INSTITUTE INDEX: Citizens United by the numbers

Date on which the U.S. Supreme Court issued the landmark Citizens United decision by a 5-4 vote, ending the prohibition on corporate spending in elections and allowing certain anonymous contributions: 1/21/2010

Amount of spending by outside groups in the 2010 U.S. mid-term elections: $294.2 million

Percent increase in that spending over the 2006 election cycle: 427

Of all spending by outside groups during the 2010 election, percent coming from organizations that didn't disclose the sources of their money: 46.1

Amount of money spent in the 2010 U.S. Senate races that would have been illegal prior to the Citizens United ruling: $85 million

Amount in anonymous donations collected by the 10 most expensive 2010 U.S. Senate races: over $40 million

In those same Senate races, percent of anonymous spending that went to winning candidates: 56

Percent more spent on negative political ads by anonymous spending groups than by groups required to disclose their donors: 20

Percent of money spent on the 2010 midterms that came from only 10 groups: 47.1

Rank of spending in the 2010 midterms by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: 1

Amount that group spent to elect pro-business candidates: $31.2 million

Rank of spending by American Crossroads, a group formed by Republican strategist Karl Rove to elect Republicans: 2

Amount spent by that group: $21.5 million

Amount spent by both American Crossroads and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, another Rove-founded group that aims to elect Republicans: $38.2 million

Percent of all outside spending in the Kentucky Senate race won by Rand Paul (R) represented by donations that would have been illegal before Citizens United: 44.41

In the Florida Senate race won by Marco Rubio (R): 85.72

Of 75 congressional contests in which partisan power changed hands, number in which spending by outside groups favored the winning candidate: 60

According to one national poll, percent of respondents who said they opposed the Supreme Court's decision: 80

Percent of respondents that same poll found wanted congressional action to reinstate limits: 72

Number of votes by which the previous Senate failed to end a Republican filibuster against the DISCLOSE Act, which would have mandated disclosure of corporate expenditures on elections: 1

Number of states that have passed laws in response to Citizens United taking corrective steps such as mandating disclosures of independent expenditures: at least 16

Number of those states that are in the South: 5*

* Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia.

(Click on figure to go to source.)