Up in the Sky, It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s a Super-PAC!

A little over a year ago, the United States Supreme Court opened a Pandora’s Box in its decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission. Essentially, it ruled that neither Congress nor the States could enact laws to limit spending on political opinion messages by unions and corporations that were not directly affiliated with a specific candidate (since candidates for office can be so limited). The vehicle where such public messages are funded – political action committees (the really big ones are “super” political action committees or Super-PACs) – were simply unleashed. The PAC might embrace that candidate or what he or she stands for, as long as there was not an actual agreement between the candidate and the PAC.

The Court analogized a corporation or a union to status of being a person or citizen with full protection for free speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution, an unbelievable stretch and about as far a move away from “strict constructionism” as I have ever seen. Writing the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy (pictured above) said: “If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.” Corporations, NGOs, trade organizations, sugar-daddy billionaires with an agenda, unions and mysterious and unidentified sponsors hidden behind anonymous post office boxes leapt into the fray, and elections seemed to move from a vote of the people into a spending frenzy by power elites seeking to press their causes by electing the “right” candidates.

While Democrats clearly have benefited from contributions to friendly organizations supporting their causes and candidates – such as the contributions to one PAC by the Service Employees International Union – the bulk of the expenditures where donors were identified, according to government filings, were clearly coming from organizations focused on strongly right-of-center Republican causes and candidates. That corporate and wealthy-individual America might be able to buy its way out of paying meaningful taxes (and closing the huge loopholes they lobbied so strongly to create in the first place) or face environmental or financial-integrity regulation put a big smile on a lot of country club faces. Their PAC contributions were chump-change compared to the costs they would be saving if they could elect candidates that wouldn’t really tax or regulate them.

Besides, in the 2008 presidential election, Obama had outspent McCain almost two-to-one, and that was never going to happen again: “President Obama continues to outraise all of the candidates seeking the Republican nomination by large margins when it comes to money that goes directly into campaign coffers. But the money race is increasingly focused on outside groups that are legally not allowed to coordinate directly with campaigns but pay for advertising and other activities that support particular candidates… Most of the money disclosed [in government filings] went to independent groups supporting Republicans, giving them an enormous money advantage over similar Democratic groups in the first phase of the 2012 election cycle…

“[Republican-supporter] Restore Our Future raised at least $5.8 million from corporations during the last six months of last year, along with $12.2 million from individuals. American Crossroads raised $4.6 million from corporations and $7 million from individuals. Priorities USA and two other Democratic-leaning super PACs raised about $1,835,000 from individuals, $1.3 million from political action committees affiliated with labor unions and other groups, and about $415,700 from other organizations.” New York Times, February 1^st.

The patterns have been pretty routine in this primary season. A favored son would appear to be falling behind – evidenced by Mitt Romney’s loss in South Carolina to rival Newt Gingrich – and PAC money would accelerate and pour into the next major primary. Florida is a case in point: “Both candidates and the super PACs supporting them have spent millions of dollars in attack ads, but the former House speaker is far outweighed by his chief rival when it comes to spending… Romney’s campaign spent nearly $7 million on television ads leading up to the primary, more than six times that of Gingrich, whose campaign spent about $1 million… The super PACs have even outspent the campaigns. The group supporting Romney, Restore Our Future, spent a whopping $8.5 million on ads in Florida, while Winning Our Future, the super PAC backing Gingrich, spent about $2.2 million.” ABCNews.go.com, January 31^st. Romney creamed Gingrich in Florida. But then, Santorum creamed everyone in Missouri, Minnesota and even Colorado. Standby for PAC-financed attacks on Rick!

Can the impact of Citizens United be blunted somewhat by clear disclosure rules; the Supreme Court has not decided that issue. We just don’t know where some of that money is coming from, because not everyone has to disclose: “But the full scope of such giving is impossible to ascertain from federal campaign filings: Much of the money raised by the leading Republican and Democratic independent groups went into affiliated nonprofit organizations that are more restricted in how they can spend the money but do not have to disclose their donors… [S]ome checks came from sources obscured from public view, like a $250,000 contribution to a super PAC backing Mr. Romney from a company with a post office box for a headquarters and no known employees.” NY Times.

Aside from the fact that Citizens appears to be wrongly decided – but it is the law of the land now – putting our elections up for bid, it would seem obvious that some very tight and clear disclosure laws are necessary. Or we could just kill our deficit woes buy putting all elected offices up for bid, dispensing with this old-world election thang.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I’m hoping that some of these newly minted corporate/union-people/citizens will volunteer to give blood to the Red Cross really soon.