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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
CONTACT: People for the American Way Drew Courtney or Josh Glasstetter |
Citizens Blindsided: Updated PFAW Report Examines Role of Corporate Money in 2010 Elections
WASHINGTON - November 19 - An updated and expanded report released by People For the American Way today analyzes the impact corporate money had on the 2010 elections, the first election cycle after the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC. The report, Citizens Blindsided: Secret Corporate Money in the 2010 Elections and America’s New Shadow Democracy, has been updated to included the total amounts spent and success rates of outside pro-corporate groups, and expanded to include new group profiles and a new foreword.
- In a new foreword, constitutional law professor, Maryland state senator, and People For Senior Fellow Jamie Raskin, explores the legal and political implications of corporate spending in elections. “For the first time in our history,” he writes, “the Court has thus transformed single-minded profit-making corporations into full-fledged political citizens armed with the rights of the people.”
- The report includes updated spending totals and electoral success rates for 14 groups and profiles two additional groups: the radically anti-government astroturfing outfit Americans for Limited Government and Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform.
- Examines the false claims repeated by many corporate-funded outside groups on issues including health care reform, the stimulus, and the American Clean Energy and Security Act. In the last ninety days of the election, the twenty largest conservative outside groups ran 144,182 television ads. Seventy-seven percent of those ads came from organizations which do not disclose their donors.
- Includes a total accounting of anonymous spending in the 2010 elections. Anonymously funded Pro-GOP groups outspent their pro-Democratic counterparts by a 6:1 margin. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, eight of the top ten groups that did not disclose their sources of funding directed the bulk of their money to GOP candidates.
Read the full report here: http://www.pfaw.org/media-center/publications/citizens-blindsided-secret-corporate-money-the-2010-elections-and-america-
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4 Comments so far
Show AllThank you, PFAW, for this fine work.
Trylon
i was astounded when the supreme court gave corporations the extended rights of "INDIVIDUALS" .... they surely aren't "accountable" as individuals are. The anonymity factor also baffles me -
In campaign finance - the result of which is OUR LEADERSHIP and RIGHTS- there is NO requirement to be transparent within corporate individualism but - if i am interpreting this correctly. Those VERY justices say THIS about just us "individuals".
In Doe v. Reed, handed down on June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled ruled that the names of signers who wanted to place on the Washington state ballot a referendum opposing same-sex marriage could be disclosed under state law. Some of the petition signers said they feared harassment from gay rights advocates if their names were made public and put up on the Internet. The Court did not rule out the possibility that such fears could trump disclosure in a future case, but it did include language supportive of the need for government transparency. The Court said the state had an interest in “promoting transparency and accountability in the electoral process, which the State argues is ‘essential to the proper functioning of a democracy.’”
Concurrences by other justices also spoke of the virtues of openness, with Justice Antonin Scalia, for example, stating that “the exercise of lawmaking power in the United States has traditionally been public.” Scalia also said those engaging in legislative acts — including ballot initiatives — should have the “civic courage” to stand up for their views.
If corporations are individuals, why are they not prosecuted as individuals when they break the laws? As they do most days.
I wonder how long it would take the Supreme Court to reconsider the "United" decision if a company such as GE or Boeing or Goldman Sachs were prosecuted as a person - and if convicted, forced to shut down?
WOW - reading that full report gives you a clear and frightful idea of the influence that corporations actually had in our recent election.
Any Supreme Court Justice who voted for that monstrosity of a bill - named quite sarcastically "Citizens United" - ought to be immediately impeached!!! He/she is a lethal danger to democracy!!!!!