Campaign Finance

Not that long ago, it looked as if former ambassador and Bush/Cheney BFF Tom Foley was going to make ethics reform a central feature of his "sequel" campaign for governor of Connecticut. He introduced (failed) legislation, released an onslaught of ads saying as much, and presented his case to the media. Of course, that was before all the allegations of his unethical campaigning started to pour out.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan filed a suit last week alleging that the Federal Elections Commission violated campaign finance law by failing to require two groups — the American Action Network (AAN) and Americans for Job Security (AJS) — to register as political action committees which would require they disclose their election spending.

In an exclusive for the Daily Beast, ProPublica writer Kim Barker exposes the “pro-troop” charity Move America Forward for misusing donations collected under the auspices of sending soldiers care packages. After adopting a battalion, the Marines of Geronimo, the group started a fundraising drive claiming the care packages sent to the soldiers in Afghanistan might be “the only mail they will receive all year.” The truth? Those Marines were stationed in Japan and the money was instead funneled to the dark money machine that runs the Tea Party.

Missouri Rep. Robert Onder may be just another white-bread, hate-fueled Republican candidate, but campaign finance records reveal the puppetmaster behind Onder's very big week in campaign contributions: Certified monster Rex Sinquefield.

Citizens United, the conservative "non-profit" which won a landmark Supreme Court decision allowing for unlimited dark money in politics, wants to spend big on political attack ads in Colorado without disclosing any donors.

It wasn’t too long ago that “transparency” and “disclosure” in political fundraising were rallying cries from Republicans. But four years after the Supreme Court majority in Citizens United v. FEC promised unlimited political fundraising posed no risks of corruption as long as the donors are disclosed, the 2014 election is shaping up to have the most undisclosed money ever. And with Congress tied in knots on nearly every policy issue, we shouldn’t hold our breath for a legislative fix to shine a light on this “dark money.”

A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled that constraints on coordination between soft money groups and candidates was unconstitutional, basically blowing the lid off of any spending caps and solidifying the burgeoning plutocracy so replacing the US' former, less corrupt, version of democracy.

It is more than just an "appearance of corruption" that troubles today's Supreme Court. With its recent decisions that gutted the regulation of campaign finance, the majority on the Roberts Court has shown itself a partisan combatant on the side of a most dangerously corrupt form of injustice.

U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, R-MO, got a big affirmation recently when the Supreme Court essentially endorsed the type of big money politics that have provided the bedrock for his political career. It's no surprise then that Blunt is downplaying the impact of the McCutcheon decision.

When the Supreme Court issued its 5-4 McCutcheon vs. FEC decision last week, it demonstrated once again just how out of touch with political reality it is. The Court found that big money in politics and the influence and access to elected officials that it obtains is not sufficiently corrupting to trump the so-called First Amendment rights of the richest Americans.