I was astounded by the types of political ads that I saw when I went home to Iowa over winter break.
We’ve all heard of these types of ads: Politician A speaks softly about the problems the nation is facing, points out how politician B couldn’t possibly be tasked to solve the issues and finally explains how they would be the right person to lead the nation into an age of prosperity and equality.
But this presidential election, the commercials will be even worse, due to the onslaught of the Super PACs. Students should be aware of what they’re in for once the Kansas March 10th caucus comes upon us and we’re all inundated with these political commercials.
Super political action committees, or PACs as they’re referred to, were allowed to take part in the election process beginning with the 2010 election. This came about following two judicial decisions.
In the first, the Supreme Court held in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that government may not prohibit unions and corporations from making independent expenditures about politics. Shortly following that, in Speechnow.org v. FED, the Federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that contributions to groups that only make independent expenditures could not be limited. These super PACs are officially known as “independent-expenditure only committees” and can raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions and other groups, as well as individuals.
Super PACs are not supposed to have any direct coordination with any candidates or political parties, but a candidate may talk to his associated Super PAC via the media. Super PACs are also required to disclose their donors, just like the more traditional PACs; however, thus far, Super PACs have used a technicality to postpone filings until well after elections. The entire issue lies in the fact that Super PACs have very little rules, and with such a large amount of money available to them, they are able to wield enormous amounts of power with little policing.
Despite the lack of direct coordination with candidates, the current GOP primary race has seen several occurrences of suspicious behavior. The Restore Our Future Super PAC benefited Mitt Romney while attacking fellow nominee Newt Gingrich. Not to be outdone, the pro-Gingrich Winning Our Future Super PAC attacked Romney.
Each Super PAC was run by former employees of the candidate it supported, and each attracted money from that candidate’s associates. More recently, the Nevada casino mogul, Sheldon Adelson reportedly made a donation of at least $11 million to a Super PAC backing Newt Gingrich. Gingrich will be staying at the Venetian hotel which is a Sands Corp, an Adelson owned company, while he is in Las Vegas to campaign for the Nevada primary. There isn’t enough understanding of how much coordination nominees may have with these donators and that creates problems.
Our political process is held in high regard as one of the most open in the world, yet we as the voting public aren’t privy to who is behind these Super PACs and their large amounts of financial backing. Super PACs are emblematic of the amount of outside influence on political figures in the system by groups like unions and corporations. There are millions of dollars spent on leverage by lobbyists, Super PACs are simply a representation of that in the campaigning process.
These issues would be solved if we allowed people to donate an unlimited amount of money to the candidates themselves and then candidates were forced to file who gave them money. Candidates need money, we can’t expect people to run for political office without acquiring vast amounts of money. If donations were unlimited, but filing was forced, candidates would receive those funds but the voting public would be informed of the kinds of individuals and groups making donations and imposing their influence. It isn’t a perfect solution, it still allows people to exercise large amounts of power and influence over political candidates but in lieu of the recent problems, something must be done.