CONNECT
Obama Rails Against Those Trying to ‘Buy This Election’
The Center for Public Integrity / News Report
Published: Saturday 8 September 2012
“Democrats staked out positions against secret election spending, big-money politics and the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United decision throughout the convention.”
President Barack Obama urged delegates at the Democratic National Convention to beware “the people with the $10 million checks who are trying to buy this election” in his acceptance speech Thursday night.
“If you reject the notion that our government is forever beholden to the highest bidder, you need to stand up in this election,” Obama said to a roaring crowd in the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte.
The impassioned speech came the same week that the main pro-Obama super PAC, Priorities USA Action, said it raised $10 million in August, a record for the group, and enlisted the aid of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s campaign co-chairman, to help it raise money.
Democrats staked out positions against secret election spending, big-money politics and the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United decision throughout the convention.
The party is being seriously out raised by Republican super PACs and nonprofits, and its position is in stark contrast to Republicans, whose party platform opposes efforts to undo the high court’s decision.
The 2010 Citizens United ruling overturned an existing ban on corporate- and union-funded advertisements that advocate for the election or defeat of federal candidates.
It further said that independent political ads — even those funded with unlimited corporate cash — do not pose a threat of corruption. That’s a point that campaign finance reformers have disputed.
In other speeches, Democratic officials, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, also criticized special interest groups and their outsized influence in Washington.
“We believe in government of the many, not the privileged few,” said Pelosi, who added that Democrats will “work to overturn Citizens United.”
Warren said the “system is rigged,” and she argued that Obama would fight for a “level playing field.”
The Democratic Party’s platform supports “campaign finance reform, by constitutional amendment if necessary,” as well as legislation to “require greater disclosure of campaign spending.”
The Republican Party platform calls for repealing the campaign finance reform law authored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis. and opposes the DISCLOSE Act, which seeks to institute new disclosure requirements for groups that run political ads.
The DISCLOSE Act was thwarted by Republican opposition in both this Congress and the previous one.
Republicans frame the debate as a First Amendment issue.
“The GOP will defend freedom of speech, and it does not view citizens’ political speech and involvement as a bad thing for democracy,” said Brad Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.
Those sentiments are echoed by Republican Dan Backer, an attorney at DB Capitol Strategies.
“The GOP has consistently stood up against the over-reaching, over-intrusiveness of the federal government in all aspects of our lives,” Backer said. “Here they are standing up against the notion that the government gets to dictate what speech is permissible.”
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney has endorsed the notion of unlimited campaign contributions to political candidates. He opposes a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
Last week Obama endorsed the idea of a constitutional amendment to override Citizens United during an online chat on the popular website Reddit.com.
In the Reddit chat, Obama criticized the “no-holds barred flow of seven- and eight- figure checks, most undisclosed, into super PACs.”
Obama’s statement confused super PACs with nonprofit spending groups.
Super PACs are permitted to accept unlimited contributions but are legally required to disclose their donors — that’s how casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, Texas homebuilder Bob Perry and Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner have become headline fodder.
Nonprofits, organized under section 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(6) of the U.S. tax code, can make the same types of expenditures but are not required to publicly disclose their donors.
Despite the banner month for Priorities USA Action, the GOP super PACs have raised and spent far more.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, pro-Romney super PAC has raised nearly $90 million so far this election, though much of that was used to fight off opponents in the GOP primary. Conservative super PAC American Crossroads has raised more than $47 million.
And that does not include tens of millions more raised by conservative nonprofits like Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity, which do not reveal their donors.
Priorities USA Action, not including the August amount, has raised $25.5 million.
8 comments on "Obama Rails Against Those Trying to ‘Buy This Election’"
September 08, 2012 9:36pm
Vote for Obama. The president from 2013-2016 might get to appoint a Supreme Court Justice. Maybe the SC can be changed.
September 08, 2012 6:28pm
I have to feel that Bush "vetted" his Supreme Court nominations to see if they would vote for an outrageous ruling like the Citizens United decision. How on earth could an intelligent person, versed in the Constitution, come to the conclusion that corporations are people and that money is speech? Any high school senior should be able to see that unlimited amounts of anonymous contributions by corporations would unduly affect the voting of the public.
And why? Because our deregulated broadcast industry no longer cares about public service but just the size of the fees they can charge for airing political advertisements. And we know that big lies, repeated endlessly on TV, can influence confused and harried voters who just want to do the right thing (without, alas, putting too much thought into it). In short, we know that the tons of negative advertising works in elections, and we know also that the corporations will support the advertising for those candidates who will serve THEIR purposes, not the public's.
So how could the Supreme Court justices who approved this blatant corruption of our political system NOT know the consequences that would follow?
(Answer: They know who butters their bread, pure and simple. And they know why Junior Bush put them where they are.)
September 08, 2012 10:26am
Work to overturn Citizens United.
September 08, 2012 1:43pm
I am 78 years old and from when I was only four years old I remember my father saying "Money talks"! However, now that I am a mature and well educated and much experienced adult, I know the difference between speech and money. Our current Supreme Court Justice Scalia has ruled that "money is speech". This gross distortion coupled with another of his gross distortions; i.e., "Corporations are people" has encouraged and made legal an infinite amount of money (that could total billions of dollars or more) that U.S. Corporations can contribute to U.S. elected members of our U.S. Congress to assure adoption of their preferred policies and legislation. Our Supreme Court voted that their action is protected by our Constitutional freedom of speech proviso. As a result, the Corporations' massive amount of money funneled through an inordinately large number of lobbyists to our members of Congress "speaks" so loudly that the voices of ordinary U.S. citizens are not heard or ignored by our elected Representatives and Senators. This is not Democracy (government by the people). It is a form of Plutocracy (government by the wealthy). This is the insidious compelling and all powerful force that is the real problem causing the gridlock we have been experiencing in our U.S. Congress. I respectfully submit that nothing is going to improve in Washington D.C. until this crippling situation is changed. And, the ONLY way it can be changed is to take the money out of American politics. To make this change, because our Supreme Court approved what Justice Scalia maintains, we must amend our U.S. Constitution. The basic Amendment is set forth in http://signon.org/sign/take-money-out-of-politics - so click on this link or paste it into your browser and see if you would like to sign the petition. Enough signatures are needed to get a two thirds vote in both our House of Representatives and Senate. Again - http://signon.org/sign/take-money-out-of-politics.
September 08, 2012 10:21am
To those of us who care about true Democracy, one of the most galling facts presented in this article is this portion:
>>>>>...
Republicans frame the debate as a First Amendment issue.
“The GOP will defend freedom of speech, and it does not view citizens’ political speech and involvement as a bad thing for democracy,” said Brad Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.
...<<<<<
When our Founding Fathers (yes, the founding group of old-white-guys) got together and framed our First Amendment right to free speech, they literally meant the right of an individual to express his (and not her, ironically!) thought or concern. Speech. As in, standing up at Boston Commons and making a statement of protest. No hiding who you are, as you are clearly the one exercising that right.
And so here we are, two centuries and two score years later, shutting down brave, non-anonymous individuals who ‘Occupy’, while preserving the rights of the anonymous to say whatever they want. Here we are, continuing to fail to protect the free speech rights of those rare and responsible Federal employees (whistleblowers) who are destroyed in retaliation for speaking up about waste and safety issues.
Yes, money talks.
September 08, 2012 1:42pm
I am 78 years old and from when I was only four years old I remember my father saying "Money talks"! However, now that I am a mature and well educated and much experienced adult, I know the difference between speech and money. Our current Supreme Court Justice Scalia has ruled that "money is speech". This gross distortion coupled with another of his gross distortions; i.e., "Corporations are people" has encouraged and made legal an infinite amount of money (that could total billions of dollars or more) that U.S. Corporations can contribute to U.S. elected members of our U.S. Congress to assure adoption of their preferred policies and legislation. Our Supreme Court voted that their action is protected by our Constitutional freedom of speech proviso. As a result, the Corporations' massive amount of money funneled through an inordinately large number of lobbyists to our members of Congress "speaks" so loudly that the voices of ordinary U.S. citizens are not heard or ignored by our elected Representatives and Senators. This is not Democracy (government by the people). It is a form of Plutocracy (government by the wealthy). This is the insidious compelling and all powerful force that is the real problem causing the gridlock we have been experiencing in our U.S. Congress. I respectfully submit that nothing is going to improve in Washington D.C. until this crippling situation is changed. And, the ONLY way it can be changed is to take the money out of American politics. To make this change, because our Supreme Court approved what Justice Scalia maintains, we must amend our U.S. Constitution. The basic Amendment is set forth in http://signon.org/sign/take-money-out-of-politics - so click on this link or paste it into your browser and see if you would like to sign the petition. Enough signatures are needed to get a two thirds vote in both our House of Representatives and Senate. Again - http://signon.org/sign/take-money-out-of-politics.
September 08, 2012 9:37am
I say the Republicans can raise all the money they want under the present system of corruption, but they cannot raise our trust, and our confidence in their platform of more tax breaks for the wealthiest.
Romney depresses me, but Obama inspires me to have hope in his plan and his party to defend the middle class and strive for a more fair social order.
September 08, 2012 1:45pm
I am 78 years old and from when I was only four years old I remember my father saying "Money talks"! However, now that I am a mature and well educated and much experienced adult, I know the difference between speech and money. Our current Supreme Court Justice Scalia has ruled that "money is speech". This gross distortion coupled with another of his gross distortions; i.e., "Corporations are people" has encouraged and made legal an infinite amount of money (that could total billions of dollars or more) that U.S. Corporations can contribute to U.S. elected members of our U.S. Congress to assure adoption of their preferred policies and legislation. Our Supreme Court voted that their action is protected by our Constitutional freedom of speech proviso. As a result, the Corporations' massive amount of money funneled through an inordinately large number of lobbyists to our members of Congress "speaks" so loudly that the voices of ordinary U.S. citizens are not heard or ignored by our elected Representatives and Senators. This is not Democracy (government by the people). It is a form of Plutocracy (government by the wealthy). This is the insidious compelling and all powerful force that is the real problem causing the gridlock we have been experiencing in our U.S. Congress. I respectfully submit that nothing is going to improve in Washington D.C. until this crippling situation is changed. And, the ONLY way it can be changed is to take the money out of American politics. To make this change, because our Supreme Court approved what Justice Scalia maintains, we must amend our U.S. Constitution. The basic Amendment is set forth in http://signon.org/sign/take-money-out-of-politics - so click on this link or paste it into your browser and see if you would like to sign the petition. Enough signatures are needed to get a two thirds vote in both our House of Representatives and Senate. Again - http://signon.org/sign/take-money-out-of-politics.