How Deep Are Your Pockets? |
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Imagine 140,000,000 dollars: what would you do with that amount of money? Some people would pay off any debts that they have accumulated – college, car, and so forth – while others would buy houses, travel, etc. A few might save the money or even donate a portion of it to charities and scholarship funds. There are organizations called Super PACs that are allowed to receive unlimited amounts of money from companies per the opinion of the Supreme Court in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission[1] that was decided in January of 2010 (Kiely par 1). As per the Citizens opinion, Super PACs are considered, for all intents and purposes, “people.” The Super PACs receive their money from corporations who transfer the funds from their treasuries and donate it to Super PACs through independent expenditures[2]. There is no limit to the amount they are allowed to donate or receive, as long as the money is used to advocate for or oppose a candidate. Restore Our Future, a conservative Super PAC, has raised $142,655,218 and counting (Restore Our Future Independent Expenditures). What are they doing with this money? How did they
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accumulate such vast amounts of money? How are the elections effected by Super PACs? And lastly, is this really a democratic way of electing presidents and other political figures? As Dave Levinthal, a representative from the Center for Response Politics says, "It's a brand-new way to play politics" (Eggen par 20). This is the story of the money.
“We tried our plan and it worked,” quotes one of Restore Our Future’s attack ads against President Obama, manipulating one of his speeches to make it seem like he believes that he has solved this country’s problems (Kiely par 4). $88,572,353 of Restore Our Future’s funds have gone against President Obama. Restore Our Future was created on October 8, 2010 and has raised more money than any Super PAC. They have not only put out ads against Obama, but they have also distributed attack ads against other members of the Republican Party, such as Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. This shows their complete focus on Mitt Romney and the goal of getting him elected as president. The difference between other Super PACs and Restore Our future is that Restore Our Future is the first to endorse only one candidate instead of a whole party. $18,730,747 went towards campaigning against Gingrich, while $21,261,248 was spent campaigning against Santorum. Only $14,090,870 has gone towards positive campaigning for Mitt Romney (Restore Our Future Independent Expenditures). Compared to other Super PACs, Restore Our Future has only used 90% of its funds on attack ads, unlike Americans for Prosperity, another Super PAC that used 100% of its funds on attack ads (Quealy). Some believe that the person who has the most money will win this election. Bill Burton, who was an advocate for Obama and co-founded Priorities USA Action, a liberal Super PAC, commented, “I’m not surprised that there’s even more money coming into this race to help Mitt Romney.” Burton believes that Romney is going to need all the money he can get to win this election. Even one of the board members of Restore Our Future, Larry McCarthy, mentioned that in order for Romney to get the nomination from the Republican Party he would need to take down Santorum, and they did so with attack ads from Restore Our Future (Grove par 6). This just goes to prove that this election could be won with ads rather than political ideologies. One could argue that the election will be won by the team with the deepest pockets.
The men behind the name are no strangers to the spotlight, yet they choose to hide behind Restore Our Future. It’s a Super PAC, with three board members who were all on Romney’s 2008 campaign team: Carl Forti, his national political director; Charlie Spies, his campaign chief finance officer, and Larry McCarthy, who was a part of his media team (Kiely par 2). In defense of Super PACs, McCarthy has stated that they exist due to failed attempts at campaign financing that limits free speech and blocks efforts to give money to campaigns in the interest of the incumbent. He also went on to say, “The election laws, such as they are now, are bad efforts at campaign reform that the courts have serially dismembered as violations of free speech” (Grove par 12). According to Brad Smith, who founded the Center for Competitive Politics, “In the two years since Citizens United, campaigns have been more competitive and more issue-oriented, with higher voter turnout and more voices heard" (Cline). But whose voices are we hearing? Are we getting facts, or are we getting loaded language and twisted words so people hear what the Super PACs want them to hear? If someone decided to go on FactCheck.org they would find that not only Restore Our Future, but also many Super PAC and political ads twist the words of politicians. Not many people are willing to fact check everything they hear on television or on the radio, thus perpetuating the idea that money can win elections by having the most airtime with the most ads.
Many believe these Super PACs will take us back to a time when you could buy your way into a political office. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21[3] believes that the PAC is a “vehicle to completely destroy candidate contribution limits” (Marcus, Ruth par 10). If an individual wants to make a contribution to a party or candidate directly, the limit is $2,500. With the passing of Citizens United, corporations and individual donors have a loophole around the $2,500 limit. They can put any amount of money towards their candidate or party as long as there is a Super PAC for them. There are currently 844 different Super PACs in existence (Super PACs). Ellen Weintraub, a member of the Federal Election Commission, agreed saying, “How can it possibly be true that to give more than $2,500 to a candidate is potentially corrupting but to give millions to an outside group that is acting on the candidates’ behalf is not?” Dave Levinthal, who is a representative of the Center for Response Politics,[4] compares the outside groups to booster clubs: you can’t give your candidate anything, but you can do everything else in your power to support them (Eggen par 21). As exemplified by Restore Our Future, this is done by companies taking money and giving it to the Super PAC in support of Romney, instead of giving it to him directly with limitations on the amount given. With the creation of Super PACs, we have created an unlimited cash flow to any candidate. Instead of businesses hiring more workers, paying current workers more, or even expanding, they are putting millions towards campaign financing. But that’s their right, right?
So who are these people donating millions of dollars to Restore Our Future? Sheldon Adelson and Miriam Adelson, wealthy casino owners, each contributed $5,000,000 (Kiely par 8). They did so by each selecting one of their companies they own and making a donation through them. Sheldon Adelson donated through the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, while Miriam donated through the Adelson Clinic. Other well-known contributors are J.W. Marriott, who donated one million, in addition to a two million dollar donation from his sons (Marcus, Rachel par 8). Bob Perry, a Texas developer, contributed $8,750,000 through numerous donations. Interestingly, Bain Capital – a company that Mitt Romney co-founded – also made contributions to the PAC under Spann LLC/Investments and Partners/Investments (Restore Our Future Contributors). A trend that has been re-occurring more often than not is the creation of shell companies to try to mask the identity of the person(s) donating money to Super PACs. Restore Our Future has had a few incidences of mysterious companies making donations, and then being refunded. After that, a donation of the same amount comes from an individual. A few shell companies that have been associated with Restore Our Future are F8 LLC and Eli Publishing. It turned out that these companies had the same address and were connected to Steve Lund, vice chairman of the board of the nutrition and cosmetics company Nu Skin. About half of the donations to Restore Our Future have come from the finance industry, and the money is still coming in every day (Marcus, Rachel p 9).
“We tried our plan and it worked,” quotes one of Restore Our Future’s attack ads against President Obama, manipulating one of his speeches to make it seem like he believes that he has solved this country’s problems (Kiely par 4). $88,572,353 of Restore Our Future’s funds have gone against President Obama. Restore Our Future was created on October 8, 2010 and has raised more money than any Super PAC. They have not only put out ads against Obama, but they have also distributed attack ads against other members of the Republican Party, such as Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. This shows their complete focus on Mitt Romney and the goal of getting him elected as president. The difference between other Super PACs and Restore Our future is that Restore Our Future is the first to endorse only one candidate instead of a whole party. $18,730,747 went towards campaigning against Gingrich, while $21,261,248 was spent campaigning against Santorum. Only $14,090,870 has gone towards positive campaigning for Mitt Romney (Restore Our Future Independent Expenditures). Compared to other Super PACs, Restore Our Future has only used 90% of its funds on attack ads, unlike Americans for Prosperity, another Super PAC that used 100% of its funds on attack ads (Quealy). Some believe that the person who has the most money will win this election. Bill Burton, who was an advocate for Obama and co-founded Priorities USA Action, a liberal Super PAC, commented, “I’m not surprised that there’s even more money coming into this race to help Mitt Romney.” Burton believes that Romney is going to need all the money he can get to win this election. Even one of the board members of Restore Our Future, Larry McCarthy, mentioned that in order for Romney to get the nomination from the Republican Party he would need to take down Santorum, and they did so with attack ads from Restore Our Future (Grove par 6). This just goes to prove that this election could be won with ads rather than political ideologies. One could argue that the election will be won by the team with the deepest pockets.
The men behind the name are no strangers to the spotlight, yet they choose to hide behind Restore Our Future. It’s a Super PAC, with three board members who were all on Romney’s 2008 campaign team: Carl Forti, his national political director; Charlie Spies, his campaign chief finance officer, and Larry McCarthy, who was a part of his media team (Kiely par 2). In defense of Super PACs, McCarthy has stated that they exist due to failed attempts at campaign financing that limits free speech and blocks efforts to give money to campaigns in the interest of the incumbent. He also went on to say, “The election laws, such as they are now, are bad efforts at campaign reform that the courts have serially dismembered as violations of free speech” (Grove par 12). According to Brad Smith, who founded the Center for Competitive Politics, “In the two years since Citizens United, campaigns have been more competitive and more issue-oriented, with higher voter turnout and more voices heard" (Cline). But whose voices are we hearing? Are we getting facts, or are we getting loaded language and twisted words so people hear what the Super PACs want them to hear? If someone decided to go on FactCheck.org they would find that not only Restore Our Future, but also many Super PAC and political ads twist the words of politicians. Not many people are willing to fact check everything they hear on television or on the radio, thus perpetuating the idea that money can win elections by having the most airtime with the most ads.
Many believe these Super PACs will take us back to a time when you could buy your way into a political office. Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21[3] believes that the PAC is a “vehicle to completely destroy candidate contribution limits” (Marcus, Ruth par 10). If an individual wants to make a contribution to a party or candidate directly, the limit is $2,500. With the passing of Citizens United, corporations and individual donors have a loophole around the $2,500 limit. They can put any amount of money towards their candidate or party as long as there is a Super PAC for them. There are currently 844 different Super PACs in existence (Super PACs). Ellen Weintraub, a member of the Federal Election Commission, agreed saying, “How can it possibly be true that to give more than $2,500 to a candidate is potentially corrupting but to give millions to an outside group that is acting on the candidates’ behalf is not?” Dave Levinthal, who is a representative of the Center for Response Politics,[4] compares the outside groups to booster clubs: you can’t give your candidate anything, but you can do everything else in your power to support them (Eggen par 21). As exemplified by Restore Our Future, this is done by companies taking money and giving it to the Super PAC in support of Romney, instead of giving it to him directly with limitations on the amount given. With the creation of Super PACs, we have created an unlimited cash flow to any candidate. Instead of businesses hiring more workers, paying current workers more, or even expanding, they are putting millions towards campaign financing. But that’s their right, right?
So who are these people donating millions of dollars to Restore Our Future? Sheldon Adelson and Miriam Adelson, wealthy casino owners, each contributed $5,000,000 (Kiely par 8). They did so by each selecting one of their companies they own and making a donation through them. Sheldon Adelson donated through the Las Vegas Sands Corporation, while Miriam donated through the Adelson Clinic. Other well-known contributors are J.W. Marriott, who donated one million, in addition to a two million dollar donation from his sons (Marcus, Rachel par 8). Bob Perry, a Texas developer, contributed $8,750,000 through numerous donations. Interestingly, Bain Capital – a company that Mitt Romney co-founded – also made contributions to the PAC under Spann LLC/Investments and Partners/Investments (Restore Our Future Contributors). A trend that has been re-occurring more often than not is the creation of shell companies to try to mask the identity of the person(s) donating money to Super PACs. Restore Our Future has had a few incidences of mysterious companies making donations, and then being refunded. After that, a donation of the same amount comes from an individual. A few shell companies that have been associated with Restore Our Future are F8 LLC and Eli Publishing. It turned out that these companies had the same address and were connected to Steve Lund, vice chairman of the board of the nutrition and cosmetics company Nu Skin. About half of the donations to Restore Our Future have come from the finance industry, and the money is still coming in every day (Marcus, Rachel p 9).
Will an ad influence how you vote?
Super PACs have changed the way we “play politics” (Eggen par 20). It has become a race to see who can raise the most money, who has the wealthiest contributors, and who can come up with the best attack ads. McCarthy said that the ads affect the campaigns tremendously. While he believes that voters will ultimately be able to decide if an ad is true or false, what he fails to realize is that most Americans don’t fact check (Grove par 16). Many will take what they hear from an ad as the truth and believe it, because it is endorsed by a candidate or Super PAC. Super PACs are not a way of helping corporations retain freedom of speech or of helping contribute to campaigns; rather, they are a way for political candidates not to get their hands dirty and let their organizations do the dirty work for them. Both sides are at fault. Both sides use attack ads and both sides accumulate ridiculous amounts of money during a short time-period for the goal of becoming president. It should not be a money race. It should be a race to see who will help this country become what it once was and bring us together so we can accomplish what needs to be done. We need elections that focus on the issues, not the political drama. Are Super PACs really the way you want our country to play politics?
[1]The Supreme Court opinion allows corporations and other organizations to use funds from their treasuries to make independent expenditures, and was decided on a 5/4 ruling.
[2]Expressly advocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate that is not made in cooperation, consultation, or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate, a candidate’s authorized committee, or their agents, or a political party or its agents.
[3] Democracy 21 is a campaign finance reform group
[4] Center for Responsive Politics is a company that analyzes campaign-finance data.
[2]Expressly advocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate that is not made in cooperation, consultation, or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate, a candidate’s authorized committee, or their agents, or a political party or its agents.
[3] Democracy 21 is a campaign finance reform group
[4] Center for Responsive Politics is a company that analyzes campaign-finance data.