A Democratic operative active in Senate races sends over this summary, from public sources, of outside television and radio spending on the races from August through last night:
Republican Third Party Groups — $43,664,661
Democratic Third Party Groups — $6,658,236Colorado — Dems: $1.1 million / GOP: $7.6 million
Washington — Dems: $1.5 million / GOP: $4.2 million
Missouri — Dems: $794k / GOP: $7.2 million
Kentucky — Dems: $47k / GOP: $1.7 millionThat’s a more than seven-to-one advantage, if you’re keeping score.
A lot of this money is coming through these 501(c)(4) groups that were created from the Citizens United decision. These groups do not have to disclose their donors. After Target got a lot of criticism for donating to Michele Bachmann and Tom Emmer in Minnesota, I doubt any corporation will do direct donations to candidates. They’ll launder their donations through front groups.
Speaking of front groups, guess who is benefiting directly from the Citizens United ruling?
For three decades, Mrs. Thomas has been a familiar figure among conservative activists in Washington — since before she met her husband of 23 years, Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court. But this year she has emerged in her most politically prominent role yet: Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation.
It is the most partisan role ever for a spouse of a justice on the nation’s highest court, and Mrs. Thomas is just getting started. “Liberty Central will be bigger than the Tea Party movement,” she told Fox News in April, at a Tea Party rally in Atlanta.
But to some people who study judicial ethics, Mrs. Thomas’s activism is raising knotty questions, in particular about her acceptance of large, unidentified contributions for Liberty Central. She began the group in late 2009 with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000, and because it is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, named for the applicable section of the federal tax code, she does not have to publicly disclose any contributors. Such tax-exempt groups are supposed to make sure that less than half of their activities are political.
Mrs. Thomas, known as Ginni, declined through a spokeswoman to be interviewed without an agreement not to discuss her husband. In written responses to questions, Sarah Field, Liberty Central’s chief operating officer and general counsel, said that Mrs. Thomas is paid by Liberty Central, with the compensation set by the group’s board, and that the group has “internal reviews and protections to ensure that no donor causes a conflict of interest for either Ginni or her husband.”
I sure would like to see these protections and reviews to ensure there’s no donor conflict. How are the rest of us supposed to be sure? I wonder how much she’s paying herself.
Personally, I think corporations are being overcharged. With our screwed up system, they really only need to buy a couple of Senators since single Senators can block bills and with our strange supermajority requirements one Senator can insert or delete a provision in a bill. Just look at the bill to make foreclosures easier that snuck through Congress with no debate recently.