New normal?

Is this the new norm — campaigns awash in huge, independent campaigns, dwarfing those of the candidates themselves?

Torres-Spelliscy, the Stetson law professor, said that “the biggest reforms that we have had in campaign finance have followed epic scandals,” most recently after Watergate, and then after the bankruptcy of the energy giant Enron, whose leadership had established deep donation tentacles into Congress.

Special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian influence in the 2016 election, has already gotten a guilty plea from President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, for violating federal campaign finance law by paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels. Is anything more to come from Mueller?

“We may be on the precipice of a pretty epic campaign finance scandal around the 2016 election,” Torres-Spelliscy said, referring to Mueller’s ongoing investigation and Cohen’s guilty plea.

“Is (Cohen) the only person in that orbit who broke campaign finance rules?” she asked. “Or, after the midterm, are we going to see more indictments from the Justice Department or from Robert Mueller?