John Roberts’s America - The Buying of Elections

An op-ed in the New York Times looks at the unsettling tidal wave of money - some likely from overseas via the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which is only too happy to sell out American citizens - that has engulfed the political landscape. The reality is that democracy is increasingly for sale to the highest bidder - even if the public doesn't get to know who that bidder might be. The Citizens United decision of the Roberts Court has truly made politics more corrupted by money and some opportunists like Virginia Thomas, Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, no longer even try to appear impartial. With an unknown salary paid by unknown donors, Ms. Thomas has thumbed her nose at the long practice of federal judges and their wives avoiding political activities that give the appearance of impropriety, if not open bias. It's no coincidence that Thomas sided with the majority and opened the flood gates that are now enriching his wife and himself. Here are some column highlights:
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Colorado is ground zero for what’s happening in John Roberts’s America, competing for the dubious distinction of being the top state in the nation for spending by shadowy outside groups telling people how to vote.
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This gusher is courtesy of the 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision in January that allowed unlimited campaign spending by corporations and unions. That was the ruling, which will go down in infamy, where the court said that corporations had the same free speech rights as ordinary citizens.
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The illogic of that logic was always apparent. But now it’s overwhelming, and omnipresent. Your average voter can dash off a letter to the editor, or fire up a blog, or put up a yard sign — a nice fantasy of citizen democracy. Your corporate equal can spend $23 million (the outsider amount spent so far in Colorado) to bludgeon the electorate. And, with loopholes in the tax system, they can do it while making it virtually impossible to know who they are.
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Races in Colorado, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Washington state are being determined on K Street, by insurance, banking and oil industry groups hiding behind innocuous titles like Americans for Prosperity (right-wing billionaire David Koch) and Americans for Job Security (insurance giants), and by public employee unions.
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The court missed the reality of what would happen once the floodgates were opened to the deepest pockets of the biggest players. They turned back a century of fine-tuning the democracy, dating to Teddy Roosevelt’s 1907 curbs, through the Tillman Act, against Gilded Age dominance of elections. They focused on a fantasy.
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Here was the court’s prediction: “The appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy.” Really? Perhaps the top complaint this year about the barrage of outside attack ads is that nobody knows who is behind them, which promotes the exact opposite of what the Roberts court predicted.
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As ugly as 2010 has been, the next election cycle, for president in 2012, will bring us a John Roberts’s America that will make this year look like a town hall meeting from a Rockwell painting.