Today is the two-year anniversary of the infamous Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court that allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns.
Since then, our democracy has been drowning in a tsunami of corporate special interest money. Our government is under the thumb of the Koch brothers and other corporate moguls instead of the hands of the people.
And citizens are uniting in their disgust.
"The bottom line is very simple. We need to know who is spending millions of dollars to influence American elections right now." The fact that we don't, he added, is "pretty unconscionable."
The shareholders of a corporation have right to know how their money is being used, and to judge whether the best interests of the corporation are being served. And the public has a right to know who is trying to buy our political process, and for what reason.
We don't know who will be laundering hundreds of millions of dollars into "superPACs" and through such corporate lobbying groups as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. And we should.
We’ve seen the damage that secret campaign cash can do in the 2010 midterm elections. We’re seeing the havoc that secret “Super PAC” money is wreaking on the Republican presidential race. And we shudder to think what is going to happen in the general election.
Let's not wait to find out. Tell the SEC: No more secret political money. Make all publicly traded corporations disclose their campaign spending to the public.
