Archive

Undue corporate influence over U.S. elections has been a serious problem in American politics for decades, but this year's Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission made things worse. Worst of all, we may never know the extent of the damage.

Originally published in Politico.

Financial wilding led to our economic collapse. Use of exotic “innovations” — like derivatives and credit default swaps — exploded. Regulators were paralyzed while huge bets were made in the shadows. Markets, we were assured, self-regulate. Congress blocked reform. Big money rushed in, seeking ever higher returns. Laws legitimized shadow financial activities. Speculation careened out of control.

A similar wilding now threatens our democracy as out-of-control big money floods our elections. These exotic derivatives are the super PACs and related operations, fueled by cartloads of secret money. The Federal Election Commission is toothless and paralyzed. Congress blocks new regulations. The Supreme Court opened the floodgates with Citizens United, ruling that corporations have the right to spend unlimited sums in “independent expenditure” campaigns. The marketplace of ideas, we are assured, can regulate itself.

This financial wilding is likely to escalate until it thoroughly corrupts our democracy.

Saturday is the two-year anniversary of the infamous Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court that allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns.

The "success" of the 1996 "welfare reform" pact between President Clinton and congressional conservatives is an hardy piece of conventional wisdom that you will hear repeated, and usually unchallenged, in the rare times that poverty comes up in the political discourse.

A pattern has emerged in the Republican primaries, Romney wins among Republican voters with six-figure incomes and loses among Republican voters with five-figure incomes.

We have a class war, and it's inside the Republican Party.