WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. French Hill is currently the top "recipient of National Rifle Association funding" in the entire U.S. House of Representatives, according to The New York Times, but he barely registers on The Washington Post's list of NRA beneficiaries.
The Democrats trying to unseat Hill are stressing the Times' tally: $1,089,477 over the past four years, much of it coming in 2014.
The Little Rock Republican's campaign, on the other hand, points to the Post's total: $3,000.
Why are the figures so different? Because the papers are scrutinizing separate piles of cash, according to Sarah Bryner, research director for the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that tracks money in politics.
The center, which analyzed years of federal campaign finance reports, compiled the figures that the Times cited.
"When dealing with NRA money, some reporters like to focus entirely on donations that the NRA gives directly to the candidate. These are campaign funds. They can be spent by the candidate like any other donation from any individual, but they are limited in amount, so they can only give a certain amount in each election cycle," she said.
Typically, that amount is $10,000 or less.
"Other organizations and reporters focus on another type of spending that the NRA does, which is called independent spending," Bryner said.
With independent expenditures, "they can spend as much as they want," Bryner said. "They just can't do it in coordination with the candidate."
"The money spent in that way can be in the order of millions of dollars and certainly benefits the candidate -- even though the candidate isn't directly getting that money," she added.
