A Huffington Post report yesterday exposed the outrageous rise in Super PAC and Dark Money spending in this election cycle.
Spending like this has been on the rise since the Supreme Court handed down its Citizens United ruling in 2010. But now we’ve learned that the Koch Brothers and their special interest allies have spent more than $70 million dollars on Senate races alone. All of this spending comes before the traditional campaign season kicks off on Labor Day, and even before the parties’ national conventions.
It gets worse. As the Huffington Post explains, the true total is likely much higher because of the loopholes that dark money groups are exploiting:
Those issue ads come entirely from nonprofits that do not disclose their donors. Even though they often directly attack a candidate up for election, issue ads help dark money groups fulfill their requirement to spend 51 percent of their time and money on non-electoral purposes, thanks to lax enforcement from the IRS….
More than half of the Senate outside spending this cycle ― $54 million ― has come from these dark money groups. Republican-aligned spending is far more likely than pro-Democratic expenditures to come from groups not disclosing their donors.
Unless we overturn Citizens United, billionaires and special interests will continue to find ways to hide their identities while inserting a corrupting influence on our elections with unlimited money.
End Citizens United will continue to fight to restore power to the American people and to reverse Citizens United through a constitutional amendment, a full and functioning Supreme Court, and common-sense legislation to clean up our election laws. We’ll also continue to shine light on dark money groups wherever we can find them, and we’ll stand up for candidates who will stand up against Citizens United.
Click here to read the full article at the Huffington Post.