Wednesday, April 13, 2016

The Citizens United Protest Continues




As Democracy Spring demonstrators engaged in a second day of civil disobedience at the US Capitol, part of a week-long series of demonstrations aimed at expanding voting rights and reducing the influence of money in politics, attorney Marc Owens [former director of the IRS division that regulated nonprofit institutions] told an audience at the National Press Club that the widespread use of nonprofits as ways to shield the identities of political donors has corrupted the system.

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More than 2,000 people have pledged to participate in the organization's sit-ins following a 10-day march from the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia to the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

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Under the 2010 Citizens United decision, the nonprofits can raise and donate unlimited amounts to influence elections. Unlike super PACs, which must report donors to the Federal Election Commission, “dark money groups” [...] never have to reveal the sources of their funds, as long as — supposedly — politics is not their main focus.

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Robert Maguire of the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, [said] it looks like another record-breaking year for stealthy political spending. Maguire said CRP so far has tracked $21 million in dark money spending for the 2016 cycle. That’s almost three times what it was at this time four years ago, a campaign in which total dark money spending ended up north of $300 million.

  Kathy Kiely at Bill Moyers
OpenSecrets.org tracks the amount of money raised by candidates.  Here are the figures so far.  The top bar for each represents the amount of money raised by super PACs, dark money outlets, etc.

Detailed list of campaign and donor money: 

[W]ith some of the failures of Obama—failure to achieve real universal healthcare, a failure to really tackle climate change or growing income inequality—we’re seeing this kind of return to civil disobedience, these tactics from the 1960s, or even going back to the 1930s, that are returning to the mainstream in American politics. And I think that’s very interesting. And it’s very savvy, I should add, for all of these protesters to make corruption, money in politics, their focus, because that’s what kind of threads the needle here. No matter what issue you care about, it’s very difficult to see reform when big money, special interests dominate the policymaking process.

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[A] significant number [of Democratic superdelegates] are actually party insiders or lobbyists and former politicians who now work in the lobbying industry [...] , folks who are registered to represent big banks, even in some cases foreign governments, and they have incredible power over the nomination process. And in one potential scenario, we could have these lobbyists selecting the nominee, if Hillary and Bernie have about the same number of pledged delegates going into the convention later this summer.

  Lee Fang
 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

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