New York Times Editorial: Stealth Money

New York Times Editorial: Stealth Money
Copyright by The New York Times Editorial: Stealth Money
Published: October 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/opinion/18mon2.html?th&emc=th


We can’t turn on the television these days without being assaulted by ads anonymously savaging candidates. Welcome to politics in post-Citizens United America. The Supreme Court allowed unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions but didn’t require the folks picking up the tab to stand behind their words.

It is too late for this campaign. The House approved a measure requiring phantom check writers to identify themselves on their ads and barring money from overseas corporations. Senate Republicans blocked it. Voters who say they’re fed up with negative politics — and sleazy back-room deals — need to demand better.

Republicans, so far, have the advertising whip hand as partisan operatives solicit and spend large under the cover of blandly named “good citizen” committees. There is good reason to fear that foreign corporations are also taking advantage of the new no-tell rules.

The United States Chamber of Commerce, which has unleashed a barrage of attack ads against Democratic candidates and the White House, denies that offshore moguls are anteing up. That would be more credible if the chamber disclosed its donors. Shareholders of the chamber’s corporate members should demand that.

Even as it loosed this destructive new era, the Supreme Court stressed that disclosure was the appropriate alternative to limiting political money. Republicans, led by the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, once touted that approach. They dropped it once the lion’s share of the lucre began rolling their way.

A campaign finance bill, the Disclose Act, fell a vote short in the Senate last month. Another vote is promised after the election, with Democrats offering to negotiate changes that keep the focus on transparency. Might voters dare to hope that the frenzy of stealth spending could prompt support from Republicans prized for their supposed independence: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts?

If not, the three and the entire Republican Party should explain why they prefer Senator McConnell’s diktat that voters are best left in the dark.