Who's buying our candidates for the Senate?
Published October 30, 2014
Editorial by Burlington Times-News, October 29, 2014.
By the time the votes are counted, North Carolina’s Senate race will have cost at least $100 million. Regardless of one’s political preference, that figure is nothing less than obscene.
Worse, much if not most of that money is coming from out of state. Political parties, PACs and dark-money interests that don’t disclose their donors have controlled the tone and dialogue of a race that is of extreme importance to North Carolina voters. What do these outside groups want?
Power. Influence. A friend in the Senate who will lend a sympathetic ear to the groups’ pet causes.
And what do North Carolina voters want?
A senator who puts their needs first and who doesn’t have the appearance of a politician bought and paid for by the highest bidder.
These political organizations and so-called “independent” groups will account for almost three-quarters of political spending on the race between incumbent Democrat Kay Hagan and Republican Thom Tillis. There is a third candidate, Libertarian Sean Haugh, who holds the distinction of not attracting gobs of money from out-of-state interests. Bravo for him.
As of Sept. 20, the Hagan campaign had raised $21.6 million and spent $19.6 million. Tillis’ campaign had received $8.2 million and spent $6 million.
Compare that to what outside groups are spending on their behalf: $42.8 million for Tillis, $35 million for Hagan. And many of these groups are classified as tax-exempt. More than half of the outside spending for Tillis comes from those dark-money “nonprofits,” while more of the pro-Hagan spending has come from political action committees and partisan groups.
Either way, compared to such largesse, a modest individual contribution of $25 or $100 seems puny, doesn’t it?
Expensive campaigns seem to be a North Carolina speciality. In 1984, then-Sen. Jesse Helms and then-Gov. Jim Hunt waged a hammer and tong campaign suitable for a professional wrestling cage match that was, at that time, the most expensive election in the nation’s history.
Campaigns have only gotten more and more expensive over the years, but the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision threw open the floodgates. The justices ruled that corporations, unions and independent groups can spend as much as they like in support of or opposition to a particular candidate. And they have.
Judging from the unending string of political ads on the air, the outside groups favor the negative approach.
What’s at stake, of course, is control of the Senate, which currently has a Democratic majority. As one of the battleground states, North Carolina is a major target of groups with a vested interest in which party controls the Senate. Candidates by law cannot have a say in the presence or content of political advertising by outside interests, but neither major-party candidate has verbally rejected the lavish spending on their behalf. That implies they are happy to have the help — and that they know a candidate with the courage to publicly rebuke the big spenders has lost the race before it begins.
How thoroughly depressing.
http://www.thetimesnews.com/opinion/our-opinion/who-s-buying-our-candidates-for-senate-1.393536
October 30, 2014 at 11:53 am
Richard Bunce says:
So the Times-News Company... owned by the Halifax Media Group, a for profit corporation... certainly believes that the First Amendment press protections cover persons performing press functions within a for profit corporate structure using corporate resources... yet these same people do not agree with the USSC Citizen United decision which ruled that persons do not lose their First Amendment speech protections when speaking within a corporate structure using corporate resources... interesting.
As for the inevitability of campaign money and election results... I suppose Representative Cantor thought the same as the Times-News editorial staff. Money is irrelevant, TV ads are irrelevant, the voters voting next week is the only thing that will determine the next US Senate election in NC.
October 30, 2014 at 2:23 pm
Johnny Hiott says:
The majority of this corruption or buying of senators could be easily eliminated. Repeal the seventeenth amendment, put it back the way it was originally until the woodrow wilson regime destroyed this nation. State legislatures should appoint senators and hold them to the states interest. This too would eliminate lobbyist and most likely insure a change from ones continuously serving for multiple terms.
October 31, 2014 at 10:33 am
Richard Bunce says:
I agree with that... restore the States representation in DC as implied in the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution... "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Then repeal the 16th amendment and have Congress prepare the Federal Budget each year with the House representing the people and the Senate representing the States and all Federal revenue required will be apportioned to the States to collect as each States sees fit.
