Republicans have been cheering loudly for the unleashing of
corporate and billionaire spending that have been flooding the campaign coffers
of Republicans all over the United States. It has mostly been a huge plus for a
political party that has little else going for them. However, the ruling might
not be so great for Republicans in the long run and might even backfire on them
by November or over the coming years.
The public hates the Citizens United ruling and wants
corporate money completely out of our elections. Public opinion polling margins
against corporations and billionaires having the ability to buy elections with
essentially unlimited spending is massive among both independents and
Democrats. Even most Republicans are against it. And these are not "soft"
opinions. The passion is in favor of strict campaign donation limits and zero
corporate spending on politics.
If Democrats run campaigns that make the
case in enough races that the Republican Party has been "corrupted and sold to corporations and
billionaires," it is likely that the
Democrats will capture huge majorities of the key independent vote in November.
They are likely to make huge gains in the Senate, the House and in state races
using this tactic as part of a "fairness
in government" theme.
Having Romney as the Republican nominee will certainly make a "fairness" theme
resonate with the public. Obama can point out that he has released all his tax
returns for every year as far back as 2000 while Romney has released only one
year so far. The "what is Romney hiding"
issue is already burning up the Internet. It is starting to generate articles
in the mainstream media. By the November elections, this issue will be huge
even if it is not played up by the Obama campaign. The American people are sick
of excessive secrecy and corruption in government.
If Romney releases his tax returns, then the ways in which he made his massive
fortune will be exposed. There will be issues about possible tax evasion or
avoidance combined with the ever present "fairness" issue to overcome. This
brings us back to the corporate spending unleashed by Citizens United.
The biggest campaign question for 2012 will be "what
do corporations and billionaires expect to get in return for all this money
they are spending to elect Republicans?" The public can take a look at
the actions of Romney in his private sector career and combine it with things
from his public office career like the hard drives that his staff took away
when he left as Governor of Massachusetts. They will look at his strange bias
toward secrecy in both his private business and public office careers. This is
going to be a huge "trust problem" for
Romney and Republicans to overcome.
Voters will take a look at Republican Governors
and state legislators and find massive "trust problems" everywhere. In
Florida, Governor Rick Scott has shown terrible judgment in terms of ethics and
conflicts of interest especially in regards to the healthcare industry where he
made his own massive fortune. Governor Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania along with
the Republican state legislature has some serious problems in trying to justify
to voters their sweetheart deals with the oil and gas industries. These include
a provision in a recent law that doctors may have access to information about
the health impacts of natural gas "fracking" but legally prevent the doctors
from informing their patients about any dangers the discover. In Pennsylvania,
thanks to Republicans, the oil and gas industries will reap billions of dollars
in profits that should have paid for schools, roads, senior services,
healthcare and more. Because of this kind of essentially corrupt legislation,
the corporate campaign cash keeping flowing to Republicans in both states" and
pretty much all the other states.
Of course, Republican officeholders are aware of the
potential voter backlash. This is why they are making voting and voter
registration as difficult as possible for poor and working class Americans in
as many states as possible. Pennsylvania and Florida are good examples but
Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and dozens of others have
or are facing strong Republican efforts to reduce the number of voters who
would most strongly object to corporate control of government and the
corrupting influence of big, big money in government. The Republican voter suppression efforts are energizing the opposition
just like the massive spending by corporation and billionaires to elect Republicans.
The Supreme Court's Citizens United
ruling and the resulting are producing some serious backlash that is likely to
do long term damage to both corporate and Republican political power. These
include four major reform efforts:
(1) a state based effort to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban corporate
political spending and make campaign finance laws explicitly Constitutional
that has already seen success in New Mexico, Vermont, Rhode Island, Maryland,
California and Hawaii legislatures,
(2) a growing movement to strip corporations of their "corporate personhood"
status under the law or at least restrict all the political citizenship rights
that the Roberts Supreme Court Five Justices claims go with it,
(3) a strong shareholder movement that would require explicit shareholder
direct approval of any political spending which would take the decision to
spend shareholder money out of the hands of corporate executives or other
corporate employees
(4) and finally a movement to Impeach
the Roberts Supreme Court Five (see Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/stephen.s.crockett?ref=tn_tnmn#!/groups/459884114022586/ ) of Justices Alito, Thomas, Scalia, Kennedy
and Chief Justice Roberts for bad behavior, lying to Congress during
confirmation hearings and/or ethical lapses.
If all these efforts fail and the voters do not rise up against Republican
officeholders over the next few election cycles, the Republicans are still
facing a corporate and billionaire political spending trap. The massive
spending of corporations and billionaires can still be turned against
individual Republicans at any time. Corporations and the Super Wealthy have
conflicts among themselves over legislation, government spending and public
policy.
Any individual Republican officeholder
can do a favor for one wealthy campaign donor or corporation and anger a
different one or group of them. The Republican politician in this case instead
of benefitting from the corrupt campaign spending system can instead become the
victim. Republican officeholders will never be secure in their positions
because of the political spending system they helped create.
Finally, the
billionaire and corporate political spending is going to fray over time the
Republican activist base. In the long run, neither the Christian Right nor
the Tea Party is going to be happy with their reduced influence in Republican
politics. How is the Christian Right going to explain to their people that the
largest corporate donor to Republicans so far in 2012 is a casino gambling
empire controlled by one of their largest billionaire individual contributors?
Will grassroots Tea Party activists have any influence on policy or politics
compared to these corporations or billionaires? Will these voters remain parts
of the Republican coalition under those conditions?
Clearly, the Citizens United ruling unleashing massive corporate and
billionaire political spending on behalf of Republicans may end up being a trap
Republicans have sprung on themselves. We can only hope it does not completely
destroy American democracy in the process.
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Written by Stephen Crockett (Host of Democratic Talk Radio http://www.DemocraticTalkRadio.com ,
President of College Marketing.com http://www.CollegeMarketing.com and
Editor of Mid-Atlantic Labor.com http://www.Mid-AtlanticLabor.com ).
Email: Email address removed .
Phone: 443-907-2367.
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