Irene Isn’t the Only Flooding Element on Wall Street and Washington

Last year, when a divided Supreme Court declared that unions and corporations were persons subject to free speech protections under the First Amendment, a whole new powerful force was unleashed into our political scene. Anonymous contributors (known ones too) were now able to raise unlimited sums to assist issues and candidates they favored with floods of dollars supporting political campaigns. Still restricted from making unlimited contributions to the candidates themselves, these Political Action Committees (PACs and the mega Super PACs) side-stepped the old restrictions and gave special interests the power to spend without caps, supervision or disclosure. The 2010 case, Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission, literally opened the floodgates allowing big unions and companies the power to buy elections.

The result has been disproportionate sums being spent in traditionally marginal cost political arenas, such as the recent recall efforts in Wisconsin where multiples of normal campaign expenditures – much coming from outside the state – roiled their way into local politics. “Outside spending in the recall elections reached over $33 million on [August 8^th], breaking the previous record of any Wisconsin statewide election, which was set at roughly $20 million during the 2008 cycle.” HuffintonPost.com, August 9^th.

And it’s not exactly like candidates can’t work to raise money for friendly PACs. Now, that’s standard operating procedure, except they cannot utter words that directly ask for funding. That is simply understood or represented by other “friendly” spokespeople. With the Democratic presidential nomination a virtual certainty (Barack Obama), news media are focused on Republican PACs trying to get a nomination clinched for one candidate or the other, but Democratic PACS are out there as well, and we can expect them to shake and rattle particularly hard after the nominations are set, and the November election next year approaches fast.

A July fund-raising event off New York’s Central Park is a classic case in point. It was an aggregation of some Mitt Romney’s wealthiest Wall Street supporters. “The event was not a fund-raiser for Mr. Romney’s campaign, however, but for Restore Our Future, a political action committee founded by his allies. And only when Mr. Romney left the room did one of the group’s officials stand up to brief the donors on their plans: to raise and spend millions of dollars in unrestricted campaign donations — something presidential candidates are forbidden to do themselves — to help elect Mr. Romney president… Restore Our Future raised more than $12 million during the first half of the year — more than any actual Republican candidate except Mr. Romney himself.” New York Times, August 27^th.

This proclivity to take advantage of this horrific Supreme Court loophole has exploded like the bubonic plague: “A pair of aides to President Obama started Priorities USA, the leading Democratic Super PAC, just two months after they left their jobs at the White House in February. And two weeks ago, a onetime consultant to Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota took over Citizens for a Working America, a previously existing Super PAC, with plans to focus solely on electing Ms. Bachmann president.

“On [August 25^th], Thomas E. Muir, an executive at the Huntsman Corporation, filed papers to form Our Destiny PAC, a Super PAC devoted to electing Jon M. Huntsman Jr., a former Utah governor and the son of the corporation’s founder… Make Us Great Again, a Super PAC founded late last month, is backed by Mike Toomey, a prominent lobbyist in Austin, Tex., who is a former chief of staff to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. Mr. Toomey also owns a private New Hampshire island with Dave Carney, the top strategist for Mr. Perry’s nascent presidential campaign.” NY Times.

When you think about sound strategies to “buy” political power, I am terrified at the prospect of the smaller states proving to be too tempting for PACs to leave alone. If there are 37 million people in California that produce a total of two United States Senators, wouldn’t it be vastly more cost-effective to “buy” votes where elections are cheaper, as in South Dakota with about 820 thousand people, and purchase the same two U.S. Senators? We’ve already seen what a post-Citizens United world looks like in Wisconsin, and the current funding efforts have turned elections even more into a bidding process.

Citizens United is bad law, no matter which side of the political spectrum you may be on. It completely obliterates any real semblance of preventing candidates from outspending their opponents because of their connections and fund-raising skills, and instead drilling down on the issues. The ability to hide donations behind an anonymous veil is equally destructive, since greedy special interests can mask behind catchy patriotic-sounding PAC names to misinform, misdirect and misquote. The case must be reversed or severely limited in upcoming Supreme Court decisions.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if we really want special interests to have disproportionate power in American elections, let’s cut the hypocrisy, kill two birds with one stone, allow PACs to help candidates bid directly for federal and state office (highest bidder wins), and reduce the deficit!