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In a letter dated November 4, 2010, although it said nothing about Jobs, Majority Leader of the U. S. House of Representative, Republican Eric Cantor, sent a letter to the House GOP Members of the 112^th Congress outlining some of the initial thoughts of how Congress should run.  Cantor’s letter said, among other things, that “we must govern differently. Not just differently than the Democrats, but differently from our previous majority. And job number one is to focus on more jobs for more Americans and to shift the economy from stall to forward. It’s time to produce results. Americans are asking for the opportunity to assume responsibility and get back to earning success.”  Cantor stated that the Republican’s number one priority was to focus on Jobs and that it’s “time to produce results.”

However, when the 112^th Congress convened in January 2011, Cantor’s first order of business was not to put a Jobs bill forward, but to sponsor H.R. 2: Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.  This Bill passed the House by a vote of 245 to 189 with only three Democrats voting for the Bill.  Even though Cantor had previously stated that the number one priority was to focus on jobs, during the campaign, there was a general consensus among Republicans that they would vote to abolish the Health Care Legislation.  So they accomplished the objective although the Bill died in the Senate.  Perhaps a Jobs Bill would be the next one to be introduced.

However, on January 19, 2011, Republican Christopher Smith introduced H.R. 3: No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.  This bill would make permanent and expand the Hyde amendment restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortions.  This Bill did pretty much what the Hyde amendment already did.  It passed the House by a vote of 251 to 175, but failed in the Senate.  But still no Jobs bill.

Here is a summary of the legislation Republicans passed since Speaker Boehner and Cantor became leaders of the House.

• A bill to undermine our ability to provide a healthier environment for our children, eliminating every tool EPA has to address serious public health threats from carbon pollution, including increased childhood asthma;
• To protect taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil and speculators driving up gasoline prices, and against gasoline anti-price gouging legislation for consumers;
• To provide more tax cuts for millionaires, and protect tax breaks for corporations shipping jobs overseas;
• To strengthen the role of special interests in our elections (by ending the Presidential Election fund that promotes small campaign donations) and against disclosure of foreign countries, companies, or individuals donating to presidential campaigns;
• To cripple public radio stations, particularly in rural areas, while not saving taxpayers one dime;
• To cut off key federal funding for Planned Parenthood — devastating the primary source of health care, especially preventive services like contraception, cancer screenings, breast exams, and HIV testing, for millions of women across the country;
• An unprecedented, radical assault on women’s health care – for the first time restricting how women with private insurance can spend private dollars in purchasing health insurance;
• The Ryan Bill that would effectively kill Medicare;
• To repeal health care reform on behalf of the health insurance industry;
• To undermine US ability to provide a healthier environment for our children, eliminating every tool EPA has to address serious public health threats from carbon pollution, including increased childhood asthma;
• To protect taxpayer subsidies for Big Oil and speculators driving up gasoline prices, and against gasoline anti-price gouging legislation for consumers;
• To provide more tax cuts for millionaires, and protect tax breaks for corporations shipping jobs overseas;
• To strengthen the role of special interests in our elections (by ending the Presidential Election fund that promotes small campaign donations) and against disclosure of foreign countries, companies, or individuals donating to presidential campaigns;
• To cripple public radio stations, particularly in rural areas, while not saving taxpayers one dime;

The Republican controlled House has been very busy voting but thus far, has never introduced any kind of a “Jobs bill” even though they said that they would.

PART II TOMORROW

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This is the final part of the article “Is America for Sale in 2012?” based on the Supreme Court’s Decision in Citizens United.

The Citizens United decision makes it easy to hide funding to Super PACs.  A Super PAC may receive unlimited contributions from an outside non-profit or a transfer from an affiliated non-profit. Although it must disclose the name of the non-profit, neither the Super PAC nor the non-profit is under any obligation to disclose where its money came from. There is nothing illegal about the ease with which a single corporate, union or individual donor may hide its contribution from the public. At the same time, there is nothing preventing a candidate who ultimately benefits from the independent expenditure from knowing the true source of the funds, which are not anonymous, but merely not publicly disclosed.

Because of the Citizens United decision, millions upon millions of dollars actually purchased House and Senate seats, governors and state legislative bodies in 2010, and its impact is being felt adversely.  Thirty-eight (38) states have recently introduced legislation designed to impede democratic voters.  For example, Kansas and Alabama now require voters to provide proof of citizenship before registering. Florida and Texas made it harder for groups like the League of Women Voters to register new voters. Maine repealed Election Day voter registration that had been in effect since 1973. Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia have shortened their early voting periods. Florida and Iowa barred all ex-felons from the polls, disenfranchising thousands of previously eligible voters.  Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin will require voters to produce a government-issued ID before voting.  More than 10 percent of U.S. citizens lack such identification, and the numbers are even higher among constituencies that traditionally vote Democratic including 18 percent of young voters and 25 percent of African-Americans.  IS AMERICA FOR SALE IN 2012?

Based on the Citizens United decision, the independent fundraising groups can gather and spend unlimited money to run ads supporting a candidate or attacking a rival. The leading Republican contenders, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Willard Mitt Romney, both have at least one super PAC working to boost their candidacies.   Restore Our Future, Mitt Romney’s super PAC, raised $20 million from January through June, 2011. Its treasurer, Charles Spies, was general counsel for Romney’s 2008 White House bid.  The super PACs that favor certain candidates have already begun spending on television advertising thanks to the Citizens United decision.

Candidates will continue to do their own campaign fundraising.  A presidential campaign can raise up to $5,000 from an individual donor — $2,500 each for the primary and general elections. Again, according to Citizens United, Super PACs can solicit and spend unlimited funds. Some super PACs also have affiliated groups whose donors are allowed to remain anonymous.

“The most dangerous vehicle for corruption in the political system is the candidate-specific super PAC,” said Democracy 21 president Fred Wertheimer, a longtime advocate for campaign-finance limits. “If we can’t shut them down, they are going to spread like wildfire to members of Congress, and they’re going to eviscerate contribution limits enacted over a period of a century to prevent corruption of federal officeholders.”

The leaders of two of Karl Rove’s fundraising groups promised to spend $120 million against Democrat candidates in the 2012 election cycle, much of it in the form of attack ads.  In addition, American Crossroads and Crossroads Grassroots Political Strategies predicted they will spend $2 billion between now and November 2012 against Democratic candidates, thanks to the Citizens United decision.

In 2010, the two Crossroads groups spent $37 million on congressional races.  That total surpassed the $32 million spent by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which many thought was the biggest outside group spender during the 2010 midterm elections.  Crossroads President Steven Law recently announced that Crossroads GPS, the non-profit group, would commence a $20 million advertising campaign targeting President Barack Obama with a $5 million buy each week.

The first ad, titled “Shovel Ready,” assails the president’s record on the economy shows rises in unemployment, the price of gas, and the national debt.  “President Obama may have inherited a recession, but his policies have made things worse for everyday Americans by running up the debt and causing economic uncertainty,” said Steven Law, president of Crossroads GPS.

The states targeted include swing states and those where Senate races are expected to be tight and include Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, and Virginia.  Crossroads GPS is a nonprofit organization that does not have to disclose its donors.  Could it be that because of Citizens United, Crossroads GPS is gearing up to purchase America in 2012?  But that’s just my take.

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This is the first of a two-part posting on based on the CITIZENS United decision by the U. S. Supreme Court.   The following is a basis upon which I raise this question.

Citizens United was the plaintiff in a Supreme Court case which began as a challenge to various statutory provisions of the “McCain-Feingold” law.  The government argued that under existing precedents, it had the power under the constitution to prohibit the publication of books and movies if they were made or sold by corporations.  On January 21, 2010, in a 5 to 4 conservative majority decision, the Supreme Court overturned the provision of McCain-Feingold barring corporations and unions from paying for political ads made independently of candidate campaigns.  A minority 90-page dissent argued that the Court’s ruling “threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the Nation. The path it has taken to reach its outcome will do damage to this institution.”

The Citizens United dissent concluded with:

“At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.”

By September 2010, Americans United for Life Action ran radio ads advocating that incumbent Democratic Members of Congress John Boccieri, Chris Carney, and Baron Hill be defeated for reelection. News reports at the time indicated that the ads were “among the first ads to capitalize” on the Supreme Court decision and thousands of dollars followed because all for Democrats lost to Republicans.

The Citizens United decision has created an environment in which it is perfectly legal for a shell non-profit corporation to engage in election-related unlimited spending on behalf of a hidden interest.  These non-profit groups have become the tool to hide corporate election-related spending. For example, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (GPS) is a spin-off of Super PAC American Crossroads. By October 19, 2010, it had spent almost $8 million in eight Senate races on independent expenditures and electioneering communications opposing Democratic candidates.  Another Republican-leaning outside group is American Future Fund that spent $12 million on independent expenditures and $1.4 on electioneering communications.   Americans for Job Security, for example, spent over $4 million on independent expenditures opposing Democrats by October 2010.  Thanks to Citizens United, it can use its general treasury funds, to include undisclosed contributions from the general treasuries of other corporations.  IS AMERICA FOR SALE IN 2012?

During the 2010 elections, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, basically a conservative organization, spent $18 million on electioneering communications in House and Senate races across the country, and $75 million to help, with very limited exception, Republican candidates win on November 2. 2010.  The Citizens United decision also allows the Chamber and other organization to withhold where all that money comes from.

Super (Political Action Committees) PACs, also known as Independent Expenditure-Only Committees, are a new breed of political organizations stemming from the Citizens United decision. Traditional PACs that make independent expenditures as well as contribute directly to candidates were prohibited from taking contributions from corporations and unions, and were limited in the amounts they could receive from individual donors. Super PACs, on the other hand, can receive unlimited funds from individuals, political committees, corporations and labor organizations if their purpose is only to make independent expenditures.  More than two-dozen Independent Expenditure-Only Committees were registered with the Federal Elections Commission by October 15, 2010, and spending on independent expenditures exceeded $21 million.

The mother of all Super PACs is American Crossroads, a 527 political organization that accepts contributions and makes expenditures to influence elections. American Crossroads, with its ties to Karl Rove, spent nearly $12 million on eleven competitive Senate races and a handful of House races in 2010.  All of its spending benefited Republican candidates, with the overwhelming majority being spent on ads attacking Democrats.  IS AMERICA FOR SALE IN 2012?

PART II TOMORROW

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