How Citizens United Corrupts Campaigns
Funding from private organizations and programs continues to hold major influence in campaigns and elections, thanks to the highly controversial Citizens United vs. FEC decision from early 2010. Many tax-exempt 501(c) organizations are concealing the identities of their donors, thus attracting generous assets to contribute to political advocates. These types of boosted campaigns had a major impact in the 2010 elections and are expected to do the same in 2011 and 2012.
The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling allowed corporations and other organizations to contribute an unlimited amount of money for the backing of political candidates – provided it is not in correlation to committees or campaigns. This means an outside source can provide limitless funding for ads, commercials and all other political devices to aid in winning an election.
Beyond the added advantage this gives to the wealthy, many of these contributions are done in secret. In the wake of the Citizens United decision, non-profit 501(c)(4) organizations have become increasingly popular. This is due to the fact that these tax-exempt corporations and associations are not required to disclose the names of their donors – and only a portion of what is spent is ever reported. Because of this, wealthy donors can privately endorse a political advocate that has their interests in mind – without ever having to answer to shareholders or the public for their affiliation.
“Business people don’t want to create problems for their own companies,” Mel Sembler said in a comment to iWatch News.
Sembler is the former finance chairman of the Republican National Committee. He openly acknowledges that he has written checks to several 501(c)(4)s.
Another major problem is the lack of accurate reporting these organizations do with regard to their contributions. The American people really have no idea how much of an influence these contributions are having on elections. But the limited evidence we do have shows that 501(c)(4)s are attracting very large sums of money. According to a CRP analysis, 65 groups reported spending over $89 million on political activities to the FEC in 2010.
“Our current system of campaign finance disclosure is on shaky ground,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), in an interview with iWatch News.
“The fact that so far 501(c)(4)s are only reporting a fraction of what they’re spending — and nothing at all about their donors — underscores the wholesale inadequacy of our disclosure requirements.”
Krumholz predicts these dubious trends are only going to get worse, now that companies have seen what is possible through the Citizens United ruling.
“I think it’s plausible that the number of c4s reporting political activity to the FEC will double this cycle,” she said.
The Citizens United decision has left this nation at the mercy of its most wealthy citizens. It is very difficult to imagine that secret donations, ambiguous reporting and moneyed interests are engineering a political system that caters to the needs of the American people. As more voices are swallowed up by the corporate giants that puppeteer our elections, the middle and lower classes continue to lose all influence. Citizens United vs. FEC needs to be overturned if we wish to reestablish balance and equality in the election of our leaders.
