“It’s unclear whether the Court was being naive or disingenuous.” - Paul S. Ryan, an attorney and expert in federal election law at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington, D.C., on the Supreme Court's touting of disclosure provisions during its decision last month in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.
My latest article for Raw Story:
The Supreme Court’s seismic January ruling that corporations are free to spend unlimited amounts of their profits to advertise for or against candidates may have been the latest shakeup of campaign finance – but gaping holes already allow corporations to spend enormous sums without leaving a paper trail, a Raw Story investigation has found.
Campaign finance experts confirmed that though disclosure rules remained intact in the new Supreme Court decision, there are effective methods to circumvent them.
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an attorney and campaign finance expert at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, said corporations already effectively end-run campaign finance law by shuffling money through trade associations.
“One of their favorites right now is spending through trade associations,” Torres-Spelliscy said.
Trade associations are considered tax-exempt non-profit organizations under US law. While they must report contributions received from other corporations to the Internal Revenue Service, the document itself remains confidential and is not made available to the public.
“Money coming through the trade association doesn’t get disclosed,” Torres-Spelliscy explained. “You can’t tell if it came from particular corporations.”
For example, she said, “The disclaimer form is likely to just say, ‘This is brought to you by the Chamber of Commerce,’ with no extra ability to see behind that.”
Exclusive: How Corporations Secretly Move Millions to Fund Political Ads
Posted by: Brad Jacobson | February 04, 2010 at 01:09 PM
So many ways to astroturf or hide the money...
Posted by: Batocchio | February 05, 2010 at 02:13 PM
We need to demand that gifts come only from individuals and that even these must be limited to something tiny like $100, so there is no ability to coerce our politicians into FAVORS. And banking entities cannot be considered a "person."
Posted by: thenewuswoman | February 05, 2010 at 03:15 PM
I am certain that much of this money does come from corporations seeking favorable legislation, making backroom deals and all under the table!
Posted by: Jane Christenson | February 06, 2010 at 07:20 AM
These are the punishable efforts in which higher industries bribes to political parties for their industrial sake.
Posted by: Tio2 nanotubes | November 17, 2011 at 02:05 AM