POLITICO Op-ed: Super PACS wreak havoc
By Fred Wertheimer
The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, issued two years ago this week, is wreaking havoc on the 2012 elections.
When the Roberts Court decided to strike down the ban on corporate expenditures in campaigns, the five justices who issued the opinion surely had no idea their misguided decision would cause such enormous damage to our political system.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are living with the destructive consequences of their ruling. These consequences include:
• Corporations are free to spend, or give to third-party outside groups to spend, as much as they want to influence federal elections.
• Hundreds of millions of dollars in secret contributions are being spent in federal elections by tax-exempt groups that are not disclosing the donors who are financing their campaign-related expenditures.
• Candidate-specific super PACs are serving as vehicles to circumvent and eviscerate the limits on contributions to candidates set to prevent corruption. They also offer some wealthy donors undue influence over elections.
• Other super PACs, supporting the election of multiple federal candidates, are spending unlimited contributions, given by influence-seeking, special interest donors.
As a result of these developments, secret money and huge contributions are being injected into federal elections in ways and amounts not seen since the Watergate scandals. History demonstrates that such money leads to corruption and scandal.
The candidate-specific super PACs now propelling the presidential elections are by far the most dangerous vehicles for potential corruption in U.S. politics today. These PACs allow donors to buy influence with candidates by funneling huge contributions through the PACs to directly support the candidates’ campaigns.
The linchpin of the Citizens United ruling is the Supreme Court’s assumption that expenditures made independently from a candidate cannot corrupt the candidate. The court simply made this assumption without any record to back it up.
Does anyone really believe that when a billionaire with major gambling interests gives $5 million to a candidate-specific super PAC, it does not have a corrupting influence if the candidate is elected?
Does anyone really believe that a candidate-specific super PAC established and run by close political associates of that candidate, raising money from the candidate’s campaign supporters and spending money only to support that candidate, is actually “independent”?
The Supreme Court in various decisions, going back to Buckley v. Valeo (1976), has described the standard for “independent spending” as requiring it to be “totally independent,” “wholly independent” and operating “without any candidate’s approval (or wink or nod).”
The idea that these presidential candidate-specific super PACs meet that standard is nonsense and belies reality.
It is difficult to believe that these super PACs were established without some formal or informal involvement or sign-off by the candidates (or their campaigns) on whose behalf close associates established the PACs.
Despite the fact that Citizens United is the worst campaign finance decision in Supreme Court history, citizens are fighting back against the damage the court has created. Some are pursuing a constitutional amendment, a long-term effort that has proved extremely difficult to obtain in other policy areas.
Here are four legislative reforms that could make a difference:
• Pass comprehensive disclosure legislation to restore and strengthen the transparency that has been a hallmark of our campaign finance laws. Citizens have a basic right to know who is providing the money to influence their votes.
• Empower citizens to serve as a counterforce to corporate spenders and special interest donors. Create an alternative campaign finance system that makes citizens the key players in financing elections, matching their small donations with public funds and making technology breakthroughs in Internet fundraising.
• Shut down candidate-specific super PACs run by political associates of the candidate or otherwise tied to the candidate’s campaign by passing legislation to legally treat these PACs as arms of the candidate’s campaign and subject to federal contribution limits.
• Replace the failed Federal Election Commission with a real campaign finance enforcement agency. There will be no enforcement of the campaign finance laws in 2012 because three commissioners on the six-member panel are ideologically opposed to campaign finance laws and engaged in blocking enforcement.
In one astonishing statement in the Citizens United decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, insisted, “the government’s interest in protecting against quid pro quo corruption,” is overridden by the corporate “speech here in question.”
Kennedy essentially said that American citizens’ right to protect their democracy, their political system and their government from corruption is outweighed by the right of a corporation to spend money to influence elections.
The Kennedy position is at odds with history — which is replete with examples of how corruption has destroyed governments and political systems. But he is also at odds with the Founding Fathers, who understood the grave dangers corruption posed for the country they were establishing.
Seventy-seven percent of the public say that a few rich people and corporations have too much power in this country, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll.
We will see the day when Americans overcome the extraordinary damage to our democracy done by these five Supreme Court justices.
Fred Wertheimer is the president of Democracy 21 and a longtime advocate for effective campaign finance laws.
