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Shawn Vestal: Midterm elections setting ‘dark money’ spending record

Shawn Vestal

Has the entire notion of campaign finance disclosure jumped the shark?

Shall we now treat the idea of transparency in big-money politics as a silly, sanctimonious, outdated notion – one that has been surpassed by the simpler formulation that secret cash equals free speech? Are we all cool with the idea that the biggest political spenders can hide behind a preposterous claim that they are actually “social welfare groups”?

That they are actually charities?

The midterm elections are setting a new record for “dark money” spending, according to the estimates of a Washington State University professor who helps run a project that tracks advertising and spending in American politics. This has been the direction of political spending for the past several years, post-Citizens United – more big money, less public disclosure.

More money’s in the dark, and so are we.

Dark-money groups have spent $68 million so far in the midterms. That’s 56 percent of all spending by interest groups, according to the calculations of the Wesleyan Media Project. Around 150,000 television ads purchased by these groups have been aired this season, and the number is likely to rise as we approach Election Day.

This isn’t new, exactly, but further evidence that we have evolved into a new normal in political funding. Closely contested state or local races of national import are increasingly driven by money that comes from outside the state or district involved in the race – and more of it every year is exempt from public disclosure.

“I just find it interesting that in some of these close Senate races, more money is coming from outside groups – not all of them are dark money groups – than the candidates themselves,” said Travis Ridout, a WSU political scientist and co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project.

The project tracks spending on national political advertising; we’re not seeing much of that here, where there isn’t much election drama, but several states have important and contested Senate races. The project is based at Wesleyan University and is partnered with the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit research group that tracks the influence of money and lobbying on politics.

More than $97 million in interest group money has poured into Senate races around the country as of Aug. 30; in 2012, that figure was around $78 million. Spending in the House races – where there is little doubt that the GOP will retain the majority – is much lower.

The biggest dark spender – or the darkest big spender – is Americans for Prosperity, the conservative nonprofit backed by the billionaire Koch brothers. Americans for Prosperity has spent $16.7 million; its donors are secret. Crossroads GPS, Karl Rove’s group, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are the next biggest. The largest Democrat-leaning dark money group is Patriot Majority USA, at $6.2 million.

That partisan divide holds true throughout the spending analysis: Pro-Republican groups have flocked toward secret spending with more zeal than the Democrats. Secret financial influence is now viewed by some on the right as a kind of natural right; the notion that the IRS might check into it has been one of the spurs for the spurious and fevered IRS “scandal.” The Center for Responsive Politics reported that in the 2012 elections, conservative dark-money groups outspent liberal ones $263 million to $35 million.

The partisan disclosure gap is clear in a breakdown of the top 10 ad buyers among outside interest groups. Through Aug. 30, the Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic group, bought the most ads, at 33,750. As a super PAC, it discloses its donors.

The next three groups airing the most ads – Americans for Prosperity, Crossroads GPS and the Chamber of Commerce – put more than 65,000 ads before voters. As “social welfare organizations,” none are required to disclose donors.

It is all the fruit of the tree of Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court ruling that paved the way for corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts on elections, and to do it in secret by forming bogus social welfare organizations. For some, this has been a joyous development – Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell famously remarked earlier this year that the “worst day” of his political life was the passage of legislation requiring campaign finance disclosure.

It’s hard to imagine any formulation, however, in which the secrecy is good for those of us who are not billionaires. Hiding the political influencers from the public is bad for everyone but the influencers themselves. It exaggerates and expands the sense that the system operates outside the influence of the ordinary citizen, voter or donor. It sharpens the sense that politics exists on two planes – the public one, which is a pretense, and the real one, which occurs behind the scenes, out of view, in the dark.

Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@ spokesman.com. Follow him on Twitter at @vestal13.

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