Undue Influence

Back in my old stomping grounds of Oregon, Rep. Peter DeFazio is experiencing an unexpected challenge in his race to return to the US House of Representatives from the state's 4th district. In the past, DeFazio always has won in a walk, far outdistancing any Republican foolish enough to run against the incumbent in this bastion of liberal Oregon. This year, however, as with far too many of his fellow Democrats, DeFazio finds himself in a dogfight.

I really don't care who wins as I have no horse in this race. The reason I have mentioned the DeFazio race is because of his opponent, Art Robinson. According to Willamette Week,

The race would hardly register on anyone’s political Richter scale except for the significant amount of money being spent on Robinson’s behalf by a shadowy Washington D.C. group called Concerned Taxpayers for America. CTA has spent money opposing just two congressional candidates: Maryland Democrat Frank Kratovil and DeFazio.

CTA has spent $300,000 on ads against DeFazio, and the spending appears to be having some effect. A GOP poll last week indicated that Robinson is within six percentage points of DeFazio.

...Recently, reports were filed with the Federal Elections Commission by CTA, and its source of money is now out of the shadows. CTA has just two donors. One is a concrete firm in Maryland that apparently doesn’t like Kratovil. The other is Bob Mercer, who with his partner runs Renaissance Technologies, one of the nation’s largest hedge funds.

...Mercer most likely is spending his money in this district race, however, because DeFazio’s sponsorship of a couple of Wall Street reform bills. One in particular, H.R. 4191, specifically targets funds like Mercer’s and would charge a fee on his fund’s transactions.

This is the landscape that the Citizens United decision has bought us. Singular individuals or companies can exert undue influence on one or more political races.

The ramifications of this landmark Supreme Court decision are only beginning to be felt. I'm more than confident that the landscape will get more gruesome as time marches forward.

Let's say you are a person of "means" and you have a good amount of spare change in your pocket. Some elected official is running for re-election in a far corner of the country and this official has supported/opposed legislation you hate/hold dear OR the official has said something at some point in his/her life that you loathe or love to death. You immediately can create one of those nonprofits that needn't publicize its donors (that's basically you) and spend your money willy nilly either to support or oppose the candidate.

Single-handedly you can exert the greatest impact on the political race in question and no one -- including the candidates themselves -- may have a clue who you are or what axe you have to grind. What a glorious system!

Of course, the above scenario is predicated on the idea that you are halfway sane. What if you've lost a few of your marbles along the way?

In such a case, you could decide to support/oppose a candidate based solely on their apparent dental work, their shoe size or the color of their hair. Heck, you could place the names of all the candidates of the political party you hate the most in a drum and randomly pick out two or three names. Then you could anonymously spend untold amounts of money attacking them for real or perceived sins. All this in a race you genuinely have no interest in at all.

A far fetched scenario? Sure. But it's both possible AND legal now. The rich and well-to-do have been granted a green light for undue influence in any race OR ballot initiative that they see fit. Not only do they not have to explain to anyone WHY they have injected themselves into specific campaigns, but they don't even have to reveal their involvement at all.

If it wasn't already, our political system is now doomed.