2016 presidential campaigns chase money, with no cop on the beat: Our view

The Editorial Board | USATODAY

Money has always been the dark force of politics, but it's reaching a tipping point in the 2016 presidential election. Whoever wins will be more beholden than any recent predecessor to megadonors who write huge checks. Campaigns are skating up to, or over, ethical and legal lines to maximize the dollars.

There's little worry about prosecution, though. The agency set up to enforce campaign laws after the Watergate scandals in 1974 — the Federal Election Commission — is mired in partisan stalemate on major issues, meaning there's effectively no cop on the beat.

That leaves no one (except the news media) to police the flood of big money set loose by court decisions in 2010 that made it legal for corporations, labor unions and rich people to give unlimited amounts to "super PACs," which can support candidates as long as they remain independent from them.

In practice, the independence is fiction. Super PACs are typically run by a candidate's close aides, but it's hard to prove illegal coordination.

Advisers to Republican Jeb Bush have already told reporters that his presidential campaign — which technically doesn't exist yet because Bush hasn't officially declared — will be offloading big expenses such as television ads, direct mail and get-out-the-vote efforts to its super PAC.

Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign will also rely on an affiliated super PAC for TV and Internet advertising. The idea that campaigns would outsource crucial activities to groups they could not at least clandestinely steer is hard to swallow.

At least super PACs are required to disclose the names of anyone who gives more than $200. That's not true of non-profit "social welfare" organizations, which can do what super PACs do but keep contributors' names secret as long as the PAC's chief purpose isn't politics. Reformers say groups routinely abuse this rule, but a challenge to four such groups went nowhere when the FEC deadlocked and refused to investigate. FEC Chairwoman Ann Ravel told The New York Times that the agency, which has three Democratic commissioners and three Republicans, is "worse than dysfunctional," and that "the likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim."

When candidates comment on the situation, they tend to sound like St. Augustine asking to "make me pure, but not yet." Clinton says if she's elected, she'll appoint Supreme Court justices who will make the money-grubbing unconstitutional. Bush has ordered donors to his super PAC to cap their donations at $1 million, apparently on the theory that no one can be corrupted for a mere million. Meanwhile, they and their rivals are raising megabucks for their super PACs.

This would be amusing if it weren't such a sad indictment of politics. It's a reason why Americans don't vote, why elections seem like arms races, and why the next president will get to office with an indelible taint.

Americans demanded change once and got it, but it took one of the worst political scandals in history. That's a terrible price to pay for something politicians should see is in their and the nation's best interest.

USA TODAY's editorial opinions are decided by its Editorial Board, separate from the news staff. Most editorials are coupled with an opposing view — a unique USA TODAY feature.

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