Yesterday was disclosure day for super PACs. The big-money groups had to release their donor information to the Federal Election Commission, shedding light on the individuals and corporations who have been allowed to flood the political system with soft cash since the Supreme Court’s lawless decision in Citizens United. So, at least we now know exactly what corporations are influencing candidates in the 2012 election. Right?
Not so fast.
Much of the money funneled to these independent, unaccountable groups has remained, and probably will remain, secret throughout the 2012 election season, reports The New York Times today. While the super PACs did have to file disclosure reports yesterday, many of the listings were nearly untraceable. Wealthy people and corporations who want to keep their names out of the political process while leveraging millions of dollars to influence that process are still perfectly free to do so. And they don’t even have to be that clever about it.
Take for example one super PAC donation that, according to The New York Times, was reported as “a $250,000 contribution to a super PAC backing Mr. [Mitt] Romney from a company with a post office box for a headquarters and no known employees.”
Of course, listing a shell corporation as the main donor wasn’t the only way to shield donor identities. Also from the Times:
“Groups supportive of each party employed a technique that allows them to cloak the identities of many of their donors. Those groups, including Crossroads and Priorities USA, have affiliates that are organized as nonprofit organizations known as 501(c)(4) groups, which can raise unlimited money but do not have to reveal their donors. Donors wishing to remain anonymous have the option of making their contributions to those nonprofit groups, which raised tens of millions of dollars in 2011, according to officials at the groups.”
With avenues readily available to corporations and wealthy individuals for evading disclosure, what many predicted in the wake of Citizens United has since become abundantly clear: the political system is being overrun by undisclosed, unlimited money, allowing corporations more direct access to government power than any time since the Gilded Age. Stories like this one can only become more common if nothing changes. That’s why progressives across the country have stood up to expose the sham system we have and to rebuild the fair system we need.
Read the full story from The New York Times here.