Say this for Tom Steyer: He is persistent. Many billionaires, after blowing $342 million on a failed presidential run in 2020, would abandon the idea of trying to buy themselves a high-profile political office for which they were unqualified. Not Mr. Steyer. He just dropped $216 million on a failed bid for California governor. His…
The nastiest relationship in big-money politics is between two super PACs with the same goal: promoting artificial intelligence. One group is refusing to work with the other, even if they both nominally support the same candidate in some races. Its allies have even pressured members of Congress to distance themselves from the other one. And…
A group of clean energy investors won a major victory in Texas this week after it spent more than $1 million to help defeat one of the country’s biggest opponents of renewables. Now the investors say they have $15 million on hand and hope to flex their political muscles nationally — including by helping Republicans…
The justices’ views did not track along simple ideological lines. Justice Byron White, a Kennedy appointee, felt that limiting spending was critical; otherwise, “you can get and spend all the money you want,” according to notes kept by Justice William J. Brennan Jr. But five other justices were First Amendment hard-liners, from William Rehnquist, a…
It was a holiday party at a crypto titan’s estate in Marin County, and Sergey Brin had a bone to pick with Gavin Newsom. Mr. Brin, a Google co-founder and one of the world’s richest people, is a longtime friend of Mr. Newsom, the California governor. Both men attended each other’s weddings. But now Mr….
House Republicans investigating the liberal fund-raising organization ActBlue have asked its chief executive to testify next month to explain how the group vets its donors, a significant escalation in public pressure on the Democratic Party’s biggest financial engine. Hours after the Republican request on Thursday, ActBlue pushed back in a letter dismissing the inquiry as…
