Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that allows unlimited corporate spending in "independent" political advertising isn't enough for conservative political activists, Politico reports. They're pushing every possible angle to "eliminate the remaining laws restricting the flow of money into politics."
They have taken to Congress, state legislatures and the lower courts to target almost every type of regulation on the books: disclosure requirements, bans on foreign and corporate contributions and – in a pair of cases the Supreme Court will consider this month – party spending limits and public financing of campaigns.
The sustained assault, combined with the Supreme Court’s rightward tilt on the issue, has some advocates for reducing the role of money in politics fretting about the possibility of an irreversible shift in the way campaigns are regulated and funded that would favor Republicans and corporate interests in the 2012 presidential race and beyond.
“We’ve already passed the danger point, and if you put all (the challenges) together, we could lose almost all of what we’ve had historically as campaign finance reform,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the non-profit group Public Citizen, which pushes to protect or expand campaign restrictions in Congress, at the Federal Election Commission and in the courts.
“These types of lawsuits against campaign finance measures have been flooding the courts for years,” said Holman, “but now they’re finding more success with these five justices on the Supreme Court taking very anti-campaign finance reform stands – or, more appropriately, pro-corporate stances – and so the cases are reaching further than they ever did before.”
...In the post-Citizens United world, though, opposition to campaign regulations is starting to come almost exclusively from the right, asserted Fred Wertheimer, president of the non-profit group Democracy 21, which filed briefs opposing the Citizen United and Arizona public financing challenges.
Calling out Republican congressional leaders who blocked proposed disclosure enhancements after Citizens United, the Republican appointees to the FEC, who have generally opposed vigorous enforcement of campaign rules, and Bopp, Wertheimer said “the longtime opponents of campaign finance laws are going to test as far as they can go, but we are going to be on the battleground at every stage.”
Pending challenges include the National Defense PA v. FEC [pdf], which challenges a rule preventing PACs from "giving to candidates if they raise unlimited contributions from corporations and individuals for ads." The SCOTUS is hearing arguments on March 28 on a case concerning Arizona's public financing system.
That's in addition to a "slew of other suits pending that could dramatically alter the political money landscape, including one challenging a rule that limited how much the Republican National Committee could spend supporting the unsuccessful 2010 reelection campaign of former Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.)."