Rank Name Viewpoint Money from LLCs Percent of Total Receipts 1 Restore Our Future Conservative $10.2 million 7% 2 American Crossroads Conservative $7.5 million 4% 3 Senate Majority PAC Liberal $3.7 million 3% 4 FreedomWorks for America Conservative $1.8 million 7% 5 Black Men Vote Liberal $875,000 66% 6 House Majority PAC Liberal $784,000 1% 7 Congressional Leadership Fund Conservative $775,000 3% 8 Priorities USA Action Liberal $680,000 1% 9 Fund for Louisiana’s Future Conservative $542,000 14% 10 America 360 Committee Conservative $500,000 34% Source: Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission data covering super PAC fundraising from January 2010 through December 2014. Note: Money from LLCs represents sum for filings that specifically list the terms “LLC,” “L.L.C.” or “limited liability company” as part of the donor’s name.

Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC, for example, has received more than $3.7 million from LLCs since 2010, including $1.65 million last October from the Council for American Job Growth LLC, an offshoot of a pro-immigration reform group founded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

In a rare move, the Council for American Job Growth itself spent $720,000 last fall on ads boosting Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, rather than donating it to an established political group.

It’s unclear who funds the Council for American Job Growth.

Conservative super PAC scores cash from entity tied to Arizona Cardinals By Michael Beckel GOP powerhouse American Crossroads got $50,000 from an LLC that shares its address with the Arizona Cardinals.

Meanwhile, two massive Republican super PACs — Restore Our Future and American Crossroads — have amassed more money from LLCs than any others, the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis indicates. In most cases the people behind the contributions have been identified, but not always.

Restore Our Future, the main super PAC that supported Republican 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney, raised more than $10 million from LLCs — more than any other super PAC.

Energy companies Oxbow Carbon LLC and Huron Carbon LLC — two LLCs connected to billionaire William Koch, the lesser-known brother of conservative bankrollers Charles and David Koch — ranked among Restore Our Future’s largest donors, giving $2.75 million and $1 million respectively.

Restore Our Future also received a $1 million contribution from a shadowy, Delaware-based outfit called W Spann LLC. That company’s gift made headlines after NBC News detailed how this LLC formed, made the seven-figure contribution and dissolved within a matter of months.

Within days of the story, campaign watchdogs filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission and Department of Justice accusing W Spann LLC of simply being a conduit for someone to make a political contribution — and for also failing to register as a political action committee.

Ed Conard, a former official at private equity firm Bain Capital who had close ties to Romney, ultimately came forward as the mystery man behind W Spann LLC. Conard insisted he acted legally. But he also asked Restore Our Future to amend its campaign finance report to name him, not his company, as the donor.

To this day, Paul S. Ryan, an attorney at the Campaign Legal Center — one of the watchdog groups that filed complaints against W Spann LLC — argues that Conard broke the law by using an LLC to “hide” his identity.

Limited liability companies, Ryan said, cannot be used to “simply launder funds.”

The complaints are still pending.

Super PAC contributions from LLCs Created with Highcharts 4.2.7 Dollars 2010 2012 2014 $0 $5 000 000 $10 000 000 $15 000 000 $20 000 000 $25 000 000 Source: Center for Public Integrity analysis of Federal Election Commission data covering super PAC fundraising from January 2010 through December 2014, grouped by two-year election cycle. Note: Money from LLCs represents sum for filings that specifically list the terms “LLC,” “L.L.C.” or “limited liability company” as part of the donor’s name.

“There is no public information that I can provide.” – employee of Registered Agent Solutions Inc.

Delaware, where paper trails dead-end

Like W Spann LLC, SPM Holdings LLC — the entity that helped bankroll Black Men Vote — is also difficult to unpack.

First, state business registration records don’t show any company named “SPM Holdings LLC” in Florida, where federal election records say it’s located.

Florida real estate records, however, do show a company named “SPM 2012 Holdings LLC” at the same Florida address that the Black Men Vote super PAC listed for SPM Holdings LLC in its campaign finance filing.

SPM 2012 Holdings LLC is likewise not registered in Florida. Instead, it’s officially registered in Delaware, where records list only a registered agent: Dover, Delaware-based Registered Agent Solutions Inc., a for-profit company that boasts of being “an innovative leader in the registered agent and transactional service industry.”

An employee of Registered Agent Solutions Inc. said it was the company’s policy not to give out client information. “There is no public information that I can provide,” she added.

Back in Florida, a business and financial consulting firm called Cruden Bay Partners LLC also shares the same address as SPM 2012 Holdings LLC. But even some people there said they were unfamiliar with it.

One Cruden Bay employee told the Center for Public Integrity “there’s no SPM here” and said “you might have the wrong number” before hanging up the telephone.

Reached via email, Lawrence Rovin, a lawyer who owns Cruden Bay Partners, wrote: “I am not at liberty to provide you with any information regarding SPM 2012 Holdings, LLC.”

Who is SPM Holdings?

Black Men Vote ultimately spent nearly $850,000 during the fall of 2012 on radio ads in Virginia and Ohio that supported the president’s re-election. Obama handily carried black voters in both battleground states.

Exit polls showed that black voters made up a larger share of the vote in the Buckeye State than they had four years earlier, increasing from 11 percent of all voters in 2008 to 15 percent in 2012. In Virginia, one out of every five voters during both elections was black.

It’s hard to definitively say how large a role Black Men Vote played in either state, but officials with the super PAC say they were pleased with their efforts.

“We know that we were a part of the equation,” said Jeff Johnson, a former BET host and the spokesman for Black Men Vote who made the $500,000 fundraising appeal two years ago.

Rapper Pras Michel, a founding member of the Fugees. Matt Sayles/AP

Pras, too, said he believes the group was successful. And as it turns out, he actually gave more money than the federal filings themselves indicated.

The former Fugees star confirmed that SPM Holdings LLC — which is officially called SPM 2012 Holdings LLC — was his, adding that it was “just a holding company to do my everyday business through.”

This acknowledgment means that Pras provided $1.2 million in total to Black Men Vote, or more than 90 percent of its receipts.

William Kirk, the founder and treasurer of Black Men Vote, said he was grateful for the resources provided by Pras and the super PAC’s other supporters.

“Hopefully people will see Black Men Vote as an example,” he said of the group, which effectively ceased operations after the 2012 election.

Kirk was talking about using a super PAC to reach a specific demographic, such as the 18-to-34-year-olds targeted by Black Men Vote. But others could draw a different lesson from the group as well: It’s a road map for how to opaquely fund a super PAC.

No consensus for new rules

While the major LLC donor behind Black Men Vote has now — more than two years after the 2012 election — voluntarily revealed his identity, federal law does not require this disclosure. And ideological divisions on the Federal Election Commission, the nation’s top campaign regulator, may sink any proposal that would try to do so.

Even as the Citizens United ruling has reshaped the nation’s political landscape, new rules for LLCs haven’t been discussed.

Individuals have long been allowed to use LLCs to make donations to federal candidates — but contribution records must show both the name of the LLC and the name of the person, or people, responsible for the money. That’s to ensure that individuals don’t exceed campaign contribution limits and that candidates don’t receive corporate money.

Neither of those regulatory rationales apply to the world of super PACs, as these political committees may accept contributions of unlimited size, including money from corporations. But activists in some states, such as New York, are currently pushing to change how contributions from LLCs to state politicians are treated.

The FEC’s three Republican commissioners, who are often at odds with their three Democratic-leaning counterparts, declined to comment for this story.

David Mason, a former Republican FEC chairman, said it’s “pointless” to create additional reporting requirements for LLCs that give money to super PACs because “anybody who didn’t want that information disclosed would simply do the exact same activity through a corporation.”

But at least two of the commission’s Democratic members don’t see it that way.

“It is another situation where we have a failure to require important disclosure that the public’s entitled to have,” said Ann Ravel, the Democrat who currently serves as the commission’s chairwoman.

Her sentiments were echoed by fellow Democratic FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, who stressed that super PACs are supposed to be transparent.

“If you don’t know who’s behind it,” Weintraub said, “then you don’t know what you don’t know. Could be a foreign citizen. Could be a foreign government. Could be anybody.”

This story was co-published with Slate.