Return of the Secret Donors

[ProSense]

Source: The New York Times

To old political hands, wise to the ways of candidates and money, 1972 was a watershed year. Richard M. Nixon’s re-election campaign was awash in cash, secretly donated by corporations and individuals.

<...>

In this year’s midterm elections, there is no talk of satchels of cash from donors. Nor is there any hint of illegal actions reaching Watergate-like proportions. But the fund-raising practices that earned people convictions in Watergate — giving direct corporate money to a campaign and doing so secretly — are back in a different form in 2010.

This time around, the corporations are still giving secretly, but legally. In 1907, direct corporate donations to candidates were legally barred in a campaign finance reform push by President Theodore Roosevelt. But that law and others — the foundation for many Watergate convictions — are all but obsolete. This is why many supporters of strict campaign finance laws are wringing their hands.

Certainly, it is still illegal for corporations to contribute directly to candidates. But they now have equally potent ways to exert their influence. This election year is the first since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which allows corporations for the first time to finance ads that directly support or oppose political candidates. And tax laws and loopholes have permitted a shadow campaign network of Republican-leaning nonprofit groups to collect a flood of anonymous donations and spend it widely.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/weekinreview/17abramson.html

---

CREW JOINS COMPLAINT AGAINST U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE FOR MISUSING FUNDS FOR POLITICAL ACTIVITIES

Worse Than Watergate?

[benld74]

1. Ah yes, SCOTU make the Corporation a PERSON!

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Actually, the Supreme Court never did that.

That interpretation was tacked on to a SC decision by a clerk in the pay of a railroad, and it just slid through.