By Kevin Zeese | Alternet
The 2012 presidential election year promises to be the most expensive ever and unless the Department of Justice does its job, it also promises to be have the most anonymous campaign donations in U.S. history. Unknown corporate interests will fund massive advertising campaigns against and for candidates but the voters will not know who they are or their real agenda. The Obama administration can prevent this further corruption of U.S. democracy by enforcing existing laws.
In the last mid-term elections we saw the evolution of a new form of campaign funding that avoided the disclosure requirements of the Federal Election campaign Law (FECA). The new approach was masterminded by Karl Rove and former Republican Party leaders through American Crossroads GPS. They created a non-profit organization under 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code — organizations that are not supposed to be primarily involved in elections — and used it to raise tens of millions in secret donations. In total, nearly $150 million was spent by these (c)(4) groups leaving voters in the dark as to the personal interests of the donors. We can expect that to more than double in 2012 if existing laws are not enforced. Indeed Rove has announced his group alone intends to raise $120 million for 2012.
A coalition of advocacy groups have come together as CampaignAccountabilityWatch.org, to fight back against Rove and others, such as the Chamber of Commerce and American Future Fund, to make sure that they do not violate campaign finance law in the upcoming election as they have done in the past. Our simple request to U.S. Attorneys, the Department of Justice and the Obama administration: enforce existing law. [Read more]
Feingold, who believed that those with money and power should not “drown out the voices of average Americans,” was best known for legislation that banned large donations to candidates and political parties.
The Wisconsin Democrat was defeated in November in a midterm election that saw more than $400 million spent nationally by tax-exempt organizations collecting large checks, often from undisclosed donors.
Feingold’s departure is a source of cheer to conservative activists who saw his approach to regulating money as unwieldy and unconstitutional. And they applaud the recent freedom granted by the Supreme Court to corporate and union contributors — and they have their own agenda for further undoing Feingold’s legacy.
Feingold’s allies, while acknowledging they face a tough fight, say they have a three-part plan for 2011: Push legislation that would end the secret-money loophole by requiring groups to disclose their donors; seek aggressive enforcement of Internal Revenue Service rules governing political groups that operate as “social welfare organizations”; and fight lawsuits and legislative proposals that could further undermine regulatory gains made during Feingold’s years in the Senate. [Read more]
One result of the 2010 campaign is clear before any ballots are counted: Democracy is in danger.
That sounds hyperbolic. But whatever remains of the quaint notion—call it a myth—that in a democracy citizens are more or less equal is in the process of being shredded, due to the rise this year of super PACs and secretive political nonprofits. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s notorious Citizens United decision and other rulings, a small number of well-heeled individuals (or corporations or unions) can now amass a tremendous amount of political influence by throwing an unlimited amount of money into efforts to elect their preferred candidates. And certain political nonprofits, such as Crossroads GPS—the outfit set up this year by GOP strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie (which with an affiliated group is spending about $50 million)—can pour tens of millions of dollars into the elections without revealing the source of their campaign cash. [Read more]
WASHINGTON, D.C. – American Future Fund, a conservative nonprofit group pouring money into the 2010 midterm elections, appears to be violating campaign finance law, watchdog groups said in a complaint filed today with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
The FEC should investigate whether American Future Fund must register as a political committee for its huge expenditures in the election, making the group subject to recordkeeping, reporting and disclosure requirements, Public Citizen, Protect Our Elections and the Center for Media and Democracy said in the complaint, available at: http://bit.ly/dA0LmP [Read more]