Shadowy dark money groups have proliferated in state and federal politics since the U.S Supreme Court’s 2010 landmark ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
“Citizens United” opened the spigot of outside spending in campaigns, while prohibiting candidates from having any role in how those monies are spent. While federal candidates are limited from accepting more than $7,000 from any individual, $10,000 from any political action committee, and are prohibited from accepting any money from corporations, outside superPACs and 501(c)(4) committees have no limitations on the source or amount of money they receive, often without public disclosure.
Last month, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Elections Commission, allowing the national political parties to coordinate directly with candidates in the expenditure of funds. This is a good development and an important ruling, as it allows the political parties, the structural apparatus candidates rely on, to coordinate with the candidates in their party. This gives the candidates more say in their own campaigns and makes the unregulated outside money less necessary or influential.
Campaign finance reforms going back to the Watergate reforms of 1974 have attempted to increase transparency and limit the ability of candidates to raise money. Other political reforms have focused on the activities of lobbyists and special interests and their efforts to influence those candidates once they are elected. However, there are several other organizations with significant influence on elections and policy-making that are not required to provide disclosure of their funding.
Many of the research organizations providing analysis and commentary, for instance, have an oversized influence on legislation. Often, they are left-leaning, usually staffed by Democrats and funded by liberal special interest groups. They retain academics and experts of the left, but present to the public as non-partisan, aided by a mainstream media eager to promote their analysis to influence our politics.
The casual reader of a newspaper or viewer of the nightly news is left to assume these groups are non-partisan, because we are told nothing about their agenda or funding. For instance, the Citizen’s Research Council of Michigan has become one of the most influential research groups in the state.
Lansing reporters regularly rely on and quote them on state politics, amplifying CRC’s positions. They present as a neutral referee rather than an influential stakeholder, without disclosing who funds their organization. That calls into question how objective their analysis may be.
Then there are the advocacy groups, often set up during an election cycle, presenting as a public interest non-profit but using their exempt status to push an agenda and run ads. They also use their exempt status to identify voters and use those data-mining results to retarget voters and influence elections.
Recently, a non-profit advocacy group, Community Action Michigan, which was only incorporated in April, launched an effort to qualify ballot proposals in Lansing, East Lansing, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Benton Harbor and Portage. The ballot proposals would amend the cities’ charters to establish a Citizens’ Advisory Healthcare Action Committee, which would “prepare a biennial Healthcare Action Plan and make recommendations to the City, and to provide a public process through which the public will be heard and needs assessed.”
These committees have no policy-making power; their recommendations are non-binding and, other than forcing local governments with no role in healthcare policy to waste time and resources, accomplish nothing.
So why do they exist? All six of those cities are located in battleground congressional seats held by Republicans. Community Action Michigan held a big press conference when they submitted their qualifying signatures to the Lansing City Clerk earlier this month, trotted out their left-wingexperts and proceeded to attack the local congressman.
Most treated this advocacy group as credible, rather than a shady dark-money-funded pop-up designed to affect the November election. Transparency and disclosure are vital to our political process. But when the rules are only applied to certain actors while others are allowed exemptions from transparency, the process is corrupted.
It’s time we require all the political influencers in Lansing and Washington to disclose their funding sources, so voters know who is behind the manipulations of these groups.
Jason Cabel Roe is a Michigan-based Republican political and communications strategist.
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Citizens United changed campaign finance. Now we need more transparency. | Opinion
Reporting by Jason Cabel Roe / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jason Cabel Roe | USA TODAY Network
