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This year’s big winner? Money

By Staff | Nov 10, 2012

Forget blue states and red states. Green was the dominant color in election 2012.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision and other court rulings, along with permissive laws and regulations on the federal and state levels, allowed powerful special interests and individuals to pour an unprecedented amount of money – often secretly – into this year’s races. Of course, these patrons will be expecting plenty in return for their support.

Here are some of this year’s campaign finance lowlights:

• Spending on races for federal office – president, U.S. Senate and U.S. House – was expected to reach a record $6 billion, about $700 million more than in 2008, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

That total represents enough to provide Pell grants to more than 1 million college students. Instead, the money has been plowed into TV attack ads, junk mail, annoying robo calls and other elements deemed essential in modern campaigns. Feel better now?

• This year’s record spending has been boosted by nearly $1 billion from super PACs and other outside groups. Citizens United cleared the way for super PACs to collect unlimited donations from corporations, unions and individuals to support or oppose political candidates.

Super PAC fundraising has been dominated by a small group of millionaire and billionaire magnates from industries – including finance, gambling, entertainment and home-building – that have a huge stake in tax and regulatory policies pursued by the president and Congress.

• At least super PACs are required to reveal their contributors. Some other independent groups active in political campaigns are allowed to raise cash from undisclosed donors under the disguise of nonprofit “social welfare organizations,” as if they’re Rotary clubs.

Yet groups in this category, such as Republican strategist Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, have been among the top spenders on political attacks ads. Democracy 21, a campaign-finance watchdog, estimates that up to $400 million have been secretly pumped into this year’s campaign through these organizations.

• Both major party nominees for president turned down public financing in the general election so that they could raise and spend as much money as possible – the first time that’s happened since the system was created after the Watergate scandal to curb the corrupting power of money in presidential campaigns.

• The candidates, their parties and the outside groups supporting them have spent more than $1 billion on TV ads – about double what was spent in 2008. The overwhelming majority were attack ads, a massive investment in voter cynicism and alienation.

Unlimited contributions in federal and state races give special interests an outsized influence on both the outcome of elections and the policies afterward. Ordinary Americans, who can’t write huge checks to politicians, can’t expect to compete.

Congress can’t overturn Citizens United, but there are other steps lawmakers can take to reduce the insidious influence of big money in elections. They can
begin by requiring full and immediate online disclosure of all contributors to campaigns intended to sway elections.

State lawmakers can get started by limiting contributions to fundraising committees – or better yet, banning them.

The longer that Congress and the Legislature wait to act, the more that the risk of corruption in federal and state government will grow, and the more that public confidence in both will suffer.

– Orlando Sentinel

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