Interest Groups, Parties, and Elections

In chapter 4, Berry and Wilcox discuss the relationship of party organizations and interest groups.  So one aspect of the Manafort case is highly relevant. Natasha Bertrand reports at The Atlantic:

Manafort’s tenure on the campaign, spanning from roughly March through August 2016, coincided with some of the most significant Russia-related events of the election. In April, he appeared to offer the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska private briefings about the campaign in exchange for debt relief. In July, a proposed amendment to the GOP’s party platform that advocated sending arms to Ukraine to defend against Russian aggression—a position in line with Republican orthodoxy at the time—was gutted. Later that month, WikiLeaks began dumping emails that Russia had stolen from the Democratic National Committee. Manafort also received emails from the Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who had already learned of Russian dirt on Clinton, offering to set up a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. By late August, Manafort was forced to formally step down as campaign chairman after reports surfaced that he was allocated millions of dollars in off-the-books payments by a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine.

Click here for a chart on federal contribution limits

But note that the limits do not apply to organizations that give exclusively to candidates for state office, such as RAGA (Republican Attorneys General Association) and DAGA (Democratic Attorneys General Association).  Two news stories discuss such organizations:







And then there is outside money: