Shine light on political cash
Published 1:56 pm Saturday, November 6, 2010
When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that corporations and unions can’t be limited in how much they spend to influence federal elections, critics predicted an unprecedented flood of cash would flow into the 2010 midterm campaigns.
Granted, it was like forecasting rain in November, but the alarm they registered was well-founded.
Outside groups, those working independently of political parties and individual candidates, spent more than $454 million this election cycle, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, which supports openness and transparency in government. Much of it paid for those negative TV ads that spilled like sewage into our living rooms.
More disturbing, though, is the fact that a sizeable chunk of that money — about $126 million — was collected and spent without disclosing where it came from. If Congress doesn’t act to stem the tide of such secret influence on our elections, it will surely develop into a tsunami in 2012 — when control of Congress will again be on the line, along with the presidency.
To be sure, the secret donations weren’t responsible for all the sleazy ads. The candidates’ own campaigns, as well as partisan election committees within Congress, slung mud early and often.
But at least voters knew who was doing the slinging in those cases. Some independent groups that pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars — in some cases, more than $1 million — into the Patty Murray-Dino Rossi Senate race weren’t required to disclose the sources of their funding, leaving voters without information essential to judging the groups’ messages.
It’s safe to assume that such sources will be revealed to winning candidates from both parties soon enough, by lobbyists working on the donors’ behalf. No favor is likely to go unclaimed in the other Washington.
As it struck down limits on corporate and union spending on elections, the Supreme Court left intact the power of Congress to require disclosure. Congressional Democrats offered a bill to do that this year, but it was killed by a Republican filibuster in the Senate. That bill contained more than just straightforward transparency requirements, though, which may have deepened opposition to it.
The Sunlight Foundation is rightly calling for a more focused version of that bill to be reintroduced, either when Congress reconvenes this month or after the new Congress is seated in January. Dumping everything but the disclosure requirements for outside groups ought to muster enough support among Republicans to whom open government and accountability mean something.
Otherwise, look for spending in 2012 that makes this year’s flood of anonymous cash look like a trickle.
