The American political system could become a lot more corrupt soon.
That's because of a little known lawsuit filed by the GOP that would allow for
official party committees and
candidates to coordinate freely by removing current spending restrictions.
As Politico notes, an eventual victory in this lawsuit filed last
November by the National Republic Senatorial Committee and
the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Would eliminate the need for House and Senate campaign
committees of any party to set up separate operations to make so
called independent expenditures to boost campaigns with TV ads.
So, look, this story gets a little complicated.
It's in the weeds.
I'm going to do my best to make it digestible and easy to understand.
But in order to fully understand how the victory for
the GOP would actually transform our already weak campaign finance laws and
exacerbate corruption in our political system.
Let's get into the details on what the current laws
are before discussing how they could change.
So, under the existing campaign finance reform,
the National Republican Campaign Committee and
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Can spend between 59,000 and
$119,000 in coordination with their candidates.
The NRSC and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee can spend between
$119,000 $3.6 million, which, by the way, sounds like a lot of money.
But beyond that, party committees must rely on their independent
expenditure operations, known internally as IEs.
Now, independent expenditure arms require a degree of
separation from the candidates.
Their staff cannot directly coordinate with candidates or
those in their organization who don't work for the IE.
They communicate in code through so called red boxes on
hidden public websites during the fall TV ad campaigns.
So let me break it down even further, okay?
What this basically means is you have the national committees for
both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
They fundraise, they raise a lot of money, and
they've got a ton of money to spend and burn, right.
Now, they can coordinate with their candidates up to a certain amount and
up to a certain amount of money, specifically.
However, past that amount of money, they're not able to spend and
coordinate with these specific candidates.
And while there are limits to how much money you can donate directly to
an individual campaign, those limitations are less restrictive for
national party committees.
They can take in a lot more money, bigger donations,
which tend to attract quite a bit of cash from moneyed interest,
including Wall Street players and big banks.
So let's take a look at the National Republican Congressional Committee back in
2020.
So these are the top 2020 contributors to the NRCC, okay?
So it's important to keep in mind that while you see Marcus Foundation,
they donated nearly a million dollars.
Charles Schwab, nearly a million dollars.
Reyes Holding nearly a million dollars.
You've got energy transfer, LP, more than half a million dollars in
one election cycle alone to the Republican Party.
Then you have Uline inc $513,775 in donations.
It's important to note that there's a little trick being played here because
the companies themselves are actually restricted from donating unlimited amounts
of money to campaign committees.
However, individuals associated with those firms, including executives,
employees, and those people's immediate family members.
Donate large sums instead effectively on behalf of the company.
So, in other words, Marcus Foundation itself didn't technically give the NRCC
nearly a million dollars.
Rather, people within and associated with the organization did.
And individuals are able to donate larger sums of money to
the committees on their own.
When it comes to individual campaigns or candidates,
the amount of money is actually much less, right?
They can donate, I believe it's a little over $5,000 each election
cycle to each specific candidate, but that amount is actually much larger
when it comes to donating to the national party committees.
Now, in addition, with committees working in concert with their candidates,
millions of dollars will effectively be funneled into individual campaigns.
Allowing party committees to purchase TV airtime at much cheaper rates
offered to candidates.
Experts say that this will allow big donors to exert more influence over
candidates, even more influence than they already have.
Super PACs will remain the same even if the courts rule in favor of
the GOP's claims in this lawsuit.
But does that really matter when wealthy donors can just donate to national party
committees instead, knowing full well that these fundraising arms can coordinate
directly with the candidates?
No restrictions?
So what's the likelihood that this case gets decided in
the Republican Party's favor?
Unfortunately, very likely.
So the case currently lies with Ohio District Court Judge Douglas Cole,
a Trump appointee who only has to determine whether this case should
be sent to the 6th Circuit for review.
And look, he gave Republicans a lot of hope in early August when he ordered
a speedy three month discovery period,
which hints that this case is headed to the higher court for full arguments.
In fact, Judge Cole indicated to attorneys involved in the case earlier this
month that he was setting a fast timeline to get arguments up to the Circuit Court.
And the 6th Circuit is a fairly conservative bench with a near
supermajority of GOP appointed judges.
The venue itself is a win for Republicans.
The FEC, the Federal Elections Committee,
sought to have the case either dismissed on technical grounds or
moved to federal court in DC but Cole denied that request.
And should the FEC challenge the case all the way to the Supreme Court, you should
keep in mind that SCOTUS voted 63 to roll back another campaign finance regulation.
Which could indicate a willingness to strike down other long standing laws.
And while, look, the Republican Party has brought this suit forward.
I want to be absolutely clear about something it's not just
the Republican Party that stands to benefit from the loosened campaign
finance laws.
Obviously, this would apply to Democrats as well.
And it's just another example of how our whatever remains of efforts
to prevent bribery and corruption in our political system.
They just keep getting chipped away at chipped away at, chipped away at and
there are consequences to that.
Because if you have these monied interests providing a lot of funding for
these political campaigns and these specific candidates.
Well they're gonna have a lot more pressure or
say over what those politicians actually end up fighting for
once they are, in fact, elected or reelected.
And that's where the issue, oftentimes you'll see politicians like Joe Biden for
instance, he ran on wanting to fight for a public option in our health care system.
He didn't fight for that at all.
He claimed that he was gonna fight for
the pro act to improve the ability of labor to organize their workplaces.
Didn't fight for that either.
And so it's one thing to hear them campaign on something which oftentimes
will get them elected.
But it's not surprising that they then abandon those campaign promises,
keeping in mind who funded their campaigns the most.
And technically it's the moneyed interests that have money to burn.
The fact that you have individuals within any given corporation or
company donating nearly a million dollars to one national party
committee tells you all you need to know.
That drowns out the voices of individual voters or small dollar donors,
grassroots individuals, right, who donate, let's say, $26 to a campaign.
Their voices get drowned out in this system.
And so I think this is something that voters both right and left can agree on.
In order to have a political system that actually looks out for
the best interests of ordinary people, ordinary constituents.
You have to ensure that everyone is on an even playing field in our political
system.
That is not the case right now.
The fact that we have essentially baked bribery into the system and
allowed for this corruption to be as bad as it already is is just ludicrous.
But it's about to get worse if the GOP gets its way with this lawsuit.