In collaboration with American Public medias marketplace, frontline investigates money and politics with the groundbreaking big money 2012 initiative. The Supreme Court put elections in the hands of corporations and big money. It doesnt corrupt the process; its necessary for the process. What does that say about democracy, tugh . It says that this is completely irrelevant information that only some leftwing nut jobs care about. Marketplaces kai ryssdal uncovers startling new evidence of outside Interest Groups influence on campaigns. I found these buckets of documents. We have boxes and folders full of candidate signatures being faxed to western Tradition Partnership. Im literally not going to comment on them. I would say we had grounds to proceed with an investigation and put people under oath. How secret big money is changing american Politics State by state. Tonight frontline, big sky, big money. Frontlinis made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. And by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major funding is provided by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. Additional funding is provided byhe pk fountion, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. And by the frontline journalism fund, with a grant from the orfalea foundation. Its time to send a message to washington stop spending money we dont have. How can we afford this tax . Big corporations and the richest two percent. Whats at stake is the future of america. It costs us, and taxes us, too much. American future fund is responsible for the content of this advertising. Ryssdal i knew right away this wasnt going to be the usual story on Campaign Finance. One of the first surprises was finding myself driving the dark streets of denver with attorney alan schwartz, who shared kind of a strange experience. It was early january of 2011, and my wife, who had just been reelected to the Colorado State senate, goan email from someone who claimed to have some information about a group that had sent out some attack ads against my wife. Ryssdal the guy said he had some documents, and a week later. I heard from this individual again. Still not identifying himself, but telling me that if i wanted to see the documents, then i needed to get them that day. Ryssdal had to be that day. Had to be that day. Ryssdal schwartz agreed to meet the guy who said the documents were stashed in a safe house that he would take him to. I didt know where were going. For the halfhour that we drove from denver to littleton, he told me his story. Mark it. Ryssdal mark seibel. Seibel, right . Seibel, yes. Basically. Ryssdal the man with the documents was mark seibel, a convicted felon whod spent most of his life living on the streets. One night while staying at a known drug house near denver. I found these buckets of documents. Ryssdal documents, he says, a friend found in a stolen car. I found pages and pages of li a particular politicians name, like, you know, would be written, you know, like 20 times on a piece of paper and there was, like, then thered be one that was cut out and an arrow pointing to it and it would say use this one. You know, a lot of cut and paste things going on. I took pictures of all the mailers laid out. I took pictures, kind of grouped things into categories. Somebody had transported them from montana to here and it was p. O. Box to p. O. Box. There was just something wasnt right about it. It was a very weird story that mark was telling me. Everything about it was odd and peculiar. Ryssdal so this is the house . This is the house. The gentleman who was living here who was keeping the documents opened the door. He was blind. He reaches out, though, and grabs me by the arm and he pulls me into the house. And i immediately see that there are several boxes, four or five very large containers on the floor. I could tell that Law Enforcement would find them very important and interesting and i was determined to get them in the right place as quickly as i could. Ryssdal the boxes did turn out to be both interesting and important. And they eventually ended up in the right place. Here, with the commissioner of political practices, in helena, montana. But thats a story of secrets and money and politics that well come back to. First, i need to tell you whats been going on in montanas elections. I got to butte on the fourth of july. On the surface, there was the usual hoopla and fanfare. Marching bands, flag twirlers, shriners, mermaids and, of course, politicians of every stripe. Buttes candidate right here. Reelect pat noonan. Hes my son. Ryssdal but theres Something Different about this years campaign. There are new Hidden Forces at work. Nowhere is this more evident than in a barnburner of a race that may well decide which Party Controls the u. S. Senate. With the stakes so high, this race is attracting big money from lots of outside groups. The incumbent fighting to hold onto his seat is democrat jon tester. And he says hes not happy about all this outside money. Were going to see a ton of money spent in montana. Were seeing money earlier, more of it, and with more regularity. And i think were in the process right now of building a Campaign Infrastructure thats going to be very difficult to pull down as time goes on. Its getting to be big, big, big money. Ryssdal big money is at the heart of this story. Two years ago, the Supreme Court changed the landscape of Campaign Finance with a controversial decision in a case called Citizens United. It let corporations and unions spend unlimited amounts of money in campaigns. But to avoid corruption, the court said the money cant go directly to candidates. It has to go to independent outside groups. The key word here being independent. One supporter of citizens uni is testers opponent. See yall later. Ryssdal sixterm republican congressman denny rehberg. You dropped it. Train come through, youre dead. If you believe in the First Amendment, which is free speech, then you Better Believe in political free speech. Whats more important to this country than political free speech . Because its what guides us. Its what. It allows us the opportunity to govern ourselves. Over a thousand left limbs in iraq and afghanistan. But congssmarehbg voted against additional critical funding for prosthetic. Jon tester votes to raise taxes. Ryssdal its not hard to find political free speech in montana today. You see it all the time in what seems to be an endless run of political attack ads. And voted to raise the debt limit six times. Ryssdal the amount of money being spent is amazing. It could be 20 million on broadcast television. How do you like them apples . In the state of montana. Ryssdal so long as i know where the apples are coming from, im all right. Thats the question. I dont know where the apples are coming from. Right. We dont know where the apples are coming from and thats the problem here. Ryssdal david parker is a professor at Montana State university. Hes been tracking the tv ad spending in this senate race. It is incredibly difficult to actually figure out where this money is coming into this state and then let alone to figure actually who is actually giving the money. Ryssdal parkers Research Shows that a lot of new groups had gotten into the Montana Senate race this summer. So youve been out at every television station in this state, right . Nearly, yes. Ryssdal almost. Asked for their records. You looked it up. You added up all the money. What do we know about where that money is coming from . Well, yeah. 6. 8 million was spent on broadcast television in the senate race through june. About 68 of the money comes from outside groups, 68 . Thats amazing, you know. Thats not the political parties. Thats not tester and thats not rehberg, but thats outside groups. He was the deciding vote to pass the health care law. Ryssdal heres why parker thinks that matters. Overwhelmingly its not the candidates themselves who are actually running for this office who are basically telling their stories. Its not even their parties. Here within the state. Its these outside groups. Theyre calling the shots in terms of whats being talked about in this race, more so than the candidates. Thats the problem. Tell congressman rehberg, government fences and drones are wrong for montana. Ryssdal so who are all these outside groups calling the shots . What we affectionately call the war room. Ryssdal to find out i had to go all the way to washington, d. C. , where i was taken inside one of the democrats key super pacs, american bridge 21st century. This looks for all the world like a bunch of kids sitting around surfing the web. For the most part, yeah, but they are very smart kids and they know what theyre looking for. Ryssdal rodell mollineau, the president of american bridge, showed me around. Tell me what these guys are doing. It was a rare look at the world of outside groups. American bridge was the only super pac, in fact, that let us in to see what they do. Some of these people are video specialists. Some of them are researchers. Ryssdal it had the look and the feel of a candidates campaign. But they actually cant work with candidates. They have to be independent. We dont coordinate with candidates. We cant coordinate with candidates. That is against the law. Ryssdal what makes this super c stand out is that it specializes in opposition research. These are the people who come up with the research that youre going to find in the direct mail piece, in the 30 second ad, in the online ad. That happens here. Ryssdal what also happens is this. You see that video footage there . It comes from this guy. Hes a tracker. He works for american bridge. Hes one of 19 trackers they have out in the field following republican candidates. Were looking for inconsistencies. Everyone thats working on a specific candidate knows this candidate inside and out. If the person slips up, if the personays x steaof yif there is a flipflop, we know about it. Then from there its a decision of what we decide to do with that video. Ryssdal in their meetings, in the mornings, the staff reviews their top campaign priorities. Hey, people. So what have we got . Ryssdal like the senate race in montana. So john mccain is heading to montana. Ryssdal and they carefully plot strategy to help shape the message for voters. Also we can sort of highlight mccains hypocrisy for campaigning with rehberg, because mccain is such a fiscal hawk and dennys such a big spender obviously being a member of the approps committee. Yeah. Its not nearly as sexy as i think some people would want it to be. Okay, thanks, folks. No, this is mostly public information. You just need to know where to look at it. And what you do is you put together the political history of a candidate every vote that theyve ever taken, every political statement that they had made, any contradictions that you might find. Business dealings that they might have that they might have had before being in congress. Or even business dealings they had while they were in congress. Ill never support nor take a pay rae. Ryssdal heres where their research pays off. They share it with other outside groups, who then make ads that show up in montana ads like this one, made by a Group Called Citizens for strength and Security Fund. Dennis rehberg billed taxpayers over 100,000 to lease an suv. Ryssdal this ad is like so many others that have been running this year. Its hardhitting and negative. His own pay, giving himself thousands more per year at our expense. Ryssdal it also represents a growing trend in Campaign Finance secretive outside grps tt artrying to influence elections. We need a balanced approach, not pay raises and perks. Ryssdal at wesleyan university, i found professor Erika Franklin fowler. Shes made a specialty of studying these kinds of ads. So i asked her how citizens unithas changed things. The Citizens United case and a couple of recent decisions just prior to that have led to a more relaxed atmosphere in which outside groups can do just about anything that they want to do in terms of political advertising spending. Whats jobkiller John Hickenloopers plan for colorado . Yssd onof t most visible consequences of this new atmosphere has been the explosive growth of ads made by taxexempt nonprofits known as 501c4s. Theyre different from the super pacs that weve all heard so much about. Super pacs have to tell us where they get their money. But the 501c4s . The 501c4s are not required to disclose their donors and there are ways in which they can get around having to do so. So there are certain advantages, and strategic actors are maybe more likely to want to funnel their funds through a 501c4 than they might be other types of outside organizations. Ryssdal strategic actors. Strategic actors. Ryssdal help me understand. Yeah. So, if i want to contribute money that is intended to benefit a particular candidate or a particular political party, but i dont want that money trail to come back to me, im going to choose a different way to give money than i might otherwise. Ryssdal so that would be a 501c4, right, which doesnt have to disclose its donors. Exactly. Its time to send a message to washington stop. Ryssdal turns out 501c4s can keep their money trail hidden by talking about issues. By saying that issues are their primary purpose not the election or defeat of a particular candidate. Ryssdal how am i supposed to know, though, as a reasonably intelligent voter, whats an issue ad and whats a direct Campaign Vote for this guy ad, cause you look at them and they look the same. They look almost exactly the same. Ryssdal right, so how do i know . So, the key difference, or at least what outside groups have been falling back on as the key difference, are the use of the magic words. Ryssdal i love that. Magic words . Magic words. Ryssdal thats not your invention, though. Where did it come from . No, so that comes from a footnote in a Supreme Court decision in the l970s, in which the court speculated about the types of words that might most set apart election ads from pure issue ads. Ryssdal that footnote its right here, number 52. Use these magic words vote for, vote against, elect, defeat and youve clearly got a campaign ad. Avoid the magic words and, some outside groups argue, you have an issue ad. Yeah, sometimes that distinction is hard to see. Ryssdal all right, so help me out. Show me. Because i watch a lot of political ads and you cant really tell. All right. I asked fowler to walk me through a 501c4 ad, like the one thats playing in montana from citizens for strength and Security Fund. Hes one of the wealthiest members of congress, a multimillionaire. Dennis rehberg billed taxpayers over 100,000 to lease an suv. Ryssdal all right, what is. Yes, antirehberg, but what does this have to do with the issue . Whats the. So they actually havent gotten to it yet. Ryssdal okay. Were a third of a way through, were halfway through a 30second ad. Hed never support or take a pay raise, then voted five times. Ryssdal all right, wait a minute. They dont like the suvs and they dont like the pay raise. And they dont like the suvs again. Im still waiting for that issue. Five times to raise his own pay, giving himself thousands more per year at our expense. To cut the deficit. Ryssdal doh congressman rehberg, cut the wae firs we need a balanced approach. Ryssdal deficit, right . Thats cut the deficit. Cut the deficit. Ryssdal so they didnt say vote for, they didnt say rehberg for. Or tester for congress, but they did say the word deficit. They did say the word deficit. Ryssdal bang thats an issue ad. Thats an issue ad. Ryssdal okay, really . By the magic word test, that would be an Issue Advocacy ad. Now you and i both know that this ad is aired during an election cycle and is intended to help jon tester. Ryssdal i wanted to know more about the group that made this a because you cant tell much from its name citizens for strength and Security Fund. So i went to their website and heres what i learned. Theyre a 501c4, social welfare group. Theyre an issues Advocacy Group they tell me that a couple of times. But thats it. Theres no people listed, theres no address listed, theres no phone number listed. They make it really hard to find out who they are. The only way we know who they are and where they are is one piece of paper. Its a thing from a media purchase, and it lists some of the corporate officers, and then it gives the street address of citizens for strength and Security Fund. Its 1718 m street nw, washington, d. C. This is m street. 1708 on the left. 1718, which i dont understand. All right, im going to go figure out whats going on. Sir, could you just wait here one sec . Oh, you know what it is . I know exactly what it is. Heres what it is. Its a box. Right . Has to be. 115. 115. So citizens for strength and Security Fund lives right here at this address. Since there was nobody home, i went back to american bridge, the super pac that does research for these 501c4 ads. We actually tried to get a hold of them. Went to their website, cant find anything. We did track down an address, whic as tur out, is here in washington, d. C. Its not far from here actually. Its over on m street, 1718 m street. Which is, as it turns out, is a ups store. And you go in and theyve rented a mail box there. So im just trying to find the connection between the information you guys find and provide to groups like citizens for strength and Security Fund, which does not have to disclose its donors and who, when i try to go find them, i pull up in front of a ups store. Doesnt that kind of make you go it, at . No, actually it doesnt, and the reason why is so, listen, if it was up to me, i wouldnt be doing this. There are a lot of other things i