Congratulations to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which just scored a major win in the fight to end the unlimited, secret money that is corrupting our elections (often called dark money).
Since Citizens United and a series of similar Supreme Court decisions, a handful of billionaires and corporate special interests have used unlimited, undisclosed spending to overwhelm our political system. These decisions have led to a broken system that benefits a fraction of the one percent at the expense of the rest of us.
CREW’s victory today brings us closer to building a campaign finance system with more transparency, where political groups can’t masquerade as ‘social welfare charities’ to skirt the law and hide their donations. A more transparent system would restore safeguards to ensure that organized crime, foreign governments, and other entities banned from making political contributions can’t find a back door to influence our elections and government.
In its complaint to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), CREW alleged that dark money groups were conducting extensive political advertising campaigns and that their primary purposes were to impact elections, which would require them to register as political committees and publicly report their donors. A federal judge sided with CREW and ordered the FEC to reconsider the cases using an appropriately expanded standard of a political ad. More from CREW: http://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/crew-wins-major-lawsuit-fec/