Republican-backed third-party advocacy groups are far outspending similar Democratic-leaning groups in the run-up to the November mid-term election. A company that tracks political advertising reports that from August 1 to September 8, Republican groups spent $10.9 million on television ads to influence Senate races, compared to $1.3 million spent by Democratic groups. For House races, Republican groups spent $3.1 million to Democrats' $1.5 million. The huge disparity highlights the possibility that, after the Supreme Court's ruling earlier this year in the Citizens United [3] case (which gave corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence American elections), a small number of extremely wealthy individual and corporate donors unknown to the general public are essentially buying Congress. Leading the spending is a group called Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies [4], organized by Republican operatives Karl Rove [5] and Ed Gillespie [6], who cultivate wealthy individual and corporate donors, like Texas billionaire Harold Simmons [7]. Crossroads GPS is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which means it does not have to disclose its donors. The biggest sponsor of TV ads in House races has been Americans for Prosperity [8] (AFP), the astroturf [9] front group [10] created and funded by oil billionaire David Koch [11], which, like Crossroads GPS, is also a 501(c)(4) group and doesn't have to disclose its donors.