Democracy loses with super PACs

The first person I remember who compared large campaign contributions to bribes was the late Sen. Russell Long of Louisiana. Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee from 1966 to 1981, Long was one of the most powerful men in Congress and knew the ways of Washington inside out.

“The distinction between a large campaign contribution and a bribe is almost a hairline’s difference,” Long said.


The Supreme Court similarly has noted the ability of large contributions to corrupt.

In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the court said that “contribution ceilings were a necessary legislative concomitant to deal with the reality or appearance of corruption inherent in a system permitting unlimited financial contributions.”

With the rise of the candidate super PAC, Long’s “hairline” difference between large contributions and bribes is back with a vengeance.

The candidate super PAC is new to American politics, showing up for the first time to support candidates in the 2012 presidential race.

The candidate super PAC exists for one purpose: to allow the candidate and big donors to circumvent the limits on candidate contributions enacted to prevent corruption.

Under long-standing laws, a federal candidate cannot accept contributions from corporations or labor unions, and individual contributions are limited to $2,500 per election.

The super PACs supporting presidential candidates, however, are raising unlimited contributions from these sources. Unlike other super PACs, the candidate super PAC operates for the benefit of one particular candidate, is controlled by close political associates and allies of that candidate, and spends its money to elect that candidate.

Presidential candidate super PACs have already been created to support President Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Gov. Rick Perry, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Jon Huntsman, among others.

In simple terms, the presidential candidate super PAC is nothing more than a shadow arm of the candidate’s campaign created to raise unlimited contributions that cannot be legally raised by the campaign.

The idea that it is some kind of separate operation is nonsense. The candidate super PAC allows donors to bypass the restrictions on contributions to the candidate and provide unlimited and potentially corrupting contributions to directly support the presidential candidate.

For example, Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks can give a maximum of $2,500 per election to the Obama campaign but already has given $2 million to the super PAC supporting the president. Hedge fund billionaire John Paulson can give a maximum of $2,500 to the Romney campaign but already has given $1 million to the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney.

If these candidate super PACs are not shut down quickly, they will also spread like wildfire to Congress and come into routine use by senators and representatives and their political associates. The first congressional candidate super PAC already has been formed to support Sen. Orrin Hatch’s 2012 reelection effort.

The candidate super PAC is the product of a fundamentally misguided Supreme Court majority and a feckless Federal Election Commission.

The Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United v. FEC (2010) case that as long as campaign spending by a corporation was made “independently” from a candidate, the expenditures could not have a corrupting influence on that candidate and therefore the spending could not be subject to limitations.

The court reached this decision, however, based on an analysis that is completely out of touch with reality. It is naive, at best, to believe that “independent” expenditures of $5 million, $10 million or more by a corporation to elect a federal officeholder cannot corrupt that officeholder’s decisions.

Even if the court was correct in its belief, it provided absolutely no guidance as to what it meant by “independent.”

This left the matter in the hands of the dysfunctional FEC, which had already eviscerated the existing requirement for “independent” expenditures through regulations that license broad coordination between a candidate and an outside spender.

History will judge harshly the “blind to reality” decision issued by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in the Citizens United case and the dangerous opportunities for government corruption they have unleashed.

Meanwhile, steps must be taken to shut down candidate super PACs. A candidate super PAC should be treated as affiliated with the candidate’s campaign and the contributions to the super PAC should be subject to candidate contribution restrictions.

Otherwise, a century of candidate contribution limits and prohibitions established to prevent the corruption of our government and democracy will be gone.

Fred Wertheimer is president of Democracy 21 and a longtime advocate for effective campaign finance laws.

This article tagged under: Opinion

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