The business of campaign finance -- you'll remember "Citizens United" -- just got a lot dirtier, thanks to our Republican Congress. Any Constitutional legitimacy in the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision depended on"transparency." But transparency has been swept aside and now euthanized by a Republican majority in Congress, using the budget bill to inject killer poison into a damaged American democracy.
In the new budget bill, Republicans inserted a provision blocking the Internal Revenue Service from creating rules to curb the growing abuse of the tax law by thinly veiled political machines posing as “social welfare” organizations. These groups are financed by rich special-interest donors who do not have to reveal their identities under the tax law. So much for effective disclosure at the I.R.S.
In another move to keep the public blindfolded about who is writing big corporate checks for federal candidates, the Republicans barred the Securities and Exchange Commission from finalizing rules requiring corporations to disclose their campaign spending to investors. It was Citizens United that foolishly envisioned a world in which: “Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests.” ...NYT
The President could do something about this. But will he? "For two years," Times editors write, "President Obama has dithered and withheld the one blow he could easily strike for greater political transparency: the signing of an executive order requiring government contractors to disclose their campaign spending." Not a giant step, but at least an embarrassing spotlight on Republican politics during the campaign.
This would not solve the overall problem, but in mandating new disclosures in time for the 2016 elections it would help affirm that democracy is about transparency. Mr. Obama should sign the order now. If Republicans want to make an issue of this, let them — and let them defend the scourge of dark money before the voters on the campaign trail. ...NYT
