

[Read the full article]

Stephen Colbert to America: I'm "Honored" and Ready to Serve in the US Senate

—By Andy Kroll

| Thu Dec. 6, 2012 1:41 PM PST

Stephen Colbert has his opening. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), the tea party icon, announced Thursday that he will retire from the US Senate in January, leaving Republican Gov. Nikki Haley the task of handpicking DeMint's immediate successor. A Colbert for Senate Twitter account, @ColbertforSC, sprung up almost immediately, and fans have called for Colbert, the author of such classics as I Am America (And So Can You!) and America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't, to replace DeMint in the hallowed halls of Congress.

Brace yourselves, Colbert Report fans: Colbert, who has made no secret of his desire to hold higher office, says through his publicist that he's ready and willing to step up for his home state. "Stephen is honored by the groundswell of support from the Palmetto State and looks forward to Governor Haley's call," his personal publicist, Carrie Byalick, writes in an email to Mother Jones.

Colbert first tried to run for president in 2007, and then again in 2012, when he boisterously announced his candidacy for the "United States of South Carolina." In between those failed campaigns, Colbert started his own super-PAC, Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and his own dark-money nonprofit, Colbert Super-PAC SHH!. In all seriousness, his money-in-politics skits lampooned the ragged state of campaign finance regulation better than anyone. He bagged a Peabody award for his skewering of the state of political money today.

Report: Elizabeth Warren Gets a Banking Committee Seat

—By Andy Kroll

| Tue Dec. 4, 2012 10:00 AM PST

Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren.

Sen.-elect Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—the visionary behind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the former bailout watchdog, and no friend of Wall Street—has reportedly snagged a seat on the powerful Senate banking committee, which writes the regulations for the banking industry.

The Huffington Post, citing four sources "familiar with the situation," says Warren has locked up a seat on the committee. Politico confirmed the news soon after. Warren's spot on the committee must still be approved by the Senate Democratic caucus, which is expected to happen. The news comes after Mother Jones reported last month that big banks and their lobbyists in Washington were pushing to keep Warren off the committee.

Senate Democrats had two open seats to fill on the banking committee, with the upcoming retirements of Sens. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) and Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.). Warren will get one of those seats. The other, the Huffington Post reports, will go Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

Warren's appointment tees up a potentially vicious battle between her and the big banks. (She has a better relationship with smaller, non-New York banks, as I've reported in the past.) Multiple Senate aides said last month that Wall Street had been lobbying hard to deny Warren a seat on the committee; one aide told me, "Downtown"—shorthand for Washington's lobbying corridor—"has been going nuts" to keep Warren off.

Going nuts clearly wasn't enough.