Dark Money & Disclosure

Using philanthropy for campaign donations is illegal. But an exception for some nonprofits has allowed Democratic billionaires like Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg to remain anonymous when they want to play politics.

Mailboxes and airwaves are alive with ads pushing for and against specific candidates.But even though transparency in campaigns is supposed to be a core tenet, you only get to know who is financing the efforts on some of them.That’s because nonprofit organizations run by shadowy people and funded in darkness are running many of the ads. That’s different than if a candidate’s committee or political action committee does the same thing. Funders of the latter are public and open to examination.