Progressive Opinion

guardian.co.uk — The arrival of Super PACs has allowed corporate big money to take control of the electoral campaign process to an unprecedented degree. The ability of the uncharismatic and relatively moderate (in Republican party terms) Mitt Romney to exert an increasing stranglehold over his party's nomination race has many causes, but the sheer size of Mr Romney's Super PAC, Restore Our Future, is certainly a crucial one of them. Four years ago, Barack Obama raised a huge campaign war chest of his own, but insisted he did not want to be beholden to outside groups. This month, though, the president has begun signalling that he wants wealthy donors to contribute to Priorities USA Action, one of the leading Democratic Super PACs. Mr. Obama has done this simply because he risks being overwhelmed by hostile Super PAC spending if he does not. More than ever before, American politics in 2012 is politics for sale — to the biggest donors.

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motherjones.com — Since last January, super-PACs have raised nearly $93 million in preparation for the 2012 election. Of that, more than 35 percent was donated by corporations, unions, and nonprofits—or, as we've come to know them in the post-Citizens United era, people. Though non-people people have not dominated super-PAC giving (for now), their strong showing in the recent round of financial disclosures lends credence to campaign finance reformers' concerns that super-PACs enable cash-flush organizations to buy outsized influence over elections and candidates. The average corporate or union super-PAC donation was more than $62,000; in contrast, the average individual donation was around $23,500. Of the $22.4 million collectively raised by the biggest 20 corporate and union super-PAC donors, 37 percent was from labor groups, which contributed to both liberal super-PACs and their own super-PACs. The rest was largely corporate donations to conservative super-PACs and groups supporting (but officially unconnected to) Republican presidential candidates.

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truth-out.org — We have seen the world created by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, and it doesn't work. Oh, yes, it works nicely for the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country, especially if they want to shroud their efforts to influence politics behind shell corporations. It just doesn't happen to work if you think we are a democracy and not a plutocracy. Two years ago, Citizens United tore down a century's worth of law aimed at reducing the amount of corruption in our electoral system. It will go down as one of the most naive decisions ever rendered by the court.

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huffingtonpost.com — There are many reasons to be concerned about both the impact of money on our political process and the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United. But critics of Citizens United, including those calling for a constitutional amendment to overrule it, have too often made the mistake of grounding their argument on the claim that "money is not speech." Organizations like Move to Amend, ballot measures in Boulder, Colorado and Madison Wisconsin, city council resolutions in Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, and thousands of individuals protesting at the Supreme Court on the second anniversary of Citizens United have all embraced this slogan. Although the critics of Citizens United might well be right to condemn it and to call for a constitutional amendment to overrule it, they are misguided in their reliance on the refrain that "money is not speech." Of course, money is not "speech."

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politics.salon.com — It’s not even the general election season, and we’re already seeing the electoral process dominated by super PACs, funded with unlimited donations and protected by a paper-thin veil of “independence.” The super PACs operating in the GOP primary have managed to delay disclosing their donors until next month, but the identities of who funded these groups will be public. Groups in a different category — those that don’t ever disclose donors — haven’t started operating in any prominent way, but you can be sure they will in the fall. I’ve recently explored how we got to this point. But what about the prospects for reform of a system that so many are disillusioned with?

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truth-out.org — Rarely have so few imposed such damage on so many. When five conservative members of the Supreme Court handed for-profit corporations the right to secretly flood political campaigns with tidal waves of cash on the eve of an election, they moved America closer to outright plutocracy, where political power derived from wealth is devoted to the protection of wealth. The decision in Citizens United giving corporations the same rights as living, breathing human beings will likely prove as infamous as the Dred Scott ruling of 1857 that opened the unsettled territories of the United States to slavery whether future inhabitants wanted it or not. It took a civil war and another hundred years of enforced segregation and deprivation before the effects of that ruling were finally exorcised from our laws. God spare us civil strife over the pernicious consequences of Citizens United, but unless citizens stand their ground, America will divide even more swiftly into winners and losers with little pity for the latter.

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billmoyers.com — The public’s disgust with Congress has been confirmed in poll after poll; Americans are fed up with the combination of partisan squabbling and inertia that since last year has led to little or nothing accomplished. Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, told CNN on Tuesday, “I think that the 11 percent of Americans who think we’re doing a good job need therapy.” Several reports in the last day or two may finally convince that remaining 11 percent to head to the analyst’s couch. A headline in the congressional newspaper The Hill announces, “K Street Headhunters Enamored with Upcoming Class of Retiring Lawmakers.” The paper’s Kevin Bogardus writes, “The retiring class includes lawmakers who are known for their bipartisan ties, and others who have spent decades on Capitol Hill accruing seniority on powerful committees. That mix of attributes has many on K Street licking their chops…"

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guardian.co.uk — The U.S. Constitution has served us very well, but when the supreme court says, for purposes of the first amendment, that corporations are people, that writing checks from the company's bank account is constitutionally-protected speech and that attempts by the federal government and states to impose reasonable restrictions on campaign ads are unconstitutional, our democracy is in grave danger. That is why I have introduced a resolution in the Senate calling for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that says simply and straightforwardly what everyone – except five members of the United States supreme court – understands: Corporations are not people with constitutional rights equal to flesh-and-blood human beings. Corporations are subject to regulation by the people. Corporations may not make campaign contributions – the law of the land for the last century – or dump unlimited sums of money into our elections. And Congress and states have broad power to regulate all election spending.

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huffingtonpost.com — What do you do when people are growing increasingly angry about the influence of money on the political system — but that very same political system is too co-opted to care? Common Cause on Tuesday announced an attempt to put a measure on the ballot in all 50 states that would allow voters to constructively express that anger — and forcefully express their view that unlimited spending is hijacking our democracy.

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thenation.com — On December 30, the Montana Supreme Court delivered a New Year’s gift to the nation, upholding a century-old ban on corporate political expenditures in state elections.  The decision has gone underreported amidst the hoopla of the Republican primaries — even as super PAC spending skyrockets and there is an emerging understanding of its corrosive impact — but the Montana case sets up the first direct challenge to the disastrous Citizens United decision as we approach its second anniversary.

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