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June 26th, 2016 
Awake Goy
Susanne Posel ,Chief Editor Occupy Corporatism | Media Spokesperson, HEALTH MAX Group
According to a recent study published by the Brennan Center for Justice (BCJ), dark campaign funds from organizations that are not allowed to collude with candidates has been directed to state and local elections.
The reason for this is because at the local level is where the most impact can be made.
By looking at “gray money” coming from 6 groups between 2006 and 2014, the researchers were able to see that donors were beginning to shield their identity, resulting in a 29% drop in known contributors.
In other words, for every dollar donated, 29 cents of it came from organizations that would not be tracked back to its original donor.
For example, these donations intentions were to “influence the selection of a regulator or the passage of a ballot measure affecting a company’s bottom line.”
Ten years ago “less than $600,000” of contributions were unknown. But as of 2 years ago, that number jumped to $22 million.
The researchers explained: “The problem is not that dark money will flood every state and local election or even most. It’s that dark money is most likely to turn up where the stakes are particularly valuable, in amounts that could make all the difference in persuading voters.”
The report blames the decision by the US Supreme Court to uphold Citizens United, thereby overturning “a 1990 precedent that upheld a ban on independent spending by corporations. That 1990 ruling was the only time the court allowed a restriction on political speech for a reason other than the need to prevent corruption.”
Wealthy individuals had their restrictions removed with Citizen’s United while corporations continue to spend untold millions to keep their lobbyists on Capitol Hill relevant to politicians.
Larry Noble, former general counsel to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) commented : “The fallout has been somewhat different in that people had predicted that major corporations would be making major independent expenditures directly. But what has happened has been much more dangerous.”
Noble points to the executives of corporations who have personally begun contributing as a way to funnel money directly through “dark money groups” that keep donor’s identity confidential.
PACs and SuperPACs have allowed individuals to coalesce and donate to candidates that promise to assist their trade associations, nonprofits and other industry players.
Marge Baker, executive vice president of policy at the People For the American Way (PAW) wrote in an op-ed piece that our system “is not quite the model of American democracy we learned about it in civics class — the system of ‘one person, one vote,’ where everyone has an equal say. Rather, it’s the Citizens United model of government, where huge corporations and wealthy special interests can spend unlimited sums to get their preferred candidates elected and then come to Washington to make sure their ‘investments’ will pay off.”
Baker points out: “The kind of democracy that millions of Americans are calling for is not the kind distorted by misguided Supreme Court decisions, not the kind where rich donors come to Washington at the start of a new Congress to try and set the political agenda, not the kind when corporations can fund endless attack ads and help tilt elections in favor of the candidates they want. Rather, Americans are calling for a democracy as good as the version our founders envisioned — a democracy for all of us.”
Last year the group Get Money Out (GMO) presented a report to the BCJ showing how Citizens United has influenced elections by transferring the power to the wealthy more so than “at any time since Watergate”.
Key points made in the report include:
- Spending is out of control. Senate candidates had to raise an average of $3,300 every day of their six-year terms. House candidates had to raise $1,800 every day of their two-year cycle.
- “Undisclosed” millionaires can swing elections. In fact, 60% of super PAC money spent on all federal elections since 2010 – $600,000 of $1 billion – came from just 195 individuals and their spouses.
- Independent candidates are funded by corporations. 45% of all super PAC funds spent in the 2014 election cycle came from groups dedicated to a single candidate or party, and over one-third of total outside spending came from just eight party-aligned groups.
- Judges can be purchased as well. 87% of state justices must stand for election in their career, making them beholden not only to the law, but to their donors.
- Special interest groups and the American public want very different things. Wall Street and financial institutions spent more than twice as much in the 2014 congressional election than they did 10 years ago in a combined congressional and presidential election.
- Big donations mean more power for rich whites.
- Outside spending keeps qualified — but unconnected — candidates out of office.
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