Thanks to Citizens United, and other decisions, corporations may now spend unlimited amounts of money to influence our politics to their advantage and the advantage of their owners.
Thanks to the DC Circuit decision yesterday authored by Janice Rogers Brown (appointed by G. W. Bush and approved despite the willingness of Dems to filibuster as a result of the deal brokered by the so-called Gang of 14) a corporation may now assert a conscious privilege in not offering coverage under the Affordable Care Act - including on things as basic as birth control.
And as you will learn in Delaware, Den of Thieves?, a New York Times op ed by John A. Cassara, a former agent for the Treasury Department,
In the years I was assigned to Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or Fincen, I observed many formal requests for assistance having to do with companies associated with Delaware, Nevada or Wyoming. These states have a tawdry image: they have become nearly synonymous with underground financing, tax evasion and other bad deeds facilitated by anonymous shell companies — or by companies lacking information on their “beneficial owners,” the person or entity that actually controls the company, not the (often meaningless) name under which the company is registered.
I live in Virginia. We currently are seeing massive advertising in the run-up to our election on Tuesday. As it happens one of the biggest spenders is an organization funded by Michael Bloomberg. On the issues in question, I happen to believe in the positions he advocates, but I am still not happy to see what represents a further perversion of democracy by the power of money.
But at least Bloomberg is open about what he is doing with his money.
The Koch Brothers have not been as open, but at least we have some idea of their spending.
But what if the spending was through shell corporations whose owners are hidden?
There is some evidence that Romney played with this in the last presidential cycle. There is nothing to stop a wealthy person from setting up a corporation whose sole purpose to is spend money to influence elections.
What makes it worse is that politicians have leaned how to play the system. Another piece in the Times, Politicians' Extortion Racket, describes how road blocks to legislation are established as a means of shaking down corporations large and small for political contributions. According to the article, this is a bi-partisan phenomenon, with examples cited both of Speaker Boehner and the White House.
Let me explore this a bit further.
There is no limit to what either a human or a corporation can contribute to elections in Virginia (except those for Federal office), but we require transparency at least this far - rapid disclosure of the contribution. Thus we have known for years that the largest players in our politics have tended to be corporations, most notably Dominion, the state (and regions) largest energy corporation, heavily dependent upon coal.
It is possible that we may soon see a similar pattern in federal elections. That is, while the direct contributions to any individual campaign would remain limited, the cap on total expenditures is overturned. Combine that with how 501(c)4s can hide their contributors, and the ability to set up shell corporations for massive spending, the ability to set up multiple overlapping Political Action Committees, and the other aspects of how money seems to increasingly dominate our politics, and we are finding ourselves in a world in which the political actions of individual human beings become dwarfed and ever less significant. Should we lose the freedom currently extant through the internet, the ability of people to organize except on small local scales would not only be dwarfed by money but also crippled.
I am a teacher. We are very much seeing the phenomenon of money in public education. First, there is the direct expenditure on behalf of certain "reform" organizations which themselves attempt to influence policy and politics. Second, there is the funding of initiatives under things like Parent Trigger laws to convert public schools to charters that can then funnel money to the backers of the initiatives, even if ostensibly the charters remain non-profit: check things like the transfer of funding to management companies as just one example. Third, there are massive contributions in elections to school boards, a phenomenon we have seen in Los Angeles and are now seeing in Seattle. Even when ordinary folks are able to organize to beat back these efforts, then other approaches are taken: thus Glenda Ritz, a long-time teacher, was overwhelmingly chosen by the voters of Indiana (not exactly the bluest of states) over Jeb Bush Chief for Change Tony Bennett, whereupon the Governor (who got far fewer votes than did Ritz) and the legislature moved to gut her office and her powers to advance the agenda of the "reform" movement just clearly rejected by the voters.
I strongly urge people to read - and ponder - both pieces from the Times to which I linked above the fold. Allow me to offer two more quotes from the piece on shell corporations that I think are especially relevant.
Watchdog groups like the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Global Financial Integrity and Global Witness say that anonymous companies registered in the United States have become the vehicle of choice for drug dealers, organized criminals and corrupt politicians to evade taxes and launder illicit funds. A study by researchers at Brigham Young University, the University of Texas and Griffith University in Australia concluded that America was the second easiest country, after Kenya, in which to incorporate a shell company.
That should be scary:
the vehicle of choice for drug dealers, organized criminals and corrupt politicians to evade taxes and launder illicit funds
And combine that with this:
Anonymous corporations are not only favored tools of criminals, but they also facilitate corruption, particularly in the developing world. A recent World Bank study found that the United States was the favored destination for corrupt foreign politicians opening phantom companies to conceal their ill-gotten gains.
While that is a reference to corrupt
FOREIGN politicians, the same approach might well be readily available to corrupt AMERICAN politicians.
Of greater importance, such mechanisms become a means of funneling money to corrupt the political process, and thereby to shred the ability or willingness of the government and its agencies to regulate and exercise oversight, thereby contributing to a downward spiral where the money and power continue to accrue into ever fewer hands and government moves further away from what Lincoln had described 150 years ago as "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" in words spoken in the midst of our internecine conflict that cost this nation so much, and whose results are still not accepted by some who hold or seek political office.
I asked you to consider.
Now I ask that you respond.
I am interested in the words you may offer.
I am more interested in the actions you are prepared to take.
As I find I must examine my own actions.
Can I use my economic power to make a difference? Can I be one person whose spending will not go to corporations that use their financial power to distort the process?
Could that possibly be a way of moving to reform this system, if collectively enough of us would act in that fashion?
Is it even possible? Might as we attempt to do so the laws be changed to prohibit such collective action?
Are we already so corrupt as a nation and a society that it is no longer possible for us to reclaim our democracy?
If the answer to the last question is yes, then what the hell are we doing wasting our time here?
I wonder.
And I will continue to consider. . . .