Dealing with Super PAC Problems: Comprehensive Disclosure Legislation to be Introduced by Disclosure Reform Leaders Will Solve Super PAC Disclosure Problems
Democracy 21 Preparing Legislative Proposal to End Candidate-Specific Super PAC Scam
Statement of Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer
Super PACs are the campaign finance scandal of the 2012 elections.
They allow influence-seeking individuals, corporations, labor unions and other donors to give unlimited, corrupting contributions to support federal candidates.
In particular, the presidential candidate-specific Super PACs are serving as vehicles for presidential candidates and donors to massively evade and circumvent restrictions on contributions to the candidates. These restrictions have been enacted over a period of more than a century to prevent the corruption of federal officeholders and combat the undue influence of big money on government decisions.
Super PACs are the result of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United case, along with the decision of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in the SpeechNow case.
Notwithstanding these court decisions, however, there are important steps that can and should be taken to address Super PAC problems.
Disclosure
The current campaign finance disclosure laws allow registered political committees, including Super PACs, to file disclosure reports semi-annually in non-election years. This means that there was no donor disclosure in the second half of 2011, during the lead up to the first presidential nominating caucus and the first three presidential primaries in January, 2012.
This problem was made worse when the Super PACs exercised their option to switch to monthly reporting after January 1. This switch meant they could avoid filing “pre-primary” reports, and delay their disclosure filings until January 31, after the first four presidential nominating events took place.
As a result, the donors to the presidential candidate-specific Super PACs during the period from July 1, 2011 to December 31, 2011 are not going to be filed and disclosed until January 31, 2012.
By the time these January 31 disclosure reports are filed, the Republican presidential nominating process may be all but over. In any event, voters in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida primaries, and citizens throughout the country, will have had no idea who provided all of the tens of millions of dollars in unlimited contributions spent by Super PACs to influence those presidential nominating contests.
Effective disclosure is a cornerstone of campaign finance laws. Efforts were made in the last Congress to strengthen the campaign finance disclosure laws in the wake of the Citizens United decision. The legislation passed in the House in 2010 and fell one-vote short of the 60 votes needed in the Senate to break a filibuster and be enacted.
Comprehensive disclosure legislation is expected to be introduced soon by the congressional leaders of the disclosure reform effort in the last Congress and will include provisions to close the current disclosure loopholes for Super PACs.
Candidate-Specific Super PACs
The 2012 presidential campaign has candidate-specific Super PACs supporting every significant presidential candidate.
Each presidential candidate-specific Super PAC is raising unlimited contributions from individuals and/or from corporations and unions and spending the contributions to directly support its favored presidential candidate.
Such contributions would be illegal if given directly to the presidential candidate. Instead they are being given to Super PACs that are controlled by close political and personal associates of the presidential candidate who are spending the money only to support that candidate.
For all practical purposes, these unlimited, corrupting contributions are being given to the presidential candidates. In effect, candidate-specific Super PACS are eviscerating candidate contribution restrictions and restoring the system of legalized bribery that existed in our country in the pre-Watergate era.
Democracy 21 is preparing legislation that will require candidate-specific Super PACs to be treated legally as they are in reality – as arms of the candidate campaigns they are supporting. The legislation will result in federal contribution restrictions being applied to candidate-specific Super PACs like the ones that are operating in the 2012 presidential election.
