Citizens United has opened the door to what one report is calling the auctioning of democracy. Much of the money being donated through Super PACs is keeping their source secret and the money is untraceable.
If what these Super PAC donors are doing is nothing to be ashamed of, then why are they hiding their identity?
Today Illinois PIRG Education Fund and Demos released a new analysis of the funding sources for the campaign finance behemoths, Super PACs. The findings confirmed what many have predicted in the wake of the Supreme Court’s damaging Citizens United decision: since their inception in 2010, Super PACs have been primarily funded by a small segment of very wealthy individuals and business interests, with a small but significant amount of funds coming from secret sources.
Citizens United, the misbegotten Supreme Court case granting corporations the right to spend unlimited money to influence elections, has entered its terrible twos.
Already, we've seen the first results of this Wild West approach to money in politics and it's not pretty. Everyone is using the biggest gun they can buy now that the Supreme Court shot the sheriff. And, as many of the guns are unregistered, anonymous character assassination abounds. The scandal of money in politics today is not what little remains illegal, but what is done legally.
The Montana Supreme Court in Helena stands just off the main drag, dramatically called Last Chance Gulch Street. The picturesque setting is fitting for an institution that has just challenged the U.S. Supreme Court to a legal showdown on the enormously important question of whether corporations should have an unfettered right to dominate elections or whether citizens have the right to adopt commonsense protections to defend democratic government from corruption. Get the kids off the streets, because this could be an epic confrontation.
The Montana Supreme Court in Helena stands just off the main drag, dramatically called Last Chance Gulch Street. The picturesque setting is fitting for an institution that has just challenged the U.S. Supreme Court to a legal showdown on the enormously important question of whether corporations should have an unfettered right to dominate elections or whether citizens have the right to adopt commonsense protections to defend democratic government from corruption. Get the kids off the streets, because this could be an epic confrontation.
Occupy Wall Street has already accomplished a great deal by shifting public discourse in this country. Instead of focusing on the need for austerity and deficit reduction, attention is rightly being directed at economic disparities and the deep structural problems that the United States faces.
One grievance of the protesters targeting Wall Street is that financial elites wield way too much power in our democracy. That complaint is hardly new, but the latest figures on money in politics tells a truly troubling story about the vast resources that Wall Street has put into shaping both the legislative process and elections.
A photo voter ID law signed by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry is unnecessary, unfair, restrictive and intentionally discriminates against African-American and Latino voters, a coalition of civil rights groups will argue in a letter to the Justice Department on Wednesday.
Law that tries to exclude human judgment of right and wrong always veers towards unintended places - as with the Rockefeller drug laws, or "three strikes" laws that send petty criminals to jail for life.
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit issued a pair of decisions affirming campaign finance disclosure provisions in Maine and Rhode Island. I let out a sigh of relief when I read them.
Why is it important for civil rights and good government groups to to be granted status as intervenor defendants in a lawsuit about counting prisoners in redistricting?
Because the legislative commission charged with drawing the lines, LATFOR, hasn't exactly been vigorous in defending itself in a lawsuit filed about the issue, they say.
As currently drawn, five Massachusetts House districts would have too few residents to meet the Supreme Court's standard - if inmates are not counted as living there, according to Brenda Wright of Demos, a public interest group with a Boston office. She testified before the committee in Dorchester last month.
The mutual admiration between the two has been apparent for some time. Herbert has been a speaker at Demos and has also cited the think tank over his years as a New York Times columnist. He wrote in one that almost exclusively centered on Demos that the think tank has responded to right-wing zealotry with “admirable real-world scholarship, a highly respected fellows program to encourage new writers and thinkers and steadfast efforts to promote civic engagement. (It’s a big champion, among other things, of same-day voter registration.)”
A left-leaning policy group concerned about economic fairness has released a report card on various budget proposals – and, perhaps not surprisingly, the House GOP fiscal 2012 plan doesn’t fare so well.