All Checks, No Balances: Campaign Finance Sells Out

[marmar]

from Mother Jones:




For much of the past decade, the Business Industry Political Action Committee has been a powerful force in helping tilt elections for corporate-friendly candidates. The blue-ribbon business group, made up of more than 400 companies and trade associations—from Lockheed Martin to the American Petroleum Institute and the Financial Services Roundtable—maintains the "Prosperity Project," which includes a state-of-the-art database to track candidates' stands on issues from regulation to taxes to health care. Many of BIPAC's members circulate this analysis (PDF) to their employees. In the past, that's all a company could do—provide employees information it hoped would prod them to vote for pro-business candidates. But now, thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, these corporations will be able to go much further. They'll be able to tell employees exactly, and in detail, which politicians their bosses favor—in effect, campaigning directly in the workplace.

In 2008, BIPAC spent about $2 million on the Prosperity Project. But now it's looking to more than double its expenditure on what, with about 60 House and Senate seats in play, could be one of the most competitive election seasons in quite some time. A big reason is Citizens United, which gave companies, trade groups, nonprofits, and unions the green light to spend unlimited amounts on campaign ads and other advocacy tools pushing directly for the election (or defeat) of candidates. BIPAC president Greg Casey, though cautious about where and how the group might deploy these new tools, acknowledges that "the nature of the court ruling gives us a lot more places and activities for political communications than we had before."

For starters, BIPAC is retooling its database to help companies "communicate" with employees about specific candidates. In addition, says Casey, the group or its member companies could choose to blanket the districts of members not congenial to its agenda with election messages via email and social networking tools. Or they could run ads directly supporting certain candidates; in the past, corporations could pay only for "issue ads" that mentioned a candidate's positions but didn't tell viewers who to vote for. BIPAC's Casey promises, "If there's an opportunity to seize, we'll seize it," adding that the group may take advantage of its newfound freedoms as early as this year's elections. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/corporate-spending-elections-supreme-court

[xchrom]

1. This just leaves me feeling both pissed off and pissed on. Nt