Dark Money’s Deepening Power

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Dark Money’s Deepening Power
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDJUNE 29, 2015


President Obama is reported to be considering an important brake on the torrent of “dark money” already flooding the 2016 presidential campaign — an executive order requiring federal contractors to disclose their donations to political candidates. Mr. Obama should immediately sign such an order. In doing so he would expose some of the bigger players in today’s big money politics, while offering a healthy counterpoint to Republican efforts to squelch disclosure.

In votes earlier this month, the House Appropriations Committee’s Republican majority quietly inserted an amendment in a spending bill that would block the Securities and Exchange Commission from crafting a rule requiring public companies to open up to their stockholders and voters about their political spending.

Another amendment would stop the Internal Revenue Service from issuing an overdue rule reining in “social welfare” organizations that do not have to disclose donors under current I.R.S. rules and are increasingly misused as big-money conduits for partisan political activity. A third would protect government contractors from disclosing who they’re showering with money.

When it blessed unlimited corporate, union and special interest spending in its fatally misguided Citizens United decision five years ago, the Supreme Court expressed hope that public disclosure would deter corruption. Sunlight, said Justice Anthony Kennedy, would let citizens “see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests.”

Republicans are working to deny even this protection, as dark money contributions boom, much if it from deep-pocketed donors whose anonymity is protected by the social welfare shells. Dark money in Senate elections, which figured heavily in the Republican majority victory, more than doubled between 2010 and 2014 to $226 million, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. The winners in the 11 most competitive Senate races netted more than $131 million in dark money.

The president has no time to waste if he is to block Congress and shed some light on next year’s elections. He should make clear, too, that he will not accept any of the House’s anti-disclosure assaults if they are included in the bargaining over final spending legislation later this year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/29/opinion/dark-moneys-deepening-power.html?_r=0

 

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Susan B. Anthony List calls Ohio’s rejection of Issue 1 a ‘warning’

The Susan B. Anthony List (SBA), an anti-abortion rights group, railed against Ohio’s rejection of a constitutional amendment at the center of the abortion rights battle in the state. Ohio voters T…

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Susan B. Anthony List calls Ohio’s rejection of Issue 1 a ‘warning’​

BY MIRANDA NAZZARO - 08/08/23 10:55 PM ET



The Susan B. Anthony List (SBA), an anti-abortion rights group, railed against Ohio’s rejection of a constitutional amendment at the center of the abortion rights battle in the state.

Ohio voters Tuesday rejected a ballot measure, known as Issue 1, that would have raised the threshold for changing the state’s constitution from a simple majority to a 60 percent supermajority. Abortion advocates were against the proposal, arguing it would’ve made it more difficult to pass a separate ballot measure in November that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution.

“It is a sad day for Ohio and a warning for pro-life states across the nation,” a statement from SBA read Tuesday night. “Millions of dollars and liberal dark money flooded Ohio to ensure they have a path to buy their extreme policies in a pro-life state. Tragically, some sat on the sideline while outsider liberal groups poured millions into Ohio.”

The statement claims progressives funneled millions from outside groups to “mislead the people of Ohio.”

Campaign finance data shows the push against Issue 1, called One person One Vote, raised nearly 85 percent of its $14.8 million in contributions from outside Ohio. Several of the largest donations came from so-called dark money groups who are not legally obligated to disclose their donors, including progressive Sixteen Thirty Fund, based in Washington, D.C., and the Tides Foundation, a social justice group based in California.

Protect Our Constitution, the committee in support of Issue 1, also received contributions from outside of Ohio. Billionaire Illinois business owner Richard Uihlein contributed $4 million of the committee’s nearly $4.9 million.

Travis Ridout, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, previously told The Associated Press it is increasingly common to see out-of-state money in state-level races, especially in polarizing issues like abortion.

The SBA said in its statement that a coalition of pro-life Ohio residents attempted to “fight parent rights opponents,” but “the silence of the establishment and business community in Ohio left a vacuum too large to overcome.” The organization argued that “attacks” on state constitutions are the “national playbook of the extreme pro-abortion Left.”

“So long as the Republicans and their supporters take the ostrich strategy and bury their heads in the sand, they will lose again and again,” the statement continued.




In November, Ohio voters will decide on the ballot measure that would establish a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” with “reasonable limits.” Akin to the standard once set under Roe v. Wade, the amendment would allow abortion up to the point when a fetus can survive outside of the womb, usually around 24 weeks into a pregnancy.

The proposed amendment states that “every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to decisions on contraception, fertility treatment, continuing one’s pregnancy, miscarriage care and abortion.”

The Associated Press contributed. This story was updated on Aug. 9 at 12:45 p.m.