If the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission ruling earlier this year cannot be circumvented by new federal statutes, or if the new Congress which now has a Republican majority in the House is unwilling to address the issue, it seems that special interests have just been given another preemptive priority in what we often mistake for an “equal access” representative democracy. Citizens United pretty much took the donation cap and disclosure rules for campaign contributions, mostly from political action groups and unions, and discarded them under an interpretation of the free speech provisions of the First Amendment. But it only now that some pretty good investigative journalism is providing some numbers and trends about exactly who is taking advantage of the changes.
Perhaps it is not surprising that supporters of the political platform of the party not in power (at least before the recent mid-term elections) were the overwhelming contributors to anonymous and seemingly untraceable campaign contributions and lobbying efforts. OpenSecrets.org did a trace of the nature of the big contributors, which according to federal law, where these are tax exempt non-profits, do not have to disclose donors. OpenSecrets.com looked at the recent contributions aimed at the recent mid-term elections to see which point of view was expressed and by how much. $106.9 million came from conservative groups expressing conservative viewpoints, $25.1 million were identified as from liberal sources and $418 hundred thousand came from “other.” Effectively, with about 80% of the tally, Republicans were the overwhelming contributors.
According to the November 17th Bloomberg.com, in the battle over healthcare insurance reform, “Health insurers last year gave the U.S. Chamber of Commerce $86.2 million that was used to oppose the health-care overhaul law, according to tax records and people familiar with the donation… The insurance lobby, whose members include Minnetonka, Minnesota-based UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Cigna Corp. of Philadelphia, gave the money to the Chamber in 2009 as Democrats increased criticism of the industry, according to a person who requested anonymity because laws don’t require identifying funding sources. The Chamber go t the money from the America’s Health Insurance Plans as the industry urged Congress to drop a plan to create a competing government-run insurance plan.
“‘Clearly the secrecy was important to industry,’ Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, said in an interview. The group tracks money in politics and isn’t affiliated with a political party. ‘Eighty-six million dollars is an astonishing sum,’ she said.” This contribution also represented a stunning 40% of the Chamber of Congress’ annual budget. The November 22nd New York Times supplemented these observations: “Certainly the chamber, which lobbies Congress hard on behalf of big business, will make its demands known — health care repeal, no tax increases, reduced regulation and oversight. The other groups, including Crossroads GPS, founded by Karl Rove, may be more subtle in pressing the interests of their backers — conversations at golf courses, at steakhouses, at cocktail parties; the usual Washington transactions, but cocooned in greater secrecy thanks to an inert Federal Election Commission and a determined Supreme Court.
“Several news reports, including one by NBC News, have asserted that a substantial portion of the $16 million in undisclosed donations to Crossroads GPS came from Wall Street, specifically a small and very wealthy group of hedge fund and private-equity fund operators. Those stock traders, along with many others in real estate partnerships, were furious in May when the House passed a bill that would tax their compensation at ordinary income levels as high as 39 percent, rather than the much lower capital gains rate.” But this isn’t a partisan issue, for it seems overwhelming likely that Republicans will, sooner or later, be the party fully in power, and those on the outside – trying to negotiate with a Republican administration while trying to reverse policies with big contributions – will be Democrats. Will typical union support for Democratic causes follow the clandestine Republican efforts, for example?
The problem is that the American body politic has a right to know the color of the money trying to buy their votes and influence their legislators. Would a voter be a willing to listen to a point of view if he or she actually knew who was funding the publicity campaign for or against a particular candidate or issue? Doesn’t making the donors’ identities and agendas public seem like common sense? But in a world where incumbents Gerrymander their districts lines and where unfair tactics have become the political norm in this country, is making such positive change even a reasonable request anymore?
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