In January the DNC announced it would be downsizing its national convention from four days to three. Late Monday, the DNC announced another convention downsizing. The big kickoff event would be moved from the Speedway to downtown Charlotte. With Democrats unable to raise even one-third of their fundraising goal, they were forced to cut a few more corners off their already stunted convention
Disclosure is what allowed Citizens United ruling 5:17 PM, Jun 25, 2012 |
In trying to stave off attempts to increase disclosure of who’s behind election campaign ads, those who favor secrecy for the unlimited contributions unleashed by the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision are increasingly turning to the argument that anonymity is essential to free speech.
And on Monday, the court refused to revisit its decision in the Citizens United case.
The court has said unlimited contributions were now legal but so were disclosure requirements. But lapses in the IRS and Federal Election Commission rules created loopholes through which donors could contribute to certain political action committees and other organizations in secret.
Republicans have stood united against any congressional, administrative or judicial efforts to increase disclosure, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been rallying troops by characterizing disclosure as a muzzling of free speech and a violation of First Amendment.
To support a contention that we shouldn’t worry about corporations taking over politics, he has cited the fact that no Fortune 100 company contributed to the Super PACs supporting Republican primary candidates.
Why should they? Those contributions are subject to disclosure. Why contribute to those PACs that have to disclose donors when you can anonymously contribute big time to the secret PACs that will be pouring money into political advertising this year.
Politico news service reports that Republican strategist Karl Rove, the Chamber of Commerce and the fossil fuel-based industrialist Koch brothers plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections, all outside the PACs of the candidate and the party. The Koch brothers alone are expected to spend more than the $370 million John McCain’s campaign spent in 2008.
As the Democrats start to play the same game, the norm will only get bigger and the public will be even more in the dark.
McConnell and his Republican cohorts argue that forcing the revelation of who contributes to what, and when, is “bullying people into silence.” It’s an argument that’s been advanced by the Chamber and the Citizens United plaintiffs.
It’s the best they can do in the way of an argument for why they stand in the way of disclosure in the wake of public outcry over the impact the Citizens United decision has had on campaign financing.
And it is an argument the Supreme Court has rejected. At the same time the court, in an act of judicial activism, allowed unlimited political contributions it also reaffirmed the constitutionality and necessity of disclosure requirements.
Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority that disclaimer and disclosure provisions “provide information to the electorate. The resulting transparency enables the electorate to make informed choices and give proper weight to different speakers and different messages.”
Indeed it was disclosure requirements that enabled the court to reach its naive conclusion that unlimited contributions to independent campaigns would not have a corrupting influence. The court could not reconcile the assumption of “no corruption” with a scheme of “no disclosure.” Without disclosure, it would have been hard for the court to conclude that unlimited contributions wouldn’t lead to corruption.
Only Justice Clarence Thomas, in his partial dissent from the majority, was willing to say the court didn’t go far enough and assert that unlimited campaign contributions with secrecy of donors was good for democracy.
The court wasn’t dismissive of the possibility that disclosure could put donors at risk. In a statement from the bench, Kennedy said, “If an association offers evidence that its members will face threats or reprisals, it may be able to show that the disclaimer and disclosure requirements are unconstitutional as applied to that association, but Citizens United has offered no evidence here of threat or reprisals.”
But that put the burden of proof on an association and limited any constitutionality verdict to that association.
Had the court given as much credence to the possibility of corruption as it did to the possibility of reprisals that constitute unconstitutional restriction of free speech, it wouldn’t have reached the conclusion to allow unlimited contributions.
Indeed, the underlying foundational assumption that unlimited campaign contributions won’t have a corrupting influence on elections and politics is based on the assumption that disclosure is warranted, in place and constitutional. Without it, there would be no Citizens United decision in the first place.
Ron Eachus of Salem is a former legislator and a former chairman of the Oregon Public Utility Commission. His column appears on Tuesdays. Send email to re4869@comcast.net.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
