When people think of political corruption they often think of backroom deals, bribery and other illegal activities and for most of United States history this was true. In 2008 Citizens United, a nonprofit cooperation and conservative advocacy group, successfully sued the Federal Election Commission claiming its rules on finance was unconstitutional, restricting their First Amendment Rights. The Supreme Courts decision unshackled corporations, unions, associations and individuals, allowing them to give an unlimited amount of money to influence the outcome of elections.
After the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, the creation of super PACs followed. A traditional Political Action Committee (PAC) allowed donors to give $2,500 per election and do not allow corporations, unions or associations to donate to politicians. A super PAC gets rid of all those limitations and allows any individual, corporation, union or associations to give an unlimited amount in political donations. The only major restriction on super PACs are that they are not allowed to work with or speak to the candidate they are supporting. However this restriction is not being enforced as politicians continue to work directly with super PACs. In December 2014, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush announced that he was thinking about running for President but did not right out declare it. Because he did not outright declare that he was running for President he was able to tour the country with his super PAC Right to Rise and raise over $100 million to spend on his campaign. Almost all the money Jeb Bush raised during this time was over the 2,500 limit and Bush was fully coordinating strategies for an extensive period before he declared his candidacy.
Corporate money influences our politicians more than you may think. The top Oil and Gas contributors in 2015-2016 donate far more to the Republican Party than the Democrats. The top donor Energy Transfer Equity, a natural gas company based in Texas donated $6,000,000 to conservative groups and $156,650 to Republicans. Koch Industries donated $1,034,425 to fund Republican campaigns and Exxon Mobil gave $573,736 to influence Republican Campaigns. The reason oil companies give to the Republican Party is because Republicans tend to believe in small government and deregulation and that would save oil companies a lot of money. But we have also seen that in the recent years Republicans began to denounce climate change and call it a "hoax" and even a conspiracy. Who would profit in the public believing climate change is a hoax? The only people who would profit from that is the oil industries who are donating millions to the Republicans. Republicans also fight for lowering taxes on the rich and often refer to the super rich and CEO's as "Job Creators." Super PACs is a form of legal bribery, they give money to politicians and politicians make policies that help their donors. The top recipient in the Republican Party is Ted Cruz, the Republican front-runner, he received $674,917. The top Recipient in the Democratic Party is Hillary Clinton, she received $22,804. Keep in mind that all of these donations are from the past year alone and only from Oil Companies. There are far more corporations donating money to politicians and buying elections.
Jeb Bush is not the only politician accepting money from super PACs, nearly all of the Presidential candidates in both parties are being funded by super PACs, the only two acceptations being billionaire Donald Trump that mostly funds his own campaign and accepts a comparatively small amount of donations from super PACS, and Bernie Sanders who refuses super PAC money and is being funded by millions of small donations by his individual supporters.
Donald Trump spoke out against his Republican rivals for accepting super PAC money saying "A lot of PACs are crooked business....Those PACs control the candidates. They totally control. Carson is controlled by his PAC. Bush is controlled by his PAC. Rubio is controlled by his PAC."Trump has repeatedly spoken against the influence of corporate money on politicians. Trump has also admitted to donating over $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation, and that his donations allowed him to get favors from Hillary Clinton, like the fact that Hillary Clinton attended Donald Trumps wedding in 2005.
Bernie Sanders has centered his campaign on the issue of money in politics and super PACs. 98% of his donations are from individual contributions, and has broken the record for the most individual contributions in a presidential race previously held by President Obama. Bernie Sanders speaks out against legal bribery through super PACs, and claims that nothing can get done in congress or Washington until there is a major campaign finance reform, which he has promised to do if voted President.
In this Presidential campaign the issue is finally being brought to light. In recent elections the issue of money in politics through corporate finances was ignored due to the fact that every politician running was accepting super PAC money, including President Barak Obama. The legal bribery and corruption brought on by the Supreme Courts decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Committee has caused the rise of ignorant statements by our politicians, from denying science to blatant racism. It has affected every level of our government the Presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court. The electoral process has been stolen from the American people, those who take more money from corporations through super PACs than they do from the average American, do not work for the average American. Elections are not auctions, our elected politicians should represent the people who vote, not the people who pay.
