Politicians in Mississippi have used campaign money to pay for such things as a BMW, an RV and US$800 cowboy boots.

In Wisconsin, a railroad executive was caught violating contribution limits after an ex-girlfriend he met on a ‘sugar daddy’ dating website reported him for illegally funnelling cash to Governor Scott Walker’s campaign. Key to the investigation, election officials say, was a requirement that donors disclose their employers – but Republican lawmakers have since wiped out the rule.

Meanwhile, ‘dark money’ spending by outside groups that aren’t required to disclose their donors is expected to explode during this presidential election year. States can take action to stem the tide at the local level, but few have. Congress could require more disclosure about who is financing campaigns, but it has made no move to do so.

Disclosure may be the public’s best and often only remaining way of knowing who is supporting political candidates in the wake of recent court decisions.

“Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed,” the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once wrote in an opinion in favour of disclosing petition signatures.

The US Supreme Court repeatedly has ruled in favour of public disclosure of campaign contributions, even in its earth-moving Citizens United decision. The 2010 ruling found that political spending is protected under the First Amendment, and said that corporations and unions can spend unlimited amounts of money on political activities.

It effectively wiped out key campaign finance regulations that had been in effect for decades. But it also upheld disclosure requirements.

That and other Supreme Court decisions have resulted in unprecedented amounts of money pouring into elections. Because Congress has not acted to require further disclosure, the old limits are gone and new rules have not been passed to take their place, leaving citizens more in the dark than ever about whether elected officials are working for them or for special interests behind their campaigns.

Richard Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California, Irvine, said that despite the highest court’s support for disclosure of campaign donors, the Federal Election Commission and Congress remain frozen when it comes to requiring greater transparency about who is funding political groups.

“Political operators often look for ways to shield their donors,” Hasen said. “The laws have to be constantly updated.”

Congress could quickly require more disclosure, “if there was the political will to do so”, said Hasen, author of the book

Plutocrats United: Campaign Money, the Supreme Court, and the Distortion of American Elections.

Groups that advocate more transparency say the federal stalemate has driven reform efforts to the local level in some states, where they see greater opportunity to push for change.

Targeting states “seems like the only outlet for making change at this level”, said David Donnelly, CEO of Every Voice, an organisation working to advance state ballot initiatives that would require more disclosure about money in politics.

Donnelly argues state-level efforts, if successful, could restore the faith of voters who perceive an uninhibited flow of money into politics. The changes also could generate interest that would “build the political power, around the country, to eventually press Congress” to require some reporting of donors in national elections, he says.

Efforts to change state disclosure laws are not just a function of opportunity, advocates say. They also are a necessity, given a state-level influx of dark money paralleling the federal flood.

Attempts to force more disclosure from outside special interest groups have succeeded in some states.

California enacted a law requiring information about donors who give above a certain amount to non-profit organisations that engage in political campaigns. The law, signed by Democratic Governor Jerry Brown in 2014, requires non-profit groups to disclose the names of donors who give them US$1,000 or more to fund political activity in California, if the group spends more than US$50,000 in a year, or $100,000 over four years, to advocate for or against a candidate or ballot initiative.

Supporters praise the law as a turning point that helps shine light on special interests working to influence elections, and say it serves as a national example. Critics say it violates First Amendment rights.

Disclosure advocates also laud Hawaii and Washington as having exemplary donor reporting laws. The states treat outside groups focused on advocating for or against a candidate or ballot initiative as “political” actors and requires them to identify their contributors. Laws in both states withstood legal challenges in recent years.

But there’s a limit to what states can do, since they don’t have oversight of spending on federal races – such as presidential and Congressional contests, which are consistently the costliest elections.

While some state election agencies have moved to make more donor information public, they often struggle to win support from lawmakers, said Denise Roth Barber of the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

“A lot of the changes that need to take place require money, and most state budgets are tight,” Barber said. “It’s hard to set aside money to give to an agency to improve disclosure.”

Barber’s group is a non-profit, tax-exempt organisation – known as a 501(c)3 – which isn’t required to publicly disclose its donors but voluntarily identifies major contributors.

In a number of other states, lawmakers have rejected bills seeking to expand disclosure requirements to politically active groups. Some cheer that result.

“Since Republicans are in the majority in most state legislatures, these efforts have often failed,” said Bradley Smith, founder and chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics.

The center, a group that also isn’t required to publicly disclose its donors, opposes campaign contribution limits, public financing of political campaigns and many disclosure requirements for private groups, as well as campaigns.

State lawmakers in Arizona are working to pass a bill stating that non-profit groups cannot be categorised as seeking to influence elections and thus cannot be compelled to disclose their donors.

The legislation also would change what share of money some outside groups can spend on ballot measures without being required to register as a political committee. But their spending would still be disclosed.

“There’s definitely a push to get more disclosure – that is a trend,” said Smith, a former Federal Election Commission chairman. “But the reverse side is that it has been to a large extent unsuccessful, and I think that reflects the fact that disclosure has been abused and made into a partisan issue.”

– Associated Press