LAT Editorial: Hunted by the 'super PACs' - GOP candidates are feeling the heat.
Hunted by the 'super PACs'
Conservatives applauded the Citizens United ruling. But now GOP candidates are feeling the heat.
......................
It didn’t have to be this way. In deciding Citizens United, the court could have confined its ruling to the facts before it. Instead, it swung for the fences (let’s hear it for “conservative judicial activism”) and set out to make sweeping new constitutional law. It achieved that, and unleashed this new torrent of money in politics.
.....................
Going forward, there are at least two reforms that would take some of the edge off this problem. Improved disclosure laws would force prompt reporting about who gives to super PACS, so that the public might know who is behind the enormous sums being raised and spent. And prohibiting super PACs from lining up behind a single candidate — on the grounds that candidate-specific super PACS are really just thinly veiled agents of the candidate — might reduce some of the naked evasion of contribution limits. Neither would undo the damage of Citizens United, but both would represent a start.
Meanwhile, for those keeping score, here's last week's tally: A ruling by a conservative-dominated Supreme Court and cheered by Republicans has funded attacks on two prominent GOP candidates; those ads in one case were put together by former aides to the front-runner and in the other case paid for by a leading supporter of the challenger, though both candidates deny any connection to the work being done on their behalf. And the substance of the ads has been to accuse Gingrich of being unreliable as a politician and Romney of being unscrupulous in business. That's Citizens United at work, and Republicans may be reminded to be careful what they wish for.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-ed-superpacs-20120114,0,580731.story
= new reply since forum marked as read
is bad. We haven't seen nothing yet.