Litigation

Outside Interest Group Spending Keeps Skyrocketing

By Peter Hardin

Each week, it seems, there’s a new report about exploding spending in the mid-term elections by outside groups, and it’s more surprising than the last.

The latest comes from the Washington Post in an article headlined, “Interest group spending for midterm up fivefold from 2006; many sources secret.”

According to the article, “the trends amount to a spending frenzy conducted largely in the shadows,” with $80 million spent by outside groups compared to $16 million at this point in 2006. Less than half of the spending was disclosed with funders’ identities, compared to more than 90 percent in the 2006 election. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC decision was key in paving the way for the new trends.

Meanwhile a report by the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity said outside groups allied with the GOP and the Democratic Party are poised to spend about $500 million on the mid-term elections.

A New York Times commentary about non-profit groups engaged in funding attack ads against congressional candidates identified a certain foul whiff about some of the concealed spending. The author tried to “crack the secrecy” around one group, with an ad featuring a wisecracking baby, and he didn’t get very far. “It is clearly going to take a lot more work to see through an organization that is about as transparent as a dirty diaper,” he wrote.

Full post as published by The Gavel on October 04, 2010 (boomark / email).