citizenunite bak

---capt 316  519this is mostly about the CASE, see also CU org node and CU tagsee also dark $ and mcconnell staff network
bak1219an 1219=no lnx
How Citizens United corrupted the US Supreme Court and guaranteed Republicans will never turn on TrumpPresident Donald J. Trump honors Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell during the federal judicial confirmation milestones event, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2019, in the East Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)Written by Thom Hartmann / Independent Media Institute December 4, 2019
This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
There is a very simple reason why some Republicans voted for the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon, but none have so far broken ranks against Trump. That reason is a corrupted U.S. Supreme Court.
In 1976 (Buckley v. Valeo) and 1978 (First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti), the Supreme Court ruled that when corporations and billionaires purchase their very own politicians, it is constitutionally protected “free speech” rather than “bribery,” which is how we defined it from the beginning of our republic until 1976. In 2010, the Supreme Court doubled down on its betrayal of American democracy with its Citizens United decision.
After those twin decisions in the 1970s, money from corporations and the morbidly rich began to flow into the coffers of the Republican Party, hoisting Ronald Reagan into the White House. (Democrats were then still largely funded by unions, and thus not so easily up for sale.)
The spigots of cash never turned off; the 2016 election was a $6.5 billion affair.
As a result, today’s Republican politicians are wholly owned agents of corporations and the billionaire class, stoking extreme anger over a few social issues (immigration, guns, God, gays, race) and using it to bring in the Fox rubes that the billionaire Murdochs kindly hand them.
Prior to this betrayal of America by the Supreme Court, politicians generally felt a need to respond to the wants and needs of their constituents. From Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s people-powered election in 1932 to Reagan’s inauguration in 1981, politicians’ proposed legislation and votes tended to reflect what the people in their districts or states wanted.
Nixon’s impeachment hearings happened in 1974, before the Supreme Court legalized bribery—and so the Senate voted 77-0 to forward the investigation, and the House voted 412-3 to accept the Judiciary Committee’s report showing “clear and convincing evidence” of Nixon’s corruption. Republicans were more concerned about their voters than about their donors back then.
From the 1980s to today, though, as a study by Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page shows, the political desires of the economic bottom 90 percent of Americans are completely irrelevant to the introduction or passage of legislation. But the desires of the top 10 percent of Americans are consistently passed into law and policy.
Republicans don’t want the money to stop, so they have to keep supporting Trump as he pushes the corporate- and billionaire-friendly policies of deregulation and tax cuts supported by their donors.When the billionaires abandon Trump, so will the GOP.It’s really just that simple.
As long as the Supreme Court continues to assert that there is absolutely nothing wrong with billionaires and corporations owning politicians, the GOP will continue to be an extension of the lobbying industry and the morbidly rich. In exchange for deregulation and tax cuts, that bunch would work to keep a gerbil in the White House, if that’s what it took.
And as long as their owners and funders continue to pay Republicans to keep Trump in office, they’ll continue to say, “How high?” every time Trump yells, “Jump!”
Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of “The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America” and more than 25 other books in print. He is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute.<div>=</div>=an 1119<div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/how-a-historic-ruling-in-alaska-could-provide-a-roadmap-to-defeating-citizens-united/">https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/how-a-historic-ruling-in-alaska-could-provide-a-roadmap-to-defeating-citizens-united/</a></div><div>
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<a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/eoin-higgins/" title="Posts by Eoin Higgins" class="author url fn" rel="author">Eoin Higgins</a> / <a href="https://www.alternet.org/author/common-dreams/" title="Posts by Common Dreams" class="author url fn" rel="author">Common Dreams</a> <time class="entry-date published updated" datetime="2019-11-05T23:59:48+00:00">November 5, 2019</time><div class="post-entry blockquote-style-2"><div class="inner-post-entry entry-content"><div id="content-container">A ruling in a court in Alaska Monday could open the door to imposing more restrictions on super PACs and possibly reversing the infamous 2012 Citizens United by the U.S. Supreme Court that in 2012 upended the nation’s campaign finance laws.Anchorage Superior Court Judge William F. Morse ordered the state to impose limits on donations to political groups in Alaska, saying in the ruling (<a href="https://equalcitizens.us/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Superior-Court-decision_to-post.pdf" target="blank">pdf</a>) that the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC), which handles election enforcement, “should reinstate enforcement of the contribution limits at issue.” The decision is expected to head to the Alaska Supreme Court.In a statement, election reform group Equal Citizens founder Lawrence Lessig said that the decision in favor of three Alaskan citizens contesting the unlimited donations was “historic.”“This decision gives Alaskans and all Americans a chance to revisit those destructive decisions,” said Lessig, who helped develop the legal strategy for the case. “And it will allow us to continue to make our case that the Framers did not wish to see super PACs. Just the opposite: they would have despised the kind of corruption we have seen recently, and the Constitution gives states the power to eliminate it.”</div></div></div></div><div>...
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<div>no lnx</div><div><div><a href="https://www.newsweek.com/should-names-citizens-united-donors-be-disclosed-814901">https://www.newsweek.com/should-names-citizens-united-donors-be-disclosed-814901</a></div><div>
</div><div>OPINION</div><div>SHOULD THE NAMES OF CITIZENS UNITED DONORS BE DISCLOSED?</div><div>
</div><div>TREVOR BURRUS AND REILLY STEPHENS </div><div>ON 2/21/18 AT 11:46 AM EST</div><div>
</div><div>This article first appeared on the Cato Institute site.</div><div>
</div><div>New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman demands out-of-state charities disclose all donors for his inspection. He does not demand this of all charities, only those he decides warrant his special scrutiny.</div><div>
</div><div>Schneiderman garnered national attention for his campaign to use the powers of his office to harass companies and organizations who do not endorse his preferred policies regarding climate change.</div><div>
</div><div>Now, it seems he seeks to do the same to right-of-center organizations that might displease him. Our colleague Walter Olson has cataloged Schneiderman's many misbehaviors.</div><div>
</div><div>He's currently set his sights on Citizens United, a Virginia non-profit that produces conservative documentaries. While Citizens United has solicited donations in New York for decades without any problem, Schneiderman now demands that they name names, telling him who has chosen to support the group.</div><div>
</div><div>Citizens United challenged this demand in court, arguing that to disclose this information would risk subjecting their supporters to harassment and intimidation.</div><div>
</div><div>These fears are not mere hyperbole. If the name Citizens United rings a bell, it's because the organization, and the Supreme Court case of the same name, has become the Emmanuel Goldstein of the American left, complete with Democratic senators leading a ritualistic two minutes hate on the Senate floor.</div><div>
</div><div>In 2010, the Supreme Court upheld its right to distribute Hillary: The Movie, and ever since "Citizens United" has been a synecdoche for what Democrats consider to be the corporate control of America.</div><div>
</div><div>Is it unwarranted to think that their donors might be subjected to the sort of targeted harassment suffered by lawful gun owners, or that Schneiderman might "accidentally" release the full donor list to the public, as Obama's IRS did with the confidential filings of gay marriage opponents?</div><div>
</div><div>The Supreme Court has long recognized the dangers inherent in applying the power of the state against the right of private association.</div><div>
</div><div>The cornerstone here is 1958's NAACP v Alabama . For reasons that hardly need be pointed out, the NAACP did not trust the state of Alabama, in the 1950s, to be good stewards of its membership lists. "Inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs," wrote Justice John Marshall Harlan II, who went as far as to compare such demands to a "requirement that adherents of particular religious faiths or political parties wear identifying arm-bands."</div><div>
</div><div>More recently, Justice Alito pointed out in a similar context that while there are undoubted purposes served by reasonable, limited disclosure requirements, the First Amendment requires that "speakers must be able to obtain an as-applied exemption without clearing a high evidentiary hurdle" regarding the potential harms of disclosure.</div><div>
</div><div>But the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has decided it knows better than the Supremes. On Thursday, it ruled that Citizen United's challenge should be thrown out without even an opportunity to prove their case. In the process, it effectively turned NAACP into a "Jim Crow" exception to a general rule of unlimited government prerogative to panoptic intrusion into citizen's political associations.</div><div>
</div><div>While there can be no doubt that the struggle for civil rights presented a unique danger for its supporters, this should not mean that only such perils warrant First Amendment protection.</div><div>
</div><div>The marketplace of ideas is often fraught with contention, and those who support controversial causes must shoulder some risk. As the late Justice Scalia argued, "running a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage."</div><div>
</div><div>But anonymity in such pursuits serves important purposes, and the premise that concealment of one's identity is a sign of ill-will would have surprised James Madison, who published numerous defenses of the new constitution, convincing his fellow citizens of the virtue of the endeavor; he signed them "Publius."</div><div>
</div><div>In our schismatic political climate, many people could suffer if their political views were made widely known. This could include everything from adverse employment actions to outright violence.</div><div>
</div><div>Some groups, such as those in the "antifa," have openly advocated violence against political opponents.</div><div>
</div><div>It's odd that some on the modern left find themselves on the same side as the state of Alabama in 1958: arguing that those who support some political views should be disclosed to the state, even if violence might result.</div><div>
</div><div>Although an appeal has not yet been filed, the Supreme Court should take the case and reverse the Second Circuit, making it clear that a compelling government interest is required before the government can force the disclosure of people's political affiliations.</div><div>
</div><div>Trevor Burrus is a research fellow in the Cato Institute's Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies and managing editor of the Cato Supreme Court Review.</div><div>
</div><div>Reilly Stephens is a Legal Associate with the Cato Institute's Center For Constitutional Studies.</div><div>
</div><div>=</div></div>719From Free Speech for People: An amicus brief recently submitted in Lieu v. FEC includes peer-reviewed research demonstrating that large contributions to Super PACs create an appearance of corruption. Their research consisted of two “vignette-based experiments” in which people were recruited to serve as mock jurors and determine whether various campaign finance fact patterns met the standard for quid pro quo corruption under federal bribery statutes. <a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="https://americanpromise.us19.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7df407720bf61a8c8416bb9e7&id=6aab1a720f&e=be363fc9ec" style="color: rgb(53, 106, 180); font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Read more</a>. <div><a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/hobby-lobby-argument">https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/hobby-lobby-argument</a></div><div>
</div><div><div class="field field-name-title field-type-ds field-label-hidden" style="font-variant-ligatures: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="dc:title"><h2 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-left: 0px; line-height: 1.25em; font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0.1em !important;">History of Corporate Personhood</h2></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-bcj-summary field-type-ds field-label-hidden" style="font-variant-ligatures: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">How did we get to the point where a for-profit corporation can lay claim to religious rights? Ciara Torres-Spelliscy on the slithering history of corporate personhood.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-real-author field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden" style="line-height: 1.4em; font-variant-ligatures: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/expert/ciara-torres-spelliscy" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Ciara Torres-Spelliscy</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-date field-type-datetime field-label-hidden" style="display: inline; font-variant-ligatures: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="field-items" style="display: inline;"><div class="field-item even" style="display: inline;">April 7, 2014</div></div></div></div><div>
</div><div>In McCutcheon v. FEC, handed down last Wednesday, the Supreme Court built on the precedent of Citizens United by invalidating the federal aggregate contribution limit for individuals. But McCutcheon is not the only case that gives the Supreme Court chance to expand Citizens United’s reach this term.In <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/sebelius-v-hobby-lobby-stores-inc/" target="blank">Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores</a>, the Supreme Court has to choose whether to extend the logic of 2010’s Citizens United to allow a corporation to make a religious objection to a generally applicable law.How we got to the point where a for-profit corporation – not a church mind you – can lay claim to religious rights is a bit complicated.  It all goes back to a legal fiction known as corporate personhood.Generally, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/10/24/141663195/what-is-the-basis-for-corporate-personhood" target="blank">corporate personhood</a> allows companies to hold property, enter contracts, and to sue and be sued just like a human being. But of course some human rights make no sense for a corporation, like the right to marry, to parent a child, or to vote. As <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1732910" target="blank">Professor Elizabeth Pollman</a> explains when it comes to Constitutional rights for corporations there is a hodgepodge: “corporations enjoy Fourth Amendment safeguards against unreasonable regulatory searches, but do not have a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.”If you’re a fan of the Colbert Report, “corporate personhood” might sound familiar. Stephen Colbert got a well deserved <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/04/entertainment-us-peabodyawards-idUSBRE83314Y20120404" target="blank">Peabody Award</a> for his work educating the public about <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/421160/november-12-2012/colbert-super-pac-shh----secret-second-501c4---trevor-potter" target="blank">campaign finance laws</a> with his lawyer <a href="http://www.capdale.com/tpotter" target="blank">Trevor Potter</a>. However, Mr. Colbert’s verbal tick of saying that Citizens United granted corporate personhood is a tad misleading.Citizens United did not grant corporations personhood. Corporations already had it. As lawyer David Gans has documented, despite the fact that the U.S. Constitution never mentions corporations, <a href="http://theusconstitution.org/sites/default/files/briefs/A%20Capitalist%20Joker.pdf" target="blank">corporate personhood</a> has been slithering around American law for a very long time. The first big leap in corporate personhood from mere property rights to more expansive rights was a claim that the Equal Protection Clause applied to corporations.The <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv" target="blank">14th Amendment</a>, adopted after the Civil War in 1868 to grant emancipated slaves full citizenship, states, “No state shall ... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person ... the equal protection of the laws.”We have the likes of former U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling to thank for the extension of Equal Protection to corporations. Conkling helped draft the 14th Amendment. He then left the Senate to become a lawyer. His Gilded Age law practice was going so swimmingly that Conkling turned down a seat on the Supreme Court not once, but twice. Conkling argued to the Supreme Court in San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road that the 14th Amendment is not limited to natural persons. In 1882, he produced a journal that seemed to show that the Joint Congressional Committee that drafted the amendment vacillated between using “citizen” and “person” and the drafters chose person specifically to cover corporations. According to historian <a href="http://www.bloomingtonwilpf.org/localagenda/howardjaygraham.pdf" target="blank">Howard Jay Graham</a>, “[t]his part of Conkling’s argument was a deliberate, brazen forgery.”As <a href="http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequal-protection/excerpt-theft" target="blank">Thom Hartmann notes</a> the Supreme Court embraced Conkling’s reading of the 14th Amendment in a headnote in 1886 in <a href="http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/118/394/case.html" target="blank">Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road</a>: “Before argument, Mr. Chief Justice Waite said: ‘The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.’” This was not part of the formal opinion. But the damage was done. Later cases uncritically cited the headnote as if it had been part of the case.Some Supreme Court Justices objected to the Santa Clara approach. Dissenting in <a href="http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/337/562/case.html" target="blank">Wheeling Steel Corp.</a> in 1949 Justice William O. Douglas and Justice Hugo Black noted that the corporate personhood issue was not such an open and shut case: “[In Santa Clara] [t]here was no history, logic, or reason given to support that view. … [T]he purpose of the [14th] Amendment was to protect human rights-primarily the rights of a race which had just won its freedom.” Justices Douglas and Black thought the question of corporate personhood should be decided by the people, not the Supreme Court. But they could not convince their fellow Justices.In the 1970s, Santa Clara was used to justify granting corporations the First Amendment right to spend unlimited corporate funds on ballot initiatives in a case called <a href="http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/435/765/case.html" target="blank">Bellotti.</a> The Court relied on Santa Clara’s reading when it stated that “[i]t has been settled for almost a century that corporations are persons within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Justice Rehnquist, in his dissent, questioned the wisdom of extending corporations political rights: “those properties, so beneficial in the economic sphere, pose special dangers in the political sphere.” Again Rehnquist could not convince his brethren.In <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZS.html" target="blank">Citizens United</a>, when the Supreme Court held that political speech is “indispensable to decision making in a democracy, and this is no less true because the speech comes from a corporation,” they cited Bellotti. Thus it’s only a hop, skip and a jump from Santa Clara to Citizens United.In Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, the store chain is claiming that the corporation (and not just its proprietors) has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/25/us/court-confronts-religious-rights-of-corporations.html?r=0" target="blank">a religious objection</a> to providing certain types of birth control for its workers as required by the Affordable Care Act. Thus, the Court is contemplating expanding corporate personhood to a new logical extreme: First Amendment religious rights. It’s no surprise that <a href="http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/No-13-354-Brief-for-Respondents.pdf" target="blank">Hobby Lobby’s brief</a> relies on Bellotti and Citizens United.There are absurdities that flow from granting legal fictions Constitutional rights that were intended for humans. Corporations don’t have minds, and without one it is hard to see how a corporation “thinks” about any political issue du jour from gay rights to the budget deficit. Without a soul, it’s hard to conceptualize how a corporation could “believe” in anything whether it is transubstantiation of communion or the morality of birth control. But here we go again. A corporation makes a Constitutional claim to the righteousness of their legal position. The question is will the Justices fall for it?</div><div>=</div>
<div>=</div><div><h3 style="margin: 0px; padding: 4px 0px 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1; text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 1px 0px; background-color: rgb(205, 228, 248);">On Fifth Anniversary of Citizens United, Eshoo Co-Introduces Constitutional Amendment to Rid Politics of Dark MoneyThe Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United and McCutcheon have cast a dark shadow over our democracy by bringing us dangerously closer to an electoral system where the voices of average Americans are easily drowned out by special interests, shadowy front groups, and a handful of billionaires," said Eshoo. "At a time when Americans of every political persuasion want big money out of our elections, the Democracy for All Amendment will restore their authority to pass laws protecting the integrity of our electoral process. By reversing Citizens United and related cases, this amendment will advance the basic principle of "one voice-one vote' that is integral to our democracy</h3><div>
</div><div class="clearfix prepend-3" style="font-size: small; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 120px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="span-16" style="background-color: rgb(205, 228, 248); margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; float: left; width: 630px;"><h4 style="margin: 0px 0px 1.25em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.25;">Statement</h4>By: <a itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" href="https://votesmart.org/candidate/public-statements/26741/anna-eshoo" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: inherit; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Anna Eshoo</a> 
Date: Jan. 22, 2015 
Location: Washington, DC 

Keyword Search : Corporation</div><div class="span-16" style="background-color: rgb(205, 228, 248); margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-weight: inherit; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; float: left; width: 630px;">
</div><div class="span-20" itemprop="articleBody" style="margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; float: left; width: 790px;">Yesterday, on the five-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) co-introduced the Democracy for All Amendment. This proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution would reverse highly controversial Supreme Court decisions like Citizens United v. FEC and McCutcheon v. FEC, which have given <span class="highlight" style="font-weight: inherit; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">corporations and America's wealthiest donors a right to buy unlimited influence in our nation's elections. Eshoo joined original co-sponsors of the bill Reps. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), Donna F. Edwards (D-Md.), and Jim McGovern (D-Mass.)."The Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United and McCutcheon have cast a dark shadow over our democracy by bringing us dangerously closer to an electoral system where the voices of average Americans are easily drowned out by special interests, shadowy front groups, and a handful of billionaires," said Eshoo. "At a time when Americans of every political persuasion want big money out of our elections, the Democracy for All Amendment will restore their authority to pass laws protecting the integrity of our electoral process. By reversing Citizens United and related cases, this amendment will advance the basic principle of "one voice-one vote' that is integral to our democracy."...</div></div></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
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</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div></div>CU dark money to state (supreme ct) judge electionsandy kroll<a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/judicial-elections-citizens-united-karl-rove/">https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/judicial-elections-citizens-united-karl-rove/</a>evil triple whammy: CU, CFG and  lamar sci suppress
<div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05122017/lamar-smith-congress-climate-change-fossil-fuel-industry-house-science-committee" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/05122017/lamar-smith-congress-climate-change-fossil-fuel-industry-house-science-committee</a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">no link pix grafic</div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div>FREDERICKSBURG, Texas—It's midway through fall, and cold has yet to settle over the Eckhardt family orchard. So, Diane Eckhardt waits with rising apprehension.</div><div>
</div><div>Cold is the switch that triggers the growing sequence that by summer has limbs sagging with ripe, juicy peaches. The reliable chill season in Texas Hill Country allowed Eckhardt's grandfather, Otto, to start the family business here in the 1930s.</div><div>
</div><div>But last year, with temperatures the warmest since 1939, Eckhardt's trees produced just 10 percent of their usual yield. And the year before, warm weather reduced production between 60 and 70 percent. Now, Eckhardt worries not only about the next crop, but about the future of a business she hopes will be passed on to her niece and nephews.</div><div>
</div><div>"We know climate change is happening," she said.</div><div>
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</div><div>But while the Eckhardts face that certainty, their congressman sows uncertainty, casting doubt on the consensus science that greenhouse gases are the dominant cause of rising global temperatures, and opposing government action to curb them.</div><div>
</div><div>Sixteen-term Republican Lamar Smith has used his power as chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee for the past five years to do battle on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. Embracing the arguments of a small group of climate contrarians, Smith acknowledges that warming is happening but says more research is needed to determine the amount and causes, and whether it does more good than harm.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Smith's critics say he misrepresents facts, cleverly casts doubt on legitimate studies by claiming they are based on "secret data" and uses his subpoena power to help industry battle state and federal regulators and environmental groups. The result is that a panel with vast jurisdiction over all government non-military science, research and development has become an instrument of attack on mainstream climate science.</div><div>
</div><div>"Anyone stating what the climate will be in 500 years or even at the end of the century is not credible," Smith said at a hearing he chaired in March. "In the field of climate science, there is legitimate concern that scientists are biased in favor of reaching predetermined conclusions. This invariably leads to alarmist findings that are wrongly reported as facts."</div><div>
</div><div>Things weren't always this way. Under both Democratic and moderate Republican leadership, the science committee since the late 1970s had educated lawmakers and the public about the threats posed by rising temperatures caused by human activity and the need for decisive action.</div><div>
</div><div>But in a case study of the power of fossil fuel interests to shape government policy, the industry's money and alliances with conservative think tanks and advocacy groups transformed the committee's membership and supported the rise of Smith, son of an old oil and ranching family in South Texas.  </div><div>
</div><div>Choke Hold: House Science</div><div>
</div><div>Today, "we're in total denial," says the highest-ranking Democrat on the panel, fellow Texan Eddie Bernice Johnson. Instead of looking at the evidence and making policy recommendations on climate—as once happened—the committee is "pretending to be oblivious."</div><div>
</div><div>"When you look at the [campaign] contribution list, it becomes very clear" that the forces that oppose regulation are calling the shots, she said.</div><div>
</div><div>Smith, 70, has announced he will retire after his term as chairman ends next year. But many believe his legacy will be lasting. The committee under Smith has "contributed to the sort of diminishment of science in public policy," said Andrew Rosenberg, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an organization that has been one of Smith's targets. "It has reinforced the view that everything must be partisan, and you've got to choose sides. It sends a message that science is partisan, too."</div><div>
</div><div>The Science Committee Transformed</div><div>
</div><div>The House Science Committee held Congress' first hearings on climate science in 1976, and it resulted in passage of bipartisan legislation to establish a National Climate Program Office. Five years later, Al Gore, then a congressman and committee member, co-chaired another set of hearings on "Carbon Dioxide and Climate: The Greenhouse Effect."  </div><div>
</div><div>With fidelity to its nonpartisan tradition, the committee championed scientists who found themselves under fire during President George W. Bush's administration. The Republican chairman at the time, Sherwood Boehlert of New York, faced off against Bush officials and GOP colleagues on Capitol Hill, armed, he says now, with what he learned about global warming during 24 years on the committee. "I [witnessed] a parade of some of the most distinguished scientists...from around the world testify that climate change is for real, it has serious and negative consequences, and we damn well better do something about it," Boehlert said.</div><div>
</div><div>But by 2013, Republican moderates like Boehlert who accepted climate science were eliminated. Redistricting by both parties—to make red districts redder and blue districts bluer—was partly to blame. But much of the change was due to a systematic effort by conservatives, with significant help from fossil fuel interests that were seeking to stave off policies that might cut into their profits.</div><div>
</div><div>The Senate Science Committee's Disappearing Center</div><div>
</div><div>Helping the effort was the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission, which opened the door to unlimited political spending. The decision empowered hugely wealthy donors like the oil billionaire Koch brothers seeking to shape politics in America. Between 2010 and 2012 alone, individuals and companies in the fossil fuel industry spent an unprecedented $90.5 million to elect friendly Republicans, an increase of 66 percent over the previous two election cycles (compared with $15.7 million they gave to Democrats), according to Center for Responsive Politics data.</div><div>
</div><div>Sherwood Boehlert</div><div>
</div><div>In the end, nearly a third of the Republicans who sat on the committee in 2006—seven of 24, including Boehlert—were defeated or retired over the next six years in the wake of primary challenges from the right.</div><div>
</div><div>The conservative advocacy group, the Club for Growth, financed many of the challenges. The group has a broad low-tax, less-government agenda, but its victims saw the hand of fossil fuel interests at work.</div><div>
</div><div>"My most enduring heresy was saying that climate change was real," said Bob Inglis of South Carolina, who became convinced of climate reality on a science committee trip to Antarctica. He lost in 2010 to Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was endorsed by the Club for Growth. "It had appeared that I had crossed to the other side and had become unfaithful to the tribe."</div><div>
</div><div>Wayne Gilchrest of Maryland, a science committee Republican defeated in the 2008 primary, believed the conservative activists had a deeper objection than his stand on climate issues. "The foundation upon which their enterprise was built was to select members of Congress that could be told what to do," Gilchrest said. "They wanted a puppet."</div><div>
</div><div>The Club for Growth, which spent between $6 million and $22 million each election cycle between 2004 and 2016, did not have to disclose its donors until it established a Super PAC in 2010. But at least $3 million came into the club from the labyrinth Koch network between 2009 and 2015, according to the tax returns of their various nonprofit advocacy groups. And the club's Super PAC disclosures show that its wealthy donors include some heavily invested in the fossil fuel industry and connected to the Koch brothers, like hedge fund manager Paul Singer of Elliott Management, and Quantum Energy, a Houston private equity and venture capital firm specializing in oil and gas.</div><div>
</div><div>Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry became the biggest contributor to science committee members, according to Center for Responsive Politics data. </div><div>
</div><div>House Science Committee: Follow the Money...</div></div>=2/15mcconnell staff networkWhen Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy cast the deciding vote to gut a century of campaign finance law, he assured the public that the unlimited corporate spending he was ushering in would “not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” Because those authorized to give and spend unlimited amounts were legally required to remain independent of the politicians themselves, Kennedy reasoned, there was no cause for concern.

Just five years later, in a development that may be surprising only to Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision is reshaping how, how much and to whom money flows in Washington.

How the flood of money released by Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has changed elections has been the subject of much discussion, but the decision’s role in allowing that same money to soak the legislative process has largely gone unreported. According to an extensive review of public documents held by the FEC, the U.S. Senate and the Internal Revenue Service, as well as interviews with lobbyists and policymakers, Kennedy's allegedly independent spending has become increasingly intertwined with lobbying and legislation -- the precise appearance of corruption campaign finance laws were meant to curb.

Politically active nonprofits, known as "dark money" groups for their ability to shield the identity of donors, and super PACs, which take unlimited sums of money but must disclose donors, have become dominated by lobbyists and other political operatives with close ties to leaders in Congress. Meanwhile, businesses with issues before Congress are pumping increasingly more money into the lobbyist-connected organizations.

The Supreme Court initially established a narrow definition of corruption in the 1970s, but Citizens United used it to blow open the gates that had been holding back corporate money. The 2010 decision came as the U.S. legislative system had evolved into a near parliamentary system of party-line voting and expansive party networks extending seamlessly from the Capitol to party headquarters to lobbying firms to outside political groups. Most top congressional legislators now have "leadership teams" -- informal but internally recognized groups of aides-turned-lobbyists who help raise funds.

To the lobbyists working in the system he helped create, Kennedy’s vision of political spending is unrecognizable. "I think Justice Kennedy's view on this was naive at best," one lobbyist told The Huffington Post, reflecting a rare bipartisan consensus. "People are going to do what's allowed under the law."

The Supreme Court majority’s casual dismissal of the possibility that the Citizens United ruling could lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption was necessary from a judicial perspective. Citizens United and a subsequent lower court ruling essentially hold that the First Amendment prevents the government from restricting political spending independent of the candidates and parties. Yet the courts had long recognized Congress’ authority to regulate the financing of campaigns and the lobbying process in order to maintain the citizens’ trust in a democratic government. Where the choice had been between the sanctity of elections on the one hand and an unfettered interpretation of the First Amendment on the other, the courts chose to protect elections -- because without a trusted government, there is no First Amendment to speak of.

Kennedy and the other four justices, therefore, had to insist that independent political spending could not lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption -- no threat of corruption meant no congressional authority to regulate that spending.

It is difficult, however, to look closely at the way laws are being made today without acknowledging at least an appearance of corruption. Congressional aides to whom HuffPost spoke all said that their own members of Congress were certainly not influenced in an untoward way by the corporate funds pumped into efforts to re-elect them, but that it was easy to see why the public might assume that to be the case. Five years later, the judicial logic of Citizens United has unraveled.

Political advisers closely associated with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) serve as both operatives on their behalf and lobbyists for corporate clients with business before Congress. The clients are encouraged to give generously to super PACs associated with the respective lawmakers, according to lobbyists familiar with the widespread strategy.

Trevor Potter, one of the top election lawyers in the country whose clients include Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and comedian Stephen Colbert, warns that this arrangement creates exactly the appearance of corruption that courts have used to justify campaign finance limits.

“It does make a significant difference to have lobbyists involved because then you have the very lobbyists who seek official action from the members being the conduits to the money,” Potter said. “It makes them valuable to their clients because they have a good relationship with the member, and they have a tight relationship with the member because they have access to the money from their clients.”

They're making use of the opportunity. A connected super PAC and nonprofit manned by lobbyists tied to Boehner have collectively received millions from interests in the insurance, drug, energy and other industries. Big-money groups associated with McConnell have been funded by coal companies, insurers and hospitals.Mining and gambling businesses have given directly to the super PAC associated with Reid, which is staffed by two Reid confidantes, one of whom advises the lobby shop that represents those companies while she also prepares to run the senator's 2016 re-election bid. All these companies have hired lobbyists who are connected to those same lawmakers as well as to the big-money groups and who are also working on issues over which Congress has much sway. The groups they fund have spent big to put and keep Boehner, McConnell and Reid in the driver’s seat.

Tony Podesta, a Democratic super lobbyist with the Podesta Group, told HuffPost that he has encouraged his corporate clients to give to super PACs and dark money nonprofits. “It’s unfortunate that we have the decision Citizens United, but as long as that’s the law of the land, then Democrats and Republicans are both active in these kinds of endeavors,” he said.

Speaker John Boehner has close ties to the American Action Network, a dark money nonprofit, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC. These groups raise funds from clients of lobbyists looking to increase their own influence.

In the House of Representatives, Speaker Boehner maintains a tight network of former aides who have decamped to K Street. Through these aides, he is tied to a dark money nonprofit and related super PAC that have spent millions to help him become speaker and to maintain and expand his GOP majority. The House leadership's agenda regularly aligns with that of the clients of the lobbyists who give to these groups.

The two outside groups in the middle of Boehner’s web are the American Action Network, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors, and the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC operating under AAN’s umbrella.

The board of directors of AAN and Congressional Leadership Fund is lined with lobbyists and influencers including Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck strategic adviser Barry Jackson, a former chief of staff to Boehner who left his office in 2012. Brownstein’s profile of Jackson, who is not registered to lobby, focuses heavily on his congressional and executive branch connections and experience without mention of any particular policy expertise.

Also, Brownstein Hyatt employed former Boehner aide Marc Lampkin as managing director of its Washington lobbying office. His firm bio declares him to be a proud member of “Team Boehner," and he is widely seen as one of the speaker's closest advisers. He is also a lobbyist for a number of interests that contribute to super PACs and nonprofits that help Republicans in elections.

The Apollo Education Group, which owns and operates the for-profit University of Phoenix, has donated $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund since 2012 while employing Lampkin to lobby on behalf of such schools. Boehner and his House Republicans have long been staunch supporters of for-profit universities. In recent years, they have fought back against federal regulations to rein in that industry, which relies hugely on its students receiving federal grants and taxpayer-backed loans while it fails to graduate those same students.

The CEO of pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories, another Lampkin client, gave $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund in 2012. Boehner recently inaugurated a new Abbott factory in his congressional district while opposing changes to tax laws that allowed Abbott to purchase an overseas competitor in 2014 and turn itself into a multinational corporation to avoid U.S. tax payments (the tactic, known as an inversion, has come under increasing scrutiny).

Lampkin and another former Boehner aide, Sam Geduldig, have both registered to lobby for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, a trade group for large insurance companies that has given $185,000 to outside groups supporting Republicans since 2012. PCI’s contributions include $25,000 each to the Congressional Leadership Fund and AAN.

The insurers group also pumped funds into the dark money network run by Steven Law, a member of McConnell’s inner circle and a former general counsel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. PCI gave $75,000 to Crossroads GPS and $25,000 to the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition. Both groups are run by Law and spent millions to re-elect McConnell in 2014. PCI also put money into super PACs supporting two Republicans first elected to the Senate this past November: Joni Ernst of Iowa and David Perdue of Georgia. Their seats were among the handful McConnell needed his party to win in order for him to take the Senate’s top spot.

"PCI participates in the political process like many others and supports pro business and pro property & casualty organizations,” Marguerite Tortorello, PCI's senior vice president for public affairs, said in a statement.

Shortly after the 2014 election, the two top priorities of the insurers group and the broader insurance industry were rolled into one: A provision to roll back capital standards placed on insurance companies by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law was attached to the reauthorization of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. Although that bill stalled last year, the new Congress in January passed a terrorism insurance reauthorization with the capital standards rollback attached -- with bipartisan support. An amendment from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to strip the rollback measure failed.

The inability to pass legislation was a hallmark of the last Congress. But one area where lawmakers forced swift action wound up being profitable for the super PACs and nonprofits that support them.

In April 2013, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that it would be furloughing air traffic controllers throughout the year due to the automatic budget cuts brought about by sequestration. This would have led to flight delays, lost profits for the airline industry and lost wages for controllers and pilots. Within a week of the announcement, Congress passed legislation to ease the sequester cuts at the FAA.

Lobbying players who pushed Congress to act on the FAA also sent contributions to various outside groups connected to congressional GOP leaders. Airlines for America, the industry’s main trade group, gave $150,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund, $35,000 to the pro-McConnell super PAC Kentuckians for Strong Leadership and $40,000 to Defending Main Street SuperPAC, a group backing moderate Republicans in fights with tea party candidates.

“You can’t have good policy without good candidates and legislation, which is why it’s important to the 2 million people we fly every day and the nearly 600,000 people we employ that we be involved,” Airlines for America spokesman Vaughn Jennings said in a statement.

The lobby group is headed by Nick Calio, a veteran of both Bush administrations, who expressed an interest in increasing the airline industry’s political giving upon taking the helm in 2010.

“You’ve got to be part of the political process, and contributions and political support are part of the political process,” Calio told Politico in 2010. “When you have people who consistently support you on policy issues, they expect you to be part of their political life support system. It’s just that simple.”

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a labor union, also gave $50,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund and $150,000 to Defending Main Street after Congress ended the sequester-related furloughs. Those contributions were out of the ordinary for the union, which had been a major supporter of Democrats alone. It has given $3.9 million to super PACs backing Democrats.

Calio is deeply enmeshed in the political party machinery, and his group rewards congressional action by making huge contributions to outside groups that directly support lawmakers. What he does not have is a direct relationship with an outside spending group. Other major lobbyists, including heads of trade associations, do.

Take Mike Duncan, who served as chairman of the Republican National Committee from 2007 to 2009. Following the Citizens United decision, he joined with Karl Rove and other GOP operatives to form the super PAC American Crossroads and the nonprofit Crossroads GPS. He still sits on the board of American Crossroads.

But Duncan is not just a party operative. In 2012, he became head of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a major Washington lobbying arm of the coal and railroad industry. The coalition was in the midst of a massive advertising and pressure campaign in Washington as the Obama administration pushed for new regulations on coal-fired power plants to reduce their pollution.

To further increase its GOP connection, the coal coalition signed up Boehner’s former aide Lampkin to lobby in 2013.

Coal industry companies and executives on the board of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity have contributed more than $10 million to Republican outside groups. Joe Craft and his company Alliance Resource Partners have provided most of this money with contributions totaling nearly $9.4 million. Alpha Natural Resources, Consol Energy and Murray Energy have also chipped in. Additionally, Matthew Rose, the CEO of Burlington North Santa Fe and a member of the coal coalition’s board, gave $25,000 to the super PAC supporting McConnell in 2014. (This is all aside from the hundreds of millions in political spending by the Koch brothers, fossil fuel magnates.)

Republicans have, in turn, become increasingly vocal in their support for the coal industry and their opposition to any rule, regulation or idea -- including belief in climate change driven by human action -- that could harm the industry.

A spokeswoman for the coal coalition said that Duncan separates his work at American Crossroads from that at the lobbying group and does not solicit the latter’s members to give to the former.

The pro-Boehner AAN, the nonprofit parent of the Congressional Leadership Fund, is a hotbed of lobbyist activity. The board currently boasts four registered lobbyists -- former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), former Reps. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.) and Vin Weber (R-Minn.), and former RNC official Maria Cino -- and two other employees of lobbying firms -- former Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno and former Boehner aide Barry Jackson.

Past AAN board members include major GOP fundraiser and previously registered lobbyist C. Boyden Gray and former Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Iowa), who is the head of the Credit Union National Association.

“We’re proud to have a distinguished board from business executives to policy leaders to former elected officials -- they’ve been successful in all walks of life and they’re critical to our success,” Dan Conston, spokesman for both AAN and the Congressional Leadership Fund, said in an email. “Do they fundraise for us? Of course. Do they uphold their fiduciary responsibility to us as board members? Of course.”

Crossroads GPS, like its sister super PAC, also maintains connections to K Street through its board. Crossroads board member Sally Vastola, a former staffer for Rep. Reynolds, decamped with her old boss to the law and lobbying firm of Nixon Peabody, where she lobbies for pharmaceutical companies and the student loan giant Sallie Mae.

"Both American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have separate and independent boards whose members do not fundraise for either organization and have a range of work outside their board positions," said Paul Lindsay, communications director for the Crossroads duo.

Lobbyists straddling the party operative-influence peddling line have themselves given more than $1 million to super PACs and nonprofits since the Citizens United decision.

The top lobbyist donor to these groups is Boyden Gray, a top-shelf GOP fundraiser and former AAN board member, whose contributions total $390,000. Gray made contributions to such super PACs as American Crossroads, Freedom PAC and Kentuckians for Strong Leadership. According to lobbyist contribution disclosures, he also gave to dark money groups: $50,000 to Crossroads GPS and $15,000 to Wisconsin Club for Growth as it worked incredibly closely with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) to help him survive a recall election.

"The vast majority of our donors give on the basis of broad philosophical conviction," said Crossroads' Lindsay. "The fact that some have various policy interests should come as no surprise, but those interests have no effect on our activities."

The full record of lobbyists and their clients funding outside groups connected to party leadership is almost certainly obscured by the fact that many of these groups are not required to disclose their donors. Dark money nonprofits like AAN, Crossroads GPS and the Democratic Party group Patriot Majority USA spend huge sums on elections and on attack ads masquerading as issue advocacy. Few of their donors have materialized, but what little has leaked indicates that contributions from clients of party-linked lobbyists and trade associations actively lobbying Congress are common.

AAN has sucked in millions from Washington-based corporate trade groups and corporations with major interests in Congress. Those donations include $6 million from Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and $3.3 million from pharmaceutical giant Aetna. The Alliance for Quality Home Nursing Care chipped in $250,000. Additional funds came from America’s Natural Gas Alliance, the Motion Picture Association of America and the top lobbyist for Health Care Service Corporation.

The Alliance for Quality Home Nursing Care and its affiliated group, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare, have given $2.9 million to outside groups as part of their lobbying campaign to restore Medicare reimbursements for home and hospice care that were cut by the Affordable Care Act. The two groups have hired top lobbyists to help direct their efforts, including Democrat Tony Podesta and Republican Haley Barbour.

Barbour, a former two-term governor of Mississippi and a onetime RNC chairman, is the personification of this cross-pollinating age. He is a powerhouse lobbyist running the BGR Group who is also an adviser to political campaigns and a past fundraiser for American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. One client, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare, gave $500,000 to Crossroads GPS in 2012.

In 2014, Barbour joined hands with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to beat back a tea party primary challenge to Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). Cochran had attracted the ire of tea party activists for his support of immigration reform and his long history of earmarking funds to build projects in his impoverished state. To save the six-term senator’s seat, Barbour helped launch the super PAC Mississippi Conservatives with the backing of the chamber and Republican Senate leadership. He chipped in $35,000 of his own money, and Crest Investment Company, one of his clients, sent an additional $50,000. The chamber gave $100,000 to the super PAC and directly spent another $1.2 million to help re-elect Cochran.

Cochran’s eventual victory in a run-off election was a triumphant moment for Barbour, the chamber and Republican leadership. They had beaten back a potential stumbling block to capturing the Senate majority.

The chamber didn’t just support an establishment Republican in Mississippi last year. The larger anti-tea party campaign was chiefly its work. The chamber ran hard against tea party candidates in Kentucky and North Carolina while scaring off potential challengers in West Virginia before they could materialize. In Iowa and Colorado, it found common ground on candidates with national tea party groups.

Of course, beyond being a funder of election ads, the Chamber of Commerce is also the nation’s largest business lobby, generously funded by corporations across America. It employs dozens of Washington lobbyists, including top former staffers for McConnell. And it does not shy away from the implication that its campaign spending is part of its lobbying operation.

"Our deal is to have a political program so that there is a hammer, and there is a consequence, and there is leverage and it's aggressive," Rob Engstrom, the chamber’s national political director, told CNN in 2014.

Once Republicans won the majority in the Senate, they immediately talked up the chamber’s priorities, from the Keystone XL pipeline to tax reform and pro-corporate trade policies. Newly elected Republican senators backed by the chamber announced their support for immigration reform, which the chamber strongly favors, and increased transportation and infrastructure spending, a major chamber wish opposed by the GOP’s tea party wing.

As noted, a former general counsel for the Chamber of Commerce and McConnell insider, Law, now runs American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS. For his own re-election, the new Senate majority leader is tightly bound to the Crossroads duo and two state groups, Kentuckians for Strong Leadership and Kentucky Opportunity Coalition. Former McConnell aide Scott Jennings operates as the public face of the latter two organizations, which are also headed by Law.

Soon after the 2014 victory, McConnell and Law announced the creation of yet another super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, which will raise funds to maintain the new GOP majority. The formation of the group echoes the big-money strategy used by now-Minority Leader Reid to keep Senate Democrats in power for the previous four years.

Lobbyists and their clients have poured money into a super PAC and nonprofit run by former aides of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid as they seek legislative action from his office. (Photo: Benjamin Lowy/Getty Images)

Indeed, Democrats have been tapping the post-Citizens United nexus of super PACs, former leadership aides and lobbying groups, too. Reid’s network is well-connected.

Rebecca Lambe, the adviser most closely associated with Reid’s re-election in 2010 and his coming bid in 2016, is employed by the lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates -- as is former senior Reid aide, Kai Anderson. Lambe began work at Cassidy in early 2011. She is also the treasurer of Senate Majority PAC, the super PAC aimed at electing Senate Democrats. The latter group was founded in 2011 by Lambe and Susan McCue, Reid’s former chief of staff and longtime confidante. McCue, who is president of Senate Majority PAC, is also connected to Patriot Majority USA, a dark money group with a similar aim.

Since the Citizens United decision in January 2010, lobbyists at and clients of Cassidy & Associates have given $675,000 to Senate Majority PAC and affiliated groups. Another $1.66 million has come from those who attended super PAC strategy sessions hosted by Lambe, including lobbyists and clients of other lobbyists, some of whom are other former Reid aides.

Lambe’s connection to Reid is an asset to Cassidy, and the firm makes no bones about it. Her Cassidy website bio is rich with details about her ongoing connections to Reid, and her relationship with the top Senate Democrat has been a selling point in meetings with prospective clients. At one pitch meeting in May 2013, for instance, Lambe was described as both a senior Cassidy staffer and Reid’s top political strategist, according to a source at the meeting.

It’s common for lobbyists to reference their ties to powerful politicians earned through past service, but ongoing service is unusual. A second source in the room recalled Lambe being mentioned as a Cassidy staffer who would be available to the prospective client, but couldn’t recall how she was specifically identified with regard to Reid. “Of course, her reputation precedes her,” the second source said.

In 2012, her company bio (accessed through the Internet Archive) said, “Lambe is one of the nation’s top political strategists. … Building on the highly successful model in Nevada, Lambe recently led the effort to create Majority PAC [now Senate Majority PAC], an unprecedented, independent effort to protect the Democratic Majority in the U.S. Senate in 2012. She currently serves as a Senior Advisor and Strategist to the newly formed SuperPAC.”

Tom Alexander, a spokesman for Cassidy, said that “there is nothing unusual about promoting the background and experience of your team. Rebecca does not lobby for us; rather, we periodically seek her counsel as we develop effective strategies for our clients.”

Lambe has been a liaison to K Street Democrats on Senate Majority PAC’s plans and fundraising needs. She led a presentation in June 2013 about the super PAC before some of the top Democratic lobbyists and lawmakers in Washington. Attendees included Reid, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and lobbyists from firms whose clients gave to the super PAC as well as to Patriot Majority USA.

“She’s a very smart political operative, and I would support anything that she does,” Podesta, another attendee, said of Lambe. That event, he said, was intended “to encourage [the lobbyists] to contribute and to encourage them to encourage others to contribute.”

Lambe is also closely involved with what’s known as the Clean Energy Project. McCue, the Senate Majority PAC co-founder, sits on the project's board, and Cassidy & Associates is a top sponsor. Lambe herself helps organize its annual National Clean Energy Summit, held in Las Vegas.

The summit in his home state serves as a venue for Reid to showcase the alternative energy industry in Nevada and provides space for energy and vehicle companies to promote their products. One of the repeat sponsors of the summit is Cassidy client and casino operator MGM Resorts International, which is also a heavy donor to Senate Majority PAC.

The Cassidy firm and its clients generally have been an oft-tapped resource for Reid and Senate Majority PAC. In 2012, Gerald Cassidy, the firm’s founder, gave $50,000 to the super PAC. (Cassidy, who is officially retired from the firm, is known as the father of the earmark.) Michael Kowalski, then CEO of Cassidy client Tiffany & Co., gave $125,000 in the 2012 elections and another $100,000 in 2014. In 2010, MGM Resorts gave $300,000 to Patriot Majority, then a super PAC, supporting Reid’s re-election. Newmont Mining Corporation put $100,000 into Senate Majority PAC in 2012 and hired Cassidy the next year.

Alexander, spokesman for Cassidy & Associates, said the firm does not comment on contributions made or solicited by its employees and would not say whether the firm asked clients to give to super PACs.

The $225,000 contributed by Kowalski came as Tiffany & Co. was engaged in a lobbying campaign, alongside a coalition of environmental and fiscal watchdog groups, to update a key federal mining law from 1872. The company employed former Reid aide Anderson to lobby on its behalf.

After Democrats won control of both houses of Congress in 2006, Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) and other congressmen pushed a bill to require mining companies operating on public lands to pay royalties to the government and to abide by stricter environmental regulations. Rahall told USA Today in 2007 that everyone in the House would be for reform, but that Reid, then the Senate majority leader, posed an obstacle.

“Well, obviously, the man in control over there is the gentleman from the largest gold-producing state,” Rahall said. Nevada is one of the world’s top producers of gold, and Reid, whose father was a gold miner, is an ardent supporter of and regular opponent of new regulation on the industry.

A mining reform bill passed the House in 2008 but went nowhere in the Senate, where Reid opposed the level of royalties, among other provisions. No such bill has passed either chamber since. Reid never stated outright that he was against the mining reform, though he said it must be crafted appropriately to satisfy the industry and protect mining jobs.

The continued debate has helped elicit further contributions from both the mining industry and consumer-facing companies like Tiffany, which are hoping to avoid customer backlash over ties between their products and polluting mines. Environmental groups have already launched campaigns targeting the sale of jewelry using materials from mines with poor pollution records.

Tiffany’s reform stance, in particular, stems from its past failure to get in front of consumer fury over the sale of “blood diamonds” -- diamonds sourced from war-torn African countries -- in the 2000s. CEO Kowalski told the Las Vegas Sun in 2007 that his company’s involvement in the issue “has never been ulterior or anything more than corporate self-interest.”

As Tiffany became more involved in the issue, Kowalski’s donations increased. Prior to 2007, he had made few contributions. But since 2008 he has given more than $160,000 to Democratic Party candidates and party committees, including $7,200 to Reid’s 2010 campaign. This was on top of the $225,000 to Senate Majority PAC.

Tiffany has been unable to secure a legislative win despite its heavy giving. Sometimes lobbyists squeeze corporations for money knowing their goal will remain elusive.

Anderson, the former Reid aide-turned-Cassidy staffer, also represents Newmont Mining, one of the top American gold mining companies operating in Nevada, but that lobbying has a different focus: federal efforts to preserve the greater sage grouse. The company fears that protections for the imperiled bird under the Endangered Species Act could interfere with its mining operations. The Fish and Wildlife Service is supposed to make a decision on whether to list the bird by September 2015.

Cassidy was hired in July 2013, as the Bureau of Land Management was evaluating threats to sage grouse habitat in Nevada. The BLM analysis looked like it might jeopardize a new gold mine that Newmont had proposed.

Reid worked with Nevada’s junior senator, Republican Dean Heller, and in December of that year they offered draft legislation that would allow the state to take the lead on protecting the greater sage grouse. Their proposal would have designated certain areas for the birds, preventing an Endangered Species Act listing and leaving other areas open to development by mining operators like Newmont. That bill never passed, but language barring the Interior Department from moving forward on the greater sage grouse was part of the Reid-supported spending package in December 2014.

Anderson is also registered to lobby for MGM Resorts, one of the largest casino operators in the world. Reid is an unabashed champion of his state’s gaming industry and, as Reid defenders note, would go to bat for it whether contributions were made or not.

Still, those contributions have been made. In 2010, MGM Resorts pumped $300,000 into the Patriot Majority super PAC to help Reid defeat Republican challenger Sharron Angle. After his re-election, Reid attempted to attach language to a must-pass tax bill to open the door to online gambling in the United States. This measure was carefully tailored to provide the very first online gambling licenses to companies like MGM and Harrah’s Entertainment (now Caesar’s Entertainment), which also gave to Patriot Majority. (Reid now opposes Internet gaming -- a switch that, some speculate, is aimed at deterring casino magnate Sheldon Adelson from spending money to defeat the senator in 2016.)

Reid also came to MGM Resorts’ aid when a major development project with Dubai World faced financing problems during the global economic crisis. Reid helped persuade bankers to provide funding. He has said he considers the salvaging of the project, and the 22,000 Nevada jobs connected to it, among his most significant home state achievements.

While Cassidy & Associates offers the strongest linkage between Reid’s office, Senate Majority PAC and lobbying clients seeking favors on Capitol Hill, the firm is not the only K Street denizen with ties to the super PAC. Many of the lobbyists who attended the 2013 presentation by Lambe had or would make five-figure contributions to the super PAC. In some cases, the clients of those lobbyists gave, too.

The Air Line Pilots Association, a Podesta Group client, gave $100,000 to Senate Majority PAC in 2014. Another Podesta client, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare (then known as Home Health Advocacy Coalition), gave $125,000 in 2014.

These lobbyists’ clients also gave to Patriot Majority USA, the related dark money group. According to tax returns, the Partnership for Quality Home Healthcare and yet another Podesta client, the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care, gave a combined $1.5 million to the nonprofit from 2011 to 2012.

“I’m a supporter of both groups and urge people to support both groups,” said Podesta, who personally contributed $50,000 to Senate Majority PAC in 2012.

Before there was a Senate Majority PAC, there was another Democratic nonprofit acting as a key node in the flow of money from lobbying interests to help elect helpful politicians. Citizens for Strength & Security Action Fund, and its later iterations, provides what may be the clearest example of how outside spending groups are used by lobbyists to curry favor with leaders in Congress.

The story begins back when Congress debated and passed the Affordable Care Act. An immense legislative accomplishment for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, the law was also the subject of a massive, still-ongoing lobbying campaign. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent tens of millions of dollars trying to defeat the reform bill, much of it provided by America’s Health Insurance Plans, a lobbying association for health insurers. The chamber also spent millions more trying to defeat reform proponents in the 2010 election.

The preeminent interest group spreading money around Washington on health care reform, however, was the pharmaceutical industry. Under the stewardship of former Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) -- whose leap from writing the Medicare prescription drug law to lobbying on K Street led to an eponymous rules change in Congress -- Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America worked behind the scenes with the White House and then-Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to advance the legislation. PhRMA’s chief requirements: that the new law not reverse the ban on re-importing drugs and not grant authority to Medicare, Medicaid or any new entity to negotiate lower drug prices.

In return for abandoning those two longstanding Democratic Party goals, Democrats would get PhRMA’s support, which included directing millions of dollars to outside nonprofits to pay for electoral and advocacy ads. Along with other industry groups like the Federation of American Hospitals and reform proponents like Families USA, PhRMA launched Americans for Stable Quality Care in 2009. The new dark-money nonprofit raised and spent $46 million that year to fund a barrage of ads backing Obama’s health bill.

And then, two months before the law passed in March 2010, the Supreme Court handed down the Citizens United decision, allowing corporations to fund electoral efforts through nonprofits like Americans for Stable Quality Care. The group quickly changed its name to Citizens for Strength & Security Action Fund and transformed into an overtly political operation.

PhRMA pumped $2.5 million into that group in 2010 to help pay for ads supporting the election of Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.). Their seats were vital to maintaining the Democratic majority in the Senate.

The pharmaceutical lobby also put $2 million into another Democratic nonprofit called America’s Families First, which operated as a donor fund and redistributed what it raised. It gave $2.3 million to the get-out-the-vote group America Votes, $1.5 million to Democratic super PACs, $461,000 to Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund and $370,000 to Citizens for Strength & Security Action Fund, among others. All of these named groups were active in supporting Democrats in the 2010 election.

Finally, PhRMA boosted Sen. Baucus, the main congressional architect of health care reform, by sending $500,000 to an obscure group called Montana Growth. In 2013, the little known group funneled $400,000 of that money over to the Stronger Montana Fund and Montana Hunters & Anglers Action, both Democratic dark-money nonprofits, to support a possible re-election campaign by Baucus.

The Stronger Montana Fund put $275,000 into a pro-Baucus issue ad early in 2013, but Baucus ultimately chose not to run again. He has since been named U.S. ambassador to China by President Obama.

One big-money Democratic operative said that while both sides accept this new corporate cash, Democrats have a harder time getting it -- there are only so many PhRMA deals on the table.

Republicans have been increasingly moving their fundraising and spending away from super PACs and toward dark money groups, which allow them to conceal the source of the money.

The Democratic operative guessed that at this point, Republicans may be taking in 100 corporate dollars for every one that reaches Democrats. "We don't really know -- it's at least 10-to-1." She added, "The truth is Democrats don't get much [501(c)(4)] corporate money, and that's because their interests often aren't aligned. I'd gladly have c4s shut down -- that would be a huge boon for us." 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/26/citizens-united-congress_n_6723540.html


SJ 19 scholar testimony: <a href="http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/06-03-14RaskinTestimony.pdf">http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/06-03-14RaskinTestimony.pdf</a>JH: just one year after their Citizens United decision unleashed CEOs to be able to roll truckloads of their shareholders' funds into our elections (without asking those shareholders for permission or even informing them after the fact), that same five assaulted our democracy again. Their 2011 verdict in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McComish_v.Bennett" target="blank" style="line-height: 22px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(141, 3, 0);">Arizona Free Enterprise Club case</a> increased the volume of CorporateSpeak in elections by decreasing the speech of non-rich candidates. Specifically, they rejected the will of Arizonans who had voted to provide public funds for candidates who are willing to forego all special-interest money. This system gave the political ideas of the non-wealthy a chance to be heard when up against the multimillion-dollar PR megaphones of the Koch brothers, Karl Rove, BigOil, the Walmart heirs, and other super-wealthy oligarchs. Public financing of elections was successfully widening public debate and freeing up political speech, so the five corporate supremists stepped in to kill it, absurdly declaring that such laws give an "unfair advantage" to little-guy campaigns.Next came this year's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCutcheon_v.Federal_Election_Commission" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(141, 3, 0);">McCutcheon opinion</a>, in which the same five blew the lid off the limits on money that an individual can pour on candidates during any given election cycle. The limit had been $123,000--high enough that only about 600 people out of our 330 million reached that maximum in 2012. The Court's narrow majority lifted the allowable total for one person's election-year spending to a stunning $5.9 million. That empowers a handful of the richest of rich donors--even fewer than 600--to overwhelm the political voices of millions of common citizens, all in the name of free speech. Adding to this absurdity, this five-man wrecking crew blithely declares in its McCutcheon ruling that even transactions that appear to be obvious conflicts of interest are permissible (e.g., a CEO can give $25,000 to the head of a congressional committee--the same person who a week later can put a bill on the floor to benefit the CEO's corporation). Such corrupt transactions apparently "do not justify" putting restrictions on campaign contributions. Instead, the wily ones ruled that the only donor-to-donee corruption that can be regulated is outright quid pro quo bribery.prop 49? 7/3 On Monday, thanks to overwhelming grassroots support, the California Assembly passed the Overturn Citizens United Act by a vote of 49-22! Governor Jerry Brown now has only a few weeks to sign the bill -- which will put it on the ballot for voters to decide this November. yikes, CU meets local ordinances:<section class="article-body" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.5em;">Early in April, coal industry executive Shaun McCutcheon won big when the Supreme Court<a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-536_e1pf.pdf" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%;"> swept away limits</a> on how much money wealthy donors can contribute to federal political campaigns. But in St. Louis, Mo., coal interests are trying to prevent people from even voting.This story began when ordinary citizens<a href="http://www.takebackstlouis.com/the_initiative" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> joined together</a> and took a stand against both climate change and their city’s destructive practice of granting enormous tax breaks to big business while cutting funding for public services. They talked to thousands of residents who were upset that St. Louis keeps giving away tens of millions of dollars of badly needed public money to <a href="http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/cco/ords/data/ord8701.htm" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%;">Peabody Energy</a> (the world’s largest private-sector coal company) and the <a href="http://www.stltoday.com/business/st-louis-opens-checkbook-to-keep-e%E2%80%A6cle_2030e424-4d19-5c00-ae2b-5351bf21dab4.html" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">lobbyists, banks, and law firms</a> that enable it. And after hearing over and over again that “there oughta be a law” against corporate welfare for polluters, they did what we learned in civics class: they wrote a law that would<a href="http://www.takebackstlouis.com/full_text" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> ban public financial incentives</a> to unsustainable energy producers and their major business partners.They didn’t just write the law: Under the banner of <a href="http://www.takebackstlouis.com/" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Take Back St. Louis</a>, they walked door-to-door, talking to friends, neighbors, and strangers about their idea. They collected over 22,000 signatures — more than 10 percent of all the voters in St. Louis — on a petition for a ballot initiative. The city’s elections board<a href="http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/anti-coal-initiative-heading-for-april-ballot/article_c74ff1da-de8b-529a-9134-70bbd82ed4c9.html" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> verified the signatures</a>, and began preparing to print ballots.This is where you might expect to hear about a vigorous election campaign, with arguments from both sides put to the voters, a spirited debate about the future of St. Louis and our planet, and finally, the voters making their choice at the ballot box. You might even expect to hear about the coal company spending millions of dollars to fight the initiative in the days before the vote.But you’d be wrong: There was no vote. Instead, the<a href="http://www.stinsonleonard.com/uploadedFiles/Content/News_and_Events/In_the_News/2013_In_the_News/Dueker_STLBJReprint_Character.pdf" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%;"> coal company’s lawyers</a> rushed<a href="http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/lawsuit-seeks-to-block-anti-coal-measure-from-ballot/article_c2d61509-55cf-5199-9630-dc2f2c72b5d5.html" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%;"> to court</a> and asked a judge to <a href="http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/judge-halts-election-limiting-tax-breaks" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%;">block the election</a> on the grounds that the law would unfairly discriminate against the coal company and its business partners, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution. The judge <a href="http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/judge-halts-election-limiting-tax-breaks" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%;">agreed</a>, and <a href="http://www.scribd.com/doc/206544694/Sustainable-Energy-Order-Feb-11-2014" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%;">cited the Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United decision</a> for the theory that business entities “are entitled to constitutional protection as citizens.” He issued a preliminary injunction blocking the vote, and scheduled a trial for March 31.At the <a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/morning_call/2014/03/anti-coal-initiative-heads-back-to-st-louis-court.html?ana=twt" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%;">trial</a>, Take Back St. Louis <a href="http://www.freespeechforpeople.org/sites/default/files/SLSF%20Post%20Trial%20Brief-Final.pdf#page=21" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%;">provided evidence</a> about the environmental damage caused by burning coal, and the damage to the fabric of St. Louis caused by the city’s penchant for giving away public dollars to big business. The other side <a href="http://freespeechforpeople.org/node/666" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; max-width: 100%;">didn’t put any witnesses on the stand</a>. The judge may make his final decision any day now.Not everyone will agree that this ballot initiative is the best policy, and that’s fine. The Take Back St. Louis folks think they can convince a majority of St. Louis voters, and they’re willing to take on the coal interests in a contest for votes. But first, the court has to get out of the way. Now that the judge has the evidence, he has a chance to get this right, lift his injunction, and let the vote proceed.Whether or not you think that giving tax breaks to coal companies and their business partners is a good idea, we should all agree that this is a question for voters, not judges. Because it was bad enough when coal companies could simply open their checkbooks to flood elections with unlimited spending; now they won’t even let people vote.</section><a id="grist-end-of-article" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; max-width: 100%;" /><section class="author-bio clear margin-bottom-x4" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; line-height: 1.5em; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a id="grist-end-of-article" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; max-width: 100%;" /><a id="grist-end-of-article" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; max-width: 100%;">Ron Fein is the Legal Director for </a><a href="http://freespeechforpeople.org/" style="border: 0px none; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none;">Free Speech For People</a>, an organization dedicated to challenging the misuse of corporate power and restoring republican democracy to the people.</section><a href="http://grist.org/business-technology/do-coal-companies-have-more-rights-than-voters/">http://grist.org/business-technology/do-coal-companies-have-more-rights-than-voters/</a>=<div class="iconitem" style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; float: left; margin-left: 115px; padding-bottom: 10px; line-height: 16px; background-color: rgb(251, 251, 251);"><a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/press/Reports/Briffault_Disclosure_2012_SSRN-id2040934[1].pdf" class="enhance" title="Updating Disclosure for the New Era of Independent Spending" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold;">Updating Disclosure for the New Era of Independent Spending</a> 
by Richard Briffault, Columbia Law School, April 16, 2012Author relies on data from FollowTheMoney.org and OpenSecrets.org for analyzing post-Citizens United v. FEC explosive increase in independent spending (<$17m in 2002 Congressional elections to $290m in 2010), and ensuing disclosure issues. He argues that CU played a major role in giving rise to the disclosure problem, and outlines how that decision also provides the doctrinal means for its solution.</div><p class="buffer text-center" style="font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; margin: 0px 0px 18px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; clear: both; line-height: 16px; background-color: rgb(251, 251, 251);">Read Now:<a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/press/Reports/Briffault_Disclosure_2012_SSRN-id2040934[1].pdf" class="bold leftmore" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; margin-left: 2em;">Updating Disclosure for the New Era of Independent Spending</a><a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/press/Reports/Briffault_Disclosure_2012_SSRN-id2040934[1].pdf" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><img src="/548a9237-047b-5eca-8a96-7cc0c9654d64.gif"/></a>  543 kB=reverse the effects of Citizens United was pretty exciting even back when it was just the seven of us -- me; fellow Democratic Senators Sherrod Brown, Mark Begich, Kay Hagan, and Tom Udall; and Democratic Congressmen Bruce Braley and Gary Peters. Conservative group Citizens United gave at least $13,500 to four of the dissidents in the third quarter of this year -- $5,000 apiece to Amash and DeSantis on Sept. 30 and $2,400 to Rep. <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=N00030752&cycle=2014">Jeff Duncan</a> (R-S.C.) on Sept. 24 -- the day Duncan <a target="blank" href="https://www.facebook.com/RepJeffDuncan/posts/654961637854925">publicly cheered</a> Cruz's quasi-filibuster attempt to stop the Senate from considering a budget bill that didn't defund the Affordable Care Act. The group also gave $1,000 to Gohmert on July 3.  montana: The Montana Supreme Court rules 5-2 in the case of Western Tradition Partnership v. Bullock that a century-old law prohibits corporate spending in state and federal elections conducted within the state. The ruling seems to challenge the US Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling (see <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=a012110ussccitizensunited" style="text-decoration-line: none;">January 21, 2010</a>). The case stems from a challenge by a “social welfare organization,” Western Tradition Partnership (WTP, which changed its name to American Tradition Partnership after the original lawsuit was filed), joined by two other corporate entities, to Montana’s 1912 Corrupt Practices Act (CPA). The law banned corporate spending in elections, after two out-of-state copper industry magnates attempted to “buy” the Montana legislature by pouring money into the 1894 state elections. The law declares that “corporations may not make… an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political committee that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party.” The Montana Supreme Court finds that the CPA is needed to ensure the integrity of Montana’s elections, and to make sure that citizens and not corporations are running the state. However, the Court acknowledges that its ruling conflicts with the Citizens United decision, though it says that the Citizens United decision allows for restrictions on corporate political speech if the government can demonstrate that the restrictions are as minimal as possible to achieve a compelling governmental interest. The Montana Court rules that because of Montana’s history of corporate vote-buying and the narrow restrictions of the CPA, the law should stand. It also notes that Western Tradition Partnership argued in its original suit that disclosure laws, as opposed to outright bans, would serve the public interest and guard against corruption; however, the organization is currently involved in another lawsuit in which it argues that those same disclosure laws are unconstitutional restrictions of the freedom of speech. <cite style="text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">[<a href="http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/MT-expenditures-decision.pdf" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">WESTERN TRADITION PARTNERSHIP V. BULLOCK ET AL, 12/30/2011 <img src="/d9de70bf-ab9c-5c75-b338-d15a1b63bc95.png"/></a>; <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/04/nation/la-na-montana-court-20120104" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">LOS ANGELES TIMES, 1/4/2012</a>; <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/25/us-usa-campaign-court-idUSBRE85O0P520120625" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">REUTERS, 6/25/2012</a>; <a href="http://www.ombwatch.org/node/12113" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">OMB WATCH, 6/25/2012</a>; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/supreme-courts-montana-decision-strengthens-citizens-united/2012/06/25/gJQA8Vln1V_blog.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">WASHINGTON POST, 6/25/2012</a>;<a href="http://www.ombwatch.org/node/12133" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">OMB WATCH, 7/10/2012</a>]</cite> Even one of the dissenters, Justice James C. Nelson, disagrees with the Citizens United characterizations that corporations are legally people, writing: “Corporations are not persons. Human beings are persons, and it is an affront to the inviolable dignity of our species that courts have created a legal fiction which forces people—human beings—to share fundamental, natural rights with soulless creatures of government. Worse still, while corporations and human beings share many of the same rights under the law, they clearly are not bound equally to the same codes of good conduct, decency, and morality, and they are not held equally accountable for their sins. Indeed, it is truly ironic that the death penalty and hell are reserved only to natural persons.” WTP’s director Donald Ferguson says after the decision that the case hinges on freedom of speech (see <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=a012110ussccugopfree" style="text-decoration-line: none;">January 21, 2010</a>): “The current state law says that if you own a business and you would like to use the resources of the business to speak out about how you see the law, you essentially have to ask prior permission from the state. Under the current regime, the state regulatory agencies and the newspapers basically have a monopoly on information. We’re simply trying to put more free speech in motion.” <cite style="text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">[<a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/04/nation/la-na-montana-court-20120104" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">LOS ANGELES TIMES, 1/4/2012</a>; <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/citizens-united-montana-supreme-court-corporate-spending_n_1182168.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">HUFFINGTON POST, 1/4/2012</a>]</cite> Legal Scholars Anticipate Montana Ruling to be Overturned - Paul Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center calls the Montana high court’s ruling “an antidote to the crabbed view of corruption” displayed in Citizens United. Ryan, like many others, anticipates the US Supreme Court will overturn today’s ruling. <cite style="text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">[<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/04/citizens-united-montana-supreme-court-corporate-spending_n_1182168.html" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">HUFFINGTON POST, 1/4/2012</a>]</cite> One of those others is law professor Richard Hasen, who writes: “[I]f the Court were being honest in Citizens United, it would have said something like: ‘We don’t care whether or not independent spending can or cannot corrupt; the First Amendment trumps this risk of corruption.’ But the Court didn’t say that, because it would have faced even greater criticism than it already has. So it dressed up its value judgment (no corruption ‘implied in law’) as a factual statement. The Montana Supreme Court called SCOTUS [the US Supreme Court] on this. And when SCOTUS reverses, the disingenuousness of this aspect of CU will be on full display for all.” Hasen is referring to the Court’s finding in Citizens United that independent spending in elections does not legally imply corruption. <cite style="text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">[<a href="http://electionlawblog.org/?p=27232" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">RICK HASEN, 1/1/2012</a>]</cite> Appeal to Supreme Court - Attorneys for WTP and the other corporate plaintiffs will appeal to the US Supreme Court on the grounds that Montana is bound by theCitizens United decision and that the decision applies to state as well as federal elections. Attorney James Bopp, in filing the appeal, will say: “If Montana can ban core political speech because of Montana’s unique characteristics, free speech will be seriously harmed. Speakers will be silenced because of corruption by others over a century ago.” The US Supreme Court will quickly issue a stay of that decision. <cite style="text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">[<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/25/us-usa-campaign-court-idUSBRE85O0P520120625" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">REUTERS, 6/25/2012</a>; <a href="http://www.ombwatch.org/node/12113" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">OMB WATCH, 6/25/2012</a>]</cite> When the case reaches the US Supreme Court, the name of the plaintiff will change into “American Tradition Partnership,” and the Court’s documentation will reflect that change. The Court will overrule the Montana decision (see <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/item.jsp?item=a062512usscmontana" style="text-decoration-line: none;">June 25, 2012</a>). After the decision, American Tradition Partnership’s Web site will disappear, but the liberal accountability organization SourceWatch will describe the organization’s parent, the American Tradition Institute, as described in the group’s mission statement: “a public policy research and educational foundation… founded in 2009 to help lead the national discussion about environmental issues, including air and water quality and regulation, responsible land use, natural resource management, energy development, property rights, and free-market principles of stewardship.” ATI and its affiliates are pro-development and against expanded environmental regulation, according to SourceWatch’s documentation, made up of “a broader network of groups with close ties to energy interests that have long fought greenhouse gas regulation.” <cite style="text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.5px;">[<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Tradition_Institute" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none;">SOURCEWATCH, 2012</a>]</cite>Entity Tags: <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=american_tradition_institute_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Tradition Institute</a>, <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=american_tradition_partnership_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">American Tradition Partnership</a>, <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=donald_ferguson_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Donald Ferguson</a>, <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=james_cnelson_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">James C. Nelson</a>, <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=1912_corrupt_practices_actmontana1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">1912 Corrupt Practices Act (Montana)</a>, <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=sourcewatch_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">SourceWatch</a>, <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=supreme_court" style="text-decoration-line: none;">US Supreme Court</a>, <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=paul_sryan_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Paul S. Ryan</a>, <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=montana_supreme_court_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Montana Supreme Court</a>, <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=james_bopp__jr_1" style="text-decoration-line: none;">James Bopp, Jr</a>, <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=richard_l.hasen" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Richard L. Hasen</a>Timeline Tags: <a href="http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=civilliberties" style="text-decoration-line: none;">Civil Liberties</a><div class="listOfEntitysEvents" style="margin-top: 35px;"><div id="timelineEntries" style="margin-top: 40px;">
mcChesney dollarocracy: rfk says CU completes hostile takeover of gov by corps p6 ecowach oct 2012=aspen?Supreme Court Justices <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Antonin_Scalia" title="Antonin Scalia" style="line-height: 19.2px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none;">Antonin Scalia</a> and <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Clarence_Thomas" title="Clarence Thomas" class="mw-redirect" style="line-height: 19.2px; text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none;">Clarence Thomas</a> have attended these events. (According to Salon, "Thomas claimed he just made "a brief drop-by" at the Koch brothers' January 2008 Palm Springs political retreat to give a talk; in fact he was reimbursed for four days of “transportation, meals and accommodations” by theFederalist Society.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_Industries#cite_note-55" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[56]</a>"). The attendance of Thomas and Scalia has sparked debate over judicial ethics and the 2010 <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Citizens_United" title="Citizens United" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none;">Citizens United</a> decision.<a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_Industries#cite_note-56" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[57]</a> Common Cause filed a petition with the Justice Department in January 2011 alleging a conflict of interest for these Justices, as David and Charles Koch operate foundations that contribute to political groups, which might benefit from relaxed campaign finance rules. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_Industries#cite_note-57" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[58]</a> Common Cause has also noted that the Cato Institute, which Charles Koch founded, filed an amicus brief in Citizens United opposing campaign finance. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_Industries#cite_note-58" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[59]</a> The Center for Competitive Politics also filed a brief in the case; the Center is headed by Bradley Smith, who is affiliated with the Institute for Humane Studies where Charles Koch is Chair of the board and funder. <a href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Koch_Industries#cite_note-59" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 0, 128); background-image: none; white-space: nowrap;">[60]</a> SW koch ind=Maine became the <a href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/174147/democrats-and-republican-make-maine-13th-state-say-overturn-citizens-united">13th state in the nation</a> to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Twenty-five House Republicans (in the state House) and five Senate Republicans joined Democrats to “call upon each Member of the Maine Congressional Delegation to actively support and promote in Congress an amendment to the United States Constitution on campaign finance.”Maine joins West Virginia, Colorado, Montana, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, California, Rhode Island, Maryland, Vermont, New Mexico and Hawaii in calling for that Constitutional amendment. Which means momentum:=<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26315908/vp/51837416#51824772">http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26315908/vp/51837416#51824772</a> (ingram question inhofe)email blast that BO wrecking economy and superrich pulling $ from mkt on day Dow? hit record 1500 3 days cf TPM
 =
 180 (on 180 ?) 12/6/11: at heritage <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/huntsman-reverses-stance-n_1132156.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/huntsman-reverses-stance-n_1132156.html</a>Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor and current Republican presidential candidate, earned accolades from environmental advocates earlier this year for denouncing his fellow presidential contenders -- chiefly Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann -- for their regressive views on matters of science, including human-induced global warming."When you make comments that fly in the face of what 98 out of 100 climate scientists have said, when you call into question the science of evolution -- " said Huntsman <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/08/republicans-climate-change_n_954016.html" target="hplink">during an early September debate</a>. "All I'm saying is that in order for the Republican party to win, we can't run from science."Now it appears that Huntsman, a former U.S. ambassador to China who has been trailing badly in the polls, is recalibrating his own thoughts on the science behind global warming.GOP presidential candidate Jon Huntsman <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/06/huntsman-reverses-stance-n_1132156.html" target="hplink">expressed skepticism</a> about the science on climate change, so now all GOP candidates are on the record as doubting either that the planet is clearly warming, or that people are responsible for most of the warming.Of all the GOP candidates, Huntsman had been the most supportive of action on climate change: in 2007, as governor of Utah, he <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/a-gingrich-candidacy-is-so-feared-hes-managed-to-boost-huntsman/2011/12/06/gIQAMoTAaO_blog.html" target="hplink">signed up his state</a> for a cap-and-tradesystem for greenhouse gas emissions.There has been an<a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101344_2101393_2101395,00.html" target="hplink"> increase in climate skepticism</a> in the past year and a growing reluctance to say anything about climate, especially among Republicans. The turning point--argued the National Journal's cover story, "<a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/heads-in-the-sand-20111201" target="hplink">Heads in the Sand</a>"--was the <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0121/Supreme-Court-Campaign-finance-limits-violate-free-speech" target="hplink">2010 Supreme Court decision</a> that lifted restrictions on campaign spending and boosted so-called <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/post/is-stephen-colberts-super-pac-innovative-or-dangerous/2011/09/13/gIQAPrQtxM_blog.html" target="hplink">super political action committees</a> (super PACs) that can take unlimited funds.The <a href="http://www.greatenergychallengeblog.com/blog/2011/12/06/the-strange-state-of-climate-change-denial/" target="hplink">deniers haven't won yet</a>, though, argued Bill Chameides of Duke University. Most Americans accept the basics of climate change, more investment went into green energy than fossil fuels in 2010, and some of the biggest energy companies--such as ExxonMobil--affirm that climate change is real.=
 <a href="http:"> http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Tradition_Institute</a>THIS INCLUDES CORPORATE PERSONHOODin favor: Roberts, kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, Alitoopposed: A dissenting opinion written by Justice Stevens was joined by Justice Ginsburg, Justice Breyer, and Justice Sotomayor. =Last week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a new case — <a wrc-processed="1" rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://movetoamend.nationbuilder.com/r?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmovetoamend.org%2Frecommended-reading%2Fsupreme-court-takes-campaign-finance-case-will-rule-contribution-limits&utm_campaign=mccutcheon_nat&n=5&e=58999a2c0d5c9d12d8d8b8a67a8964da157310ce&utm_source=movetoamend&utm_medium=email">McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission</a>.

The McCutcheon case attempts to undermine the total combined contributions limit for individuals (already set at tens of thousands of dollars), which will open a whole new floodgate of cash into our electoral system reserved only for the wealthy.=kochs claim rosa parks <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/node/11946">http://www.prwatch.org/node/11946</a> gp bbb: coalition for child fut w/ CU helped newt (w/ hit ads?) : demo child molester, bill yellowtail convicted felon and wife beater, pushpoll senate kansas jewess; 29 vulnerable demos targetted, 12 lost, some by less than 200 votes, incl 2 above 90; dir says forced to sign over 700K blank checks; triad; CU also laundred $, called a coincidence when called on it 91; fred thompson started to go after 3; CU foster friess and triad koch; got gig after red october; gop leaders took his subpoena power 93 Trent lott; no witnesses=superpacs?propublica overview and update: <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/flood-of-secret-campaign-cash-its-not-all-citizens-united">http://www.propublica.org/article/flood-of-secret-campaign-cash-its-not-all-citizens-united</a><div class="article">The emergence of <a href="http://projects.propublica.org/dark-money/organizations/citizens-for-strength-and-security-action-fundhttp:/www.propublica.org/documents/item/325832-990-2010-citizens-for-strength-and-security">nonprofits</a> as the leading conduit for anonymous spending in this year's presidential campaign is often attributed to the Supreme Court's 2010 <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/05/21/120521fa_fact_toobin?currentPage=1">Citizens United</a> ruling, which opened the money spigot, allowing corporations and unions to buy ads urging people to vote for or against specific candidates.But <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/how-nonprofits-spend-millions-on-elections-and-call-it-public-welfare">a closer look</a> shows that there are several reasons that tens of millions of dollars of secret money are flooding this year's campaign. Actions — and inaction — by both the Federal Election Commission and the Internal Revenue Service have contributed just as much to the flood of tens of millions of dollars of secret money into the 2012 campaign. Congress did not act on a bill that would have required disclosure after Citizens United and other court rulings opened the door to secret political spending.</div><div class="sidebar-inject"><div class="callout-ad ad" id="google-callout"><div class="article">To understand how all this happened, it's worth returning to <a href="http://www2.bloomberglaw.com/public/document/Citizens_United_v_Federal_Election_Commission_130_S_Ct_876_175_L_http:/supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/558/08-205/">Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion</a> in Citizens United, and the political system the court envisioned. In the decision's key finding, Kennedy and four other justices said the First Amendment entitled corporations and unions to the same unlimited rights of political speech and spending as any citizen.But in a less-noticed portion of the ruling, Kennedy and seven of his colleagues upheld disclosure rules and emphasized the role of transparency. Undue corporate or union influence on elections, he wrote, could be addressed by informed voters and shareholders who would instantly access campaign finance facts from their laptops or smart phones."With the advent of the Internet," Kennedy wrote, "prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters."If a company wasted money on politics, the justices agreed, its shareholders could use the publicly available information to "determine whether their corporation's political speech advances the corporation's interest in making profits." Separately, the sunshine of public disclosure will let "citizens see whether elected officials are 'in the pocket' of so-called moneyed interests.""The First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way," Kennedy concluded. "This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages."A very different system has taken shape. As our reporting this week showed, money for political ads is pouring into non-profits ostensibly dedicated to promoting social welfare. These groups are paying for many of the negative ads clogging the airwaves, but are not disclosing their donors.As a result, it's entirely unclear whether these ads are being paid for by unions and corporations empowered by Citizens United or by wealthy individuals.Separately, corporations have resisted <a href="http://www.politicalaccountability.net/index.php?ht=d/sp/i/866/pid/866">calls</a> to list their donations to political social welfare nonprofits or other political spending. So far, the Securities and Exchange Commission has not responded to <a href="https://blogs.law.harvard.edu/corpgov/2012/05/22/rulemaking-petition-on-disclosure-of-corporate-political-spending-attracts-massive-support-from-over-250000-comments-filed-with-the-sec/">a rulemaking petition</a> asking for it to develop rules to require public companies to disclose that spending.The Supreme Court's opening of the door to hefty flows of secret money began years before Citizens United. In a <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/www.democracy21.org/vertical/sites/%7B3D66FAFE-2697-446F-BB39-85FBBBA57812%7D/uploads/%7BB3012C0F-E6E0-4335-A05C-748661551837%7D.PDF">2007 case (PDF)</a> involving a nonprofit called <a href="https://www.wrtl.org/donate/legacy.aspx">Wisconsin Right to Life</a>, the justices ruled that unions and corporations could buy ads that mentioned a candidate in the weeks before an election as long as the commercials stopped short of directly advocating the candidate's election or defeat. Even if these ads, known as "electioneering communications," clearly attacked the positions of one candidate, they were permissible unless they were "susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate."The flood began and the identities of hardly any of the donors were disclosed. The reason? A decision by the FEC, the oversight panel with three Republicans and three Democrats who frequently deadlock.After Wisconsin Right to Life, the FEC told social welfare nonprofits that they had to disclose only if the donors specifically earmarked the money for political ads. "It proved to be the exception that swallowed the rule," said Paul S. Ryan, general counsel of the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit, non-partisan group that tracks campaign finance. The day the FEC adopted this rule, Ryan wrote on his blog that it would allow massive amounts of secret money into politics. He proved correct.In 2006, ads bought by groups that didn't disclose their donors amounted to less than 2 percent of outside spending, excluding party committees, research by the <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/disclosure.php">Center for Responsive Politics</a> shows. By 2008, that number hit 25 percent; by 2010, more than 40 percent.All of this raises an intriguing question: Was Kennedy aware when he drafted the January 2010 Citizens United opinion that nonprofits were being widely used to avoid public disclosure of political spending?At the least, critics say, Kennedy was poorly informed."Justice Kennedy was living in a fantasy land," said Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor at Stetson University College of Law who tracks campaign finance issues. "I wish the world he envisaged exists. It doesn't."Instead, this is the disclosure world that exists: Someone who gives up to $2,500 to the campaign of President Barack Obama or challenger Mitt Romney will have his or her name, address and profession listed on the FEC website for all to see. But that same person can give $1 million or more to a social welfare group that buys ads supporting or attacking those same candidates and stay anonymous.This year, a federal judge struck down the FEC rule stemming from Wisconsin Right to Life. The FEC announced in July that major donors to electioneering communications — ads that focus on issues without directly advocating for candidates — would have to be named.Already, groups are looking for work-arounds. They're running different kinds of ads. Some will name other social welfare nonprofits as their donors.The loose oversight by the FEC helped bring so much anonymous money into campaign finance. But no one expects the commission to take a more assertive role anytime soon. Dan Backer, a lawyer who represents several conservative nonprofits, likened the deadlocked agency to a "cute bunny” while referring to the IRS as a "500-pound gorilla.”The IRS or Congress are more plausible avenues for change, experts say. Ryan said he was hopeful that Congress and the IRS might some day limit ads from groups that don't disclose their donors. The 2012 campaign, though, appears to be a lost cause. "I think this election will be mired and perhaps overwhelmed by secret money," Ryan said.</div>reports and actions don't match? <a href="http://www.propublica.org/article/how-nonprofits-spend-millions-on-elections-and-call-it-public-welfare">http://www.propublica.org/article/how-nonprofits-spend-millions-on-elections-and-call-it-public-welfare</a> CU <a href="http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/states-struggle-to-find-way-in-a-post-citizens-united-world">http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/states-struggle-to-find-way-in-a-post-citizens-united-world</a> <div class="region-content_header"><div class="block-power_blocks-title block block-power_blocks block-region-even block-region-count-2 block-floating-none"><div class="content clear-block"><h1>States Struggle to Find Way in a Post-Citizens United World</h1></div></div></div><div class="buildmode-full"><div class="node-923810249 node node-type-blogpost node-build_mode-full"><div class="nd-region-middle-wrapper nd-one-sidebar nd-sidebar-right"><div class="nd-region-middle"><div class="field field-little-date field-little-date">July 31, 2012</div><div class="field field-body" style="font-weight: bold;">by Clark TaylorIn Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court paved the way for unprecedented amounts of outside campaign spending by powerful interests. As a result, billionaires like Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers have pledged to spend up to <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/78005.html">$400 million</a> in an all-out effort to ensure that the voices of the richest few are heard the loudest.The numbers support the trend. Richard L. Hasen, an election law expert at University of California, Irvine, says <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/03/the_supreme_court_s_citizens_united_decision_has_led_to_an_explosion_of_campaign_spending.html">outside campaign spending</a> through March 8 amounts to more than $88 million for federal elections. This represents a significant contrast to the $37.5 million in 2004 and $14.2 million in 2000. The growth is even starker in mid-term years as the same spending jumped from $1.8 million in 2006 to $15.8 million in 2010.Perhaps most disconcerting, this regime has led to a situation in which the superrich can spend more and more on elections without any disclosure. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), in testimony before a Senate committee, claimed that there were at least <a href="http://politicalnews.me/?id=15939&keys=COURT-CORPORATIONS-INDIVIDUALS-ELECTIONS">23 families worth over $1 billion who have given more than $250,000</a> in campaign contributions this cycle. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/big-campaign-spending-government-by-the-1/259599/">Just 196 Americans</a> have given more than 80 percent of the total money donated to super PACs.Groups and individuals have proposed efforts to help blunt the or counter powerful interests seeking to sway elections. Professor Lawrence Lessig has advocated for a series of <a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202564277666&et=editorial&bu=National%20Law%20Journal&cn=20120725nlj&src=EMC-Email&pt=NLJ.com-%20Daily%20Headlines&kw=%27Citizen%20conventions%27%20should%20respond%20to%20Citizens%20United%20%2C%20Harvard%252">citizen conventions</a> to craft a constitutional amendment. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has called for a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/citizens-united-constitutional-amendment-senate-democrats_n_1700269.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular">constitutional amendment</a>. The group <a href="http://freespeechforpeople.org/">Free Speech for People</a>also proposes a constitutional amendment. Jeff Clements, co-founder and president of the group, stated in written testimony to the Senate, that <a href="http://freespeechforpeople.org/node/428">a constitutional amendment was needed</a> to restore congressional power over campaign finance regulation. Perhaps the closest Congress has come to reform was the DISCLOSE ACT, which would have required that independent groups disclose those donors who give more than $10,000. Though the bill received support from a majority of the Senate, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/17/politics/senate-disclose-act/index.html">Republicans blocked the measure using a procedural move</a>.But states also face growing challenges to ensure their elections are not bought by the superrich. The National Institute on Money in State Politics says that approximately <a href="http://www.followthemoney.org/database/nationalview.phtml">$623M has been raised</a> by candidates and committees for state offices so far this cycle. That number is in comparison <a href="http://current.com/shows/the-war-room/blog/the-battle-of-the-bucks-in-the-2012-election">to $2.9 billion which has been raised by federal campaigns, parties, and super PACs</a> through March.In spite of <a href="http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/the-populist-bipartisan-history-of-the-now-invalidated-montana-anti-corruption-law">the Supreme Court’s decision to summarily reverse a century old Montana law</a> put in place to protect the citizens of Montana from outright corruption at the hands of mining magnates, some states are forging ahead to fight for workable solutions.  So far, <a href="http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/06/27/9230/contribution-limits-risk-states-thanks-supreme-court">19 states have passed laws requiring more disclosure</a> since Citizens United. Other states have eliminated limits, while others have no limits, and others still have limits in place only for corporations and unions. Other states are finding it more difficult to forge a path forward.  In Connecticut, Governor Malloy (D) <a href="http://www.theday.com/article/20120616/NWS12/306169937/-1/nws">vetoed a bill</a> that would have required disclosure of campaign contributions. Though Malloy claimed to be for transparency, in his veto message he argued that the bill likely violated the Constitution in light of Citizens United. The <a href="http://www5.cbia.com/newsroom/article/business-community-applauds-veto-of-campaign-finance-bill/">business community</a> applauded the veto. Perhaps the most glaring example of a state struggling to find a path forward is Illinois. Earlier this month Governor Quinn (D) <a href="http://www.pjstar.com/free/x1271219827/Quinn-signs-law-ditching-caps-he-championed">signed a law</a> that eliminated campaign contribution limits. The law repealed another measure which had capped campaign contributions. While Quinn’s spokeswoman said the new law provided a ‘<a href="http://www.mcdonoughvoice.com/news/x634674603/Quinn-signs-law-ditching-caps-he-championed">short-term fix,’</a> Brian Gladstein, executive director of the <a href="http://www.ilcampaign.org/">Illinois Campaign for Political Reform</a>, knocked it as a way for the powerful to buy political favors.</div></div></div></div></div>
slate: <div class="sl-art-head"><h2 class="sl-art-head-hed">The Numbers Don’t Lie</h2><h1 class="sl-art-head-dek">If you aren’t sure Citizens United gave rise to the super PACs, just follow the money.</h1>By <a rel="author" href="http://www.slate.com/authors.richard_l_hasen.html">Richard L. Hasen</a>|Posted Friday, March 9, 2012, at 2:56 PM ET</div> <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/03/the_supreme_court_s_citizens_united_decision_has_led_to_an_explosion_of_campaign_spending.html" style="font-weight: normal;">http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/03/the_supreme_court_s_citizens_united_decision_has_led_to_an_explosion_of_campaign_spending.html</a>=durbin fed bill?update: <ul style="font-weight: bold;"><li>Seven states — California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts New Mexico, Rhode Island and Vermont — have so far called for an amendment. Thousands and thousands of Public Citizen activists helped make these campaigns successful.</li></ul><ul style="font-weight: bold;"><li>Public Citizen and allied organizations are advancing amendment resolutions or ballot initiatives in many other states, including Colorado, Montana and New Jersey.</li></ul><ul style="font-weight: bold;"><li>96 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and 29 members of the U.S. Senate have formally endorsed an amendment — many after hearing from Public Citizen’s supporters and policy experts. We recently stepped up our campaign to build even more amendment momentum in Congress.</li></ul><ul style="font-weight: bold;"><li>Public Citizen and our organizational partners have helped advance resolutions in over 400 cities and towns throughout the country, with many more on the horizon.</li></ul> =Move to Amend Coalition
<a rel="nofollow" target="blank" href="http://www.movetoamend.org/">http://www.MoveToAm end.org</a>

From: Bill Haff <<a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:bill.haff%40gmail.com" target="blank" href="http://us.mc314.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=bill.haff%40gmail.com">bill.haff@gmail. com</a>Don't forget this Supreme Court decision from 1996. Monsanto may cite this as a precedent if the initiative passes. Monsanto may argue they are being forced to disclose a "trivial fact" and claim free speech rights which include the right "not to speak." This is picked up from the WILPF timeline:

International Dairy Foods Association v. Amestoy [1996]
Supreme Court overturns a Vermont law requiring the labeling of all products containing bovine growth hormone. The right not to speak inheres in political and commercial speech alike and extends to statements of fact as well as statements of opinion....From: <a rel="nofollow" ymailto="mailto:bodhirobin%40pacific.net" target="blank" href="http://us.mc314.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=bodhirobin%40pacific.net">bodhirobin@pacific. net</a>
SCOTUS overturned corporate right to privacy in March 2011 based on the
term "personal privacy." The court concluded that the word "person" is
defined in the law, and includes corporations and trade unions.

But the word "personal" is not defined in the law, and has a very
human-like sense about it and can't be applied to a corporation. To see
the exact language of the decision:
<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/corporations-dont-have-privacy-rights/">http://www.outsidet hebeltway. com/corporations -dont-have- privacy-rights/</a>

Therefore, Corporations may currently have 1st Amendment Free Speech
rights, 4th Amendment Unreasonable Search & Seizure rights, 5th Amendment
private property rights, and they got this all with their 1886 14th
Amendment rights to Due Process of Law awarded during the Railroad Baron
days in SCOTUS case: Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad v. Beckwith (1889).
[They didn't waste much time, did they?]

But they don't have "personal privacy" rights.

In Peace,
Robin Sunbeam
Ukiah---SEE     <a href="http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/12/david-swanson-history-of-corporate-personhood-how-lewis-powell-us-chamber-of-commerce-bought-the-us-supreme-court/" style="font-weight: normal;">http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/12/david-swanson-history-of-corporate-personhood-how-lewis-powell-us-chamber-of-commerce-bought-the-us-supreme-court/</a>By Jeffrey Clements, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, AlterNet <a href="http://www.phibetaiota.net/2011/12/david-swanson-history-of-corporate-personhood-how-lewis-powell-us-chamber-of-commerce-bought-the-us-supreme-court/" style="font-weight: normal;">http://www.amazon.com/Corporations-Are-Not-People-Rights/dp/1609941055</a> The following is an excerpt of Jeffrey Clement’s Corporations Are Not People: Why They Have More Rights Than You Do and What You Can Do About It.The ConsequencesThe success of the Powell–Chamber of Commerce plan transformed American law, government, and society, with two devastating consequences for the country. First, corporations gained new political power at the expense of average citizens and voters. Corporations poured out money to lobbying and election campaigns and to help friendly politicians and hurt unfriendly politicians. With even modest reform crushed by corporate rights decisions such as Bellotti v. First National Bank of Boston — and now much more so, Citizens United — corporations could threaten “independent expenditure” campaigns against politicians who did not bend their way. Corporate money to influence legislative votes and politician behavior lost its scandalous, shameful nature. Bags of corporate cash were no longer bags of cash; they were “speech.” How could “speech” be corrupt or scandalous?Washington and many state capitals became playgrounds for corporate lobbyists, and our elected representatives became increasingly disconnected from the will of the people. With the new, organized corporate radicalism, staggering amounts of corporate money flooded Washington and our political system. Between 1998 and 2010, for example, the Chamber of Commerce spent $739 million on lobbying. Pharmaceutical and health care corporations spent more than $2 billion on lobbying in the past twelve years. Three corporations seeking military contracts, Northrop Grumman Corporation, Lockheed, and Boeing, spent more than $400 million on lobbying. GE Corporation ($237 million), AT&T ($162 million), the pharmaceutical corporate lobby PHRMA ($195 million), ExxonMobil ($151 million), Verizon ($149 million), and many more corporations all joined the lobby- fest.25 Financial, labor, energy, environmental, health, trade, and other legislation and policy tilted in favor of corporate interests; the hurdles for advancing the public interest became much higher.After Santa Clara
For several years the Court went along with the state regulation of
corporations, as if Santa Clara had never happened. The pendulum finally swung in
the late 1890s, with new judges on the bench and a growing fear that Populist and
Progressive reforms against the power of money had become a dangerous assault on
capital. The Court reacted with a flurry of decisions typified by Gulf, Colorado and
Santa Fe Railway Company v. Ellis (1897). There the Court called corporate
personhood “well settled,” and cited Santa Clara. It went on to claim Fourteenth
Amendment protections in ruling that a state had violated the equal protection
clause with a law that would have made railroads pay attorneys’ fees in certain cases.
It could hardly be more ironic that one year before, in Plessy v. Ferguson, the same
Court gutted the equal protection clause as applied to racial minorities (Gans & Kendall, 2010).
The case that gave its name to this era of anti-progressive decisions was
Lochner v. New York (1905). In a 5-4 decision the Court struck down a state law
that limited the number of hours a baker could work (10 hours/day, 60/week). This
and similar decisions came with dissenting minority opinions based on well settled law
that affirmed the government’s power to regulate corporations in the public
interest. The majority opinions were widely seen as distortions of first principles.
How could our vast store of constitutional imperatives, established by decades of
case law, suddenly compel us to defend corporate property at the expense of
individual life and liberty?
Just as the Lochner era seemed at or near its end, Warren Harding became
president in 1920. He soon reminded the nation of the close link between politics
18
and law when he installed four new Justices and a solid conservative majority.
Overnight the new Court revived Lochner-like protection of corporate liberty at the
expense of the public good. Again there were strong dissents, but the minority
views of such Justices as Holmes and Brandeis would not rise to majority until the
dawn of a new political era, the New Deal. President Roosevelt, stymied by a hostile
judiciary, failed in his threat to enlarge the Court in 1937. However, the same year
produced a “spontaneous” shift favorable to New Deal policies when Justice Owen
Roberts suddenly joined the four New Deal dissenters (Hughes, Brandeis, Cardozo
and Stone). This time the Lochner vampire slept for several decades. It was an age
of first principles and government regulation to prevent corporate abuse of state-granted
privileges.
It too came to an end. The 1970s brought in a flock of federal regulations
about clean air and water, pollution, occupational safety, and other matters
beneficial to the public. Upset about compliance costs and frightened by the likes of
reformer Ralph Nader, corporations sought the advice of Lewis Powell through the
auspices of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Powell, a corporate lawyer and soon-to-
be Supreme Court Justice, advised them to seek recourse in the law. “American
business and the enterprise system have been affected as much by courts as by the
executive and legislative branches of government. Under our constitutional system,
especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most
important instrument for social, economic and political change.” (Nace, 2003, p.
156.)
With Powell on the bench, after confirmation hearings in which he portrayed
himself as a moderate, the Court turned right in First National Bank of Boston v.
Bellotti (1978). Writing for the majority, Powell opined that a bank had a
Fourteenth Amendment right to use its treasury funds to oppose a state
referendum for a state income tax. To limit the political speech of a corporation
would be to violate the First Amendment, because the latter was meant to protect
political speech, whether the speaker was a natural person or a corporation. The
important thing was to protect the listener’s right to hear a vigorous debate. As far
as corporations were concerned, that was what the First Amendment was about.
Powell did not explain why it was not sufficient to protect the free speech of
corporate officers as ordinary individuals. He did not explain why my listener’s right
to receive information should give a corporate director the right to take from
shareholders the money needed to send me that information.
The dissenters were strong and clear, but only dissenters. Powell and his four
colleagues ignored nearly 200 years of constitutional limits on corporate participation
in elections because they chose to do so. However, they did not go all the way:
They withheld their blessing from corporate interference in the election of
candidates for political office. Referenda were fair game, but candidates taboo.
The Court went back and forth on this issue for several years, until another
election installed another conservative president, who turned the Court hard right
with two new appointments. The president was George W. Bush; the
appointments, John Roberts and Samuel Alito. This new Court headed off toward
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its own Lochner era (Constitutional
19
Accountability Center, 2010). It crossed the line in 2010 with its Citizens United
decision.
The new era started in the 2008 primary season with a video-on-demand
movie against Hillary Clinton. Citizens United was the corporation that planned to
release the film. The impediment was the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA),
which kept corporations from spending treasury funds on corporate electioneering
ads for broadcast shortly before any federal election. In court, Citizens United asked
that its anti-Hillary film be exempted as a feature-length movie seen only by those
willing to pay. The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Court could have ruled narrowly, as it usually prefers to do, by ruling the
film an exception to the BCRA. However, the majority saw a chance to outdo
Powell with a constitutional right to transmute corporate gold into political power.
Dissenter Justice Stevens thought the majority had changed the facts of the
case itself so as to make new law. Nevertheless, the majority, including Chief Justice
John Roberts, who had seemed so respectful of precedent during his confirmation
hearings, went ahead and made new law. They simply denied any radical departure
from constitutional case law, and ruled that corporations are associations of citizens
entitled to full constitutional protection. Accordingly, campaign laws that target
corporations for special treatment violate the First Amendment. Critics saw the
ruling as an open door to foreign corporations willing to buy influence in American
elections.
For the majority, Justice Kennedy offered four justifications. Gans and Kendall
(2010) list and counter each one, as follows:
First: The First Amendment covers freedom of speech, and is not restricted
to people or citizens. Counter: As far back as John Marshall and the Dartmouth
contracts decision, the Court has distinguished people from corporations and
permitted special rules for corporate charters. Political speech is uniquely human,
and the identity of the speaker has always been relevant: In World War 2 a
broadcast to U.S. troops by Tokyo Rose would not have had the same treatment as
one by President Roosevelt.
Second: As corporations are associations of citizens, and citizens can spend
money on elections, so can corporations. Counter: They are not mere associations
of citizens. Government gives them special privileges, such as limited liability and
perpetual life, for special advantage in the amassing of wealth. A handful of officers
command the corporate ship; the others are investors along for the cruise and a
share of the profits.
Third: Unlimited corporate expenditures are a necessary means of protecting
the rights of the listeners, the voters. Counter: Corporation officers, as individuals,
already have the same freedom to spend as anyone else. In addition, corporations
already pump millions of dollars into our elections through corporate PACs (Political
Action Committees). As for voters, they have repeatedly expressed their fear that
corporate spending will overpower the voice of the people.
Fourth: Because media corporations have First Amendment protections, so
must all corporations. Counter: The First Amendment specifies “the press” for its
unique role. For good reason, the press is the only private business with explicit
20
constitutional protection: It has a fiduciary responsibility to the public.
The ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) appears to
be weak in logic and bereft of constitutional tradition. It is Ninth Circuit law, vintage
Justice Field. As such, it is nothing new. Perhaps we are fortunate to have seen no
more than we have of political decisions, dressed up as law, adopted by some Court
majority simply because it is a Court majority. But we have seen it before and may
well see it again from the Roberts Court: As we still ban corporations from direct
campaign contributions, much good law remains to be undone.
Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Today
And there it sits. It permeates the literature,... <a href="http://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/ClimateOfCorpPersonhood.pdf" style="font-weight: normal;">http://movetoamend.org/sites/default/files/ClimateOfCorpPersonhood.pdf</a> <a href="http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/buying_justice_the_impact_of_citizens_united_on_judicial_elections/" style="font-weight: normal;">http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/buying_justice_the_impact_of_citizens_united_on_judicial_elections/</a> ===slate:<div class="text parbase section"><div class="text">You will doubtless hear today that 89-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens read aloud from his partial dissent in <a data-linktype="External" href="http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf">Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission</a> for almost 20 minutes in a slow, halting voice, periodically getting tangled up in thickets of words like "corporation" and "corruption." Meanwhile, a loud banging noise from the bench all but drowned him out. That's true. But Justice Anthony Kennedy fared no better reading from his majority opinion beforehand, tearing through the first part of his summary, then losing his place and stumbling through the holding. If Citizens United really represents the moment at which the Roberts court allows itself to finally give voice to its full-throated judicial activism, it's not clear Anthony Kennedy managed much more than a vocal mumble. He looked like he'd have preferred to have been reading his dissent from a soapbox. Or maybe from a crouch underneath the bench. Stevens haltingly worked his way through all five of his objections to the majority's holding today. Kennedy barely gulped out the holding itself.</div></div><div class="text parbase section" style="font-weight: bold;"><div class="text">In part, <a data-linktype="Internal" href="http://www.slate.com/id/2242209/">as Rick Hasen suggests</a> that's because Kennedy's soaring sonnet for corporate free speech has very little to do with the case at hand. The court had to reach out far beyond any place it needed to go to strike down century-old restrictions on corporate spending in federal elections. This started off as a case <a data-linktype="Internal" href="http://www.slate.com/id/2214514/">about a single movie</a>. It morphed into John Roberts' Golden Globe night.</div></div></div></div></div></div>