Thread by @Andy_Ed_Brown

I set out calculate how much money outside groups spent on independent adverting campaigns in SC's elections last year.

I came up with at least $6 million. Follow this thread for explanation of what else I found and why it matters. postandcourier.com/news/drowning-…

I quickly found out the state has very little oversight of the groups spending this money. The fine people at @MoneyInPolitics informed me South Carolina is one of only three states, along with Alabama and Indiana, that don't track any of this third-party spending in elections.

This leaves voters in South Carolina with little to no way to determine out who is financing the ads that show up in their mailboxes or on their television screens.

The so-called Super PACs registered with the FEC report how much they spend for or against a federal candidate.

But if a group is financing ads for a state or local political race its a literal free-for-all.

The Palmetto Prosperity PAC, for instance, spent money against Henry McMaster in the Republican gubernatorial runoff. But that group isn't registered anywhere.

Most of the groups that spent money on state and local races didn't file a single scrap of paperwork with the state Ethics Commission, the agency responsible for policing the state's campaign finance laws.

That's because of this 2010 federal court order: documentcloud.org/documents/5691…

The federal court decision isn't as widely known as the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in Citizens United.

But it effectively neutered South Carolina's campaign finance laws and ensured the political advertisers don't have to file any documentation with the state.

So how did I calculate how much those groups spent? I had to sort through thousands of pages of television contracts with the Federal Communications Commission. Those docs provide only a piece of what the groups spent. And they are chaotic at best. Here's a sample:

Now, some people will ask why they should care about this. The simple answer is because research has shown the ads can help sway elections. And many of these groups are not required to disclose their donors, giving the public no way to tell who's bankrolling the candidates.

I used Gov. Henry McMaster as an example in this story because he had a number of so-called "dark money" groups funding ads for him on television. As you can see in the graphic, many of those groups are currently not required to reveal their financiers.

Doubting the power of this spending? Look no further than the recent state grand jury that investigated corruption. They released a report that detailed how the trial attorneys spent $200,000 to defeat one of their opponents in the statehouse. Read here: documentcloud.org/documents/5732…

The anonymous spending by the South Carolina Association of Justice helped send former Sen. Larry Martin packing. Now another Republican is in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where the trial attorneys are getting preferential legislation sent on to the full Senate.

This issue is widespread. It's affecting local races too. My colleague @Paul_Bowers wrote this companion piece. It highlights how one nonprofit in Charleston spent 4.5 times more money than all of the county school board candidates combined. postandcourier.com/news/in-charle…

It's unlikely that lawmakers will be able to halt this new wave of political spending due to the Supreme Court's ruling in the Citizens United case. But they can require groups to disclose their donors. The Supreme Court Justices specifically said that disclosure was expected.

Some lawmakers are trying to tighten the laws. @garyclarysc plans to introduce a bill to reform the state's campaign finance rules soon. And in the U.S. House, 236 Democrats have co-sponsored the For the People Act, which would require more disclosure. congress.gov/bill/116th-con…