Campaign Money “Arms Race” Goes Nuclear
Posted August 30, 2012 09:00 am
By
Stephanie Carroll Carson
TAMPA, FL - The people watching money in politics say the fundraising arms race has gone nuclear.
Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, is on-site, observing the Republican National Convention. She expects candidates and their allies to spend a minimum of $5.8 billion on federal campaigns this year, an all-time high. She says more of the money will be of a particularly sneaky kind.
"Much more of the money than previous cycles will be
made up of unlimited, undisclosed donations."
She says voters need to be very careful about secretive
groups with innocent-sounding names that often fund
dishonest political ads.
"Despite the patriotic name, it may in fact be one
donor. Maybe a member of Congress has jurisdiction over
their company or industry through their congressional
committee assignments, who knows? We have to all be
vigilant in this cycle, because there's a lot of hidden
messages."
This year, Krumholz says, many huge super-PACs are
masquerading as charities to dodge disclosure. She says
the Internal Revenue Service has been investigating...
"But they risk pushback from Congress that doesn't like
what they view as meddling in politics. Their hand has
been slapped and they're cautiously proceeding."
Krumholz says the disclosure rules for these charities
are nearly nonexistent.
"We know ultimately very little, and will by and large
not know, who is funding the biggest and most political
of these nonprofits until well after the elections - if
we ever learn."
Some fundraisers have defended the system, saying
campaign donations are an extension of free speech. But
Krumholz says what's really going on is that politicians
and donors are building relationships they can use to
their advantage. She says everyone in the political
elite knows who is helping whom - but citizens are left
in the dark.