You knew something odious would be attached to the must pass Spending Bill. That bill, if not passed, will shut down the government. And here's one of the smelly things that it contains right there on page 1,599 of a 1,603 page bill which was just released to the public hours ago. One single day before the bill has to pass.
The language dramatically increases the amount of money individual wealthy donors can give to national party committees, especially for funds set aside for things like national party conventions and the improvement of headquarters building. Under the change, individual donors would see a tenfold increase on the amount of money they can give to national party organs, rising from the current $32,400-a-year cap to a $324,000 annual limit. When you add in money to congressional campaign committees, that means a single donor could give as much as $777,600 to official arms of the Democratic or Republican party in a single year — a dramatic increase from the current $97,200 limit.
(Bolding is mine)
That's right, folks. As if things aren't bad enough already, they're giving the mega-wealthy not only the opportunity to buy politicians, but entire political parties.
And citizens groups interested in campaign finance laws are pissed.
“These legislative provisions, if they become law, will be the most corrupting campaign finance legislation ever enacted. Every member who votes to enact these provisions, and President Obama if he signs them into law, will go down in history as enabling the corruption of our democracy and the national scandals that will follow their enactment,” said Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer, a longtime campaign finance reform advocate.
It's nothing less than a sneak attack on democracy.
“This backroom deal represents everything Americans detest about Washington and about Congress. Rather than pass legislation to fix the corrupt existing campaign finance system, this Congress that couldn’t pass a bill to simply increase transparency for campaign contributions decided to raise the price for its attentions,” said Meredith McGehee of the Campaign Legal Center. “Both parties are complicit in this dirty deal that was made based on incumbents’ fears of money from outside groups.”
“It’s appalling that Congress is willing to alter campaign finance laws and add more money to the system through this back door channel, while at the same time refusing to consider legislation — like the Senate e-filing bill — that would make information about who is buying our elections available in real time,” said Sunlight Foundation lobbyist Lisa Rosenberg.
After 2 years of doing nothing but renaming post offices, Congress is set to unleash this on us.
Just like the removal of language to weaken Dodd-Frank, this needs immediate removal from the must-pass Spending bill. There's little time to do it.
This information needs to go viral before our political parties become wholly owned subsidiaries of the billionaire class.
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