How Corporations Are Secretly Moving Millions to Fund Political Ads

Gaping legal holes allow corporations to spend enormous sums on politics without leaving a paper trail. They drove a stake through the heart and soul of America.

AlterNet, By Brad Jacobson, February 6, 2010 – The Supreme Court’s seismic January ruling that corporations are free to spend unlimited amounts of their profits to advertise for or against candidates may have been the latest shakeup of campaign finance – but gaping holes already allow corporations to spend enormous sums without leaving a paper trail, a Raw Story investigation has found.

Campaign finance experts confirmed that though disclosure rules remained intact in the new Supreme Court decision, there are effective methods to circumvent them.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an attorney and campaign finance expert at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, said corporations already effectively end-run campaign finance law by shuffling money through trade associations.

“One of their favorites right now is spending through trade associations,” Torres-Spelliscy said.

Trade associations are considered tax-exempt non-profit organizations under US law. While they must report contributions received from other corporations to the Internal Revenue Service, the document itself remains confidential and is not made available to the public.

stockwallcorporate Exclusive: How corporations secretly move millions to fund political ads The Supreme Court’s seismic January ruling that corporations are free to spend unlimited amounts of their profits to advertise for or against candidates may have been the latest shakeup of campaign finance – but gaping holes already allow corporations to spend enormous sums without leaving a paper trail, a Raw Story investigation has found.

Campaign finance experts confirmed that though disclosure rules remained intact in the new Supreme Court decision, there are effective methods to circumvent them.

“The ends do not justify the means.” If you use illegal mean to accomplish a legal and even desirable result, the good result does not make the bad means you used justifiable.

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Tags: corporate finance spending, corporate loopholes, pharmaceutical corporations