Since we last talked about how the powerful are hijacking elections from the people, a lot has happened. None of it good for the people.
Two weeks ago, I flogged the finding that a $40 million flood of cash from mostly corporate interests had completely overwhelmed the so-called "citizens' initiatives." It was unprecedented, I wrote — proof of just how for-sale our democracy now is.
It didn't take long for "unprecedented" to become the new normal. Since then, special interests, many of them out-of-state, have poured an additional $15 million into the citizens' initiatives, bringing the total to $55 million. That is more money than the grand total spent on all of our state ballot measures for the previous four years, combined.
(It makes me wonder: How bad can the economy be if corporations have this kind of bankroll lying around?)
Virtually none of this support comes from local citizens interested in furthering a public policy debate. Almost all the $55 million that paid to get these issues onto the ballot — and now is financing a barrage of misleading ads — came from corporations, professional associations or big public unions (often from elsewhere).
And it turns out that's the good news. It passes for good because, under state law, at least we know about it.
The worse news, by far, is the rise of secret donors in federal campaigns. It's the big new fad of Election 2010.
Two major Supreme Court decisions, including this year's Citizens United, paved the way for corporate and other special interests to spend as much as they want, as anonymously as they want, on political attack ads.
For example, when someone asks the contemptuously named Committee for Truth in Politics who donated this nonprofit front group the $325,000 used for an anti-Patty Murray TV ad, the answer can now be a sneer.
CBS: "Could you tell me who your donors are?"
The group's lawyer, James Bopp: "Of course not."
CBS: "Do you find it ironic at all that the word 'truth' is used, but the committee is less than open about the truth of who is behind the organization?"
Bopp: "The truth has to do with the message. They haven't lied about who is behind it. They just haven't told you."
Get used to this. It's your new American corporatocracy. Big money equals free speech. Who's talking is none of your business.
I say that because of the reasoning the courts used in the Citizens United case. It found that corporations have a free-speech right to do as much third-party spending as they want to try to influence federal elections.
This spending, though it comes from the most powerful forces in society, won't "give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption," the court declared. As if that's a fact instead of something that defies all common sense.
"That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy."
By this logic it seems a short step to allowing a free-for-all. No limits, no disclosure, no nothing. If outside spending like we're seeing in the Murray-Dino Rossi Senate race — unlimited and unaccountable, but still taking sides and scoring points — can't possibly give rise to even the appearance of corruption, then why have any transparency in our campaigns at all?
It's funny, the transparency rules were put in place after Watergate. At the heart of that scandal was a slush fund of anonymous campaign donations. Politics sure has come a long way since the '70s — now the idea of anonymous slush funds is hailed as free speech!
It's bad enough democracy is slowly but surely being put up for auction. Now they're not even going to tell us who's bidding.
No comments:
Post a Comment