For a few days now, we’ve been talking about 501(c)(4) organizations in class. We know that they can often be manipulated into a way that anyone can donate unlimited sums of money to political campaigns without having to attach their names to the donation itself. These loopholes have led to a lot of questions from citizens who wish to know exactly who are funding these campaigns, especially when local elections are typically the areas most affected by this “dark money.” Knowing this makes many people, like the citizens of Montana, extremely frustrated. Really, who or what’s to blame for the existence of dark money in government?
In the documentary we watched, they mentioned the supreme court ruling of Citizens United v. FEC. This ruling made it possible for 501(c)(4) organizations to anonymously donate money in the first place, but without malicious intent. Originally, these were created specifically for social welfare groups but clearly their purpose has changed immensely. So, is it the Supreme Court’s fault that dark money is an issue within American politics?
Another reason that dark money is continuing to be present is that those who participate in these 501(c)(4) organizations for the wrong reasons. Once again, the documentary that we viewed in class introduced one of these participants, Randall Mollineau. His reasoning for being a part of this sort of organization is that he has no other choice when it comes down to it. In his words, “if the rules were different, I would use those.” Is his reasoning justified?
Maybe we can’t just blame one person or event for the concept of dark money itself, but we can definitely pinpoint reasons why it continues to corrupt some of American politics. So, the real question is: what now? Some are fine with the use of dark money and prefer to ignore the fact that it’s not technically right, while others would disagree and want to fight for campaign elections to be just and fair.
I really enjoyed reading your post, as I found the topic very interesting. I liked how you posed several questions for the reader to consider. I believe that corruption will always exist in politics because of human nature: in such a high-stakes competition, people can be pressured to do immoral things. For example, Nixon’s campaign was willing to break into the Democrat’s Watergate office building in an attempt to gain an advantage. The Supreme Court’s decision simply provided a legitimate way for people to support a candidate. Reversing this decision would only give an advantage to rich candidates who can fund their campaign by themselves. There is no easy fix to this problem, and we will just have to keep looking.
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This post was so interesting! I think the whole idea of where this concept came from is very interesting as well. I agree with the fact that the blame cannot be placed on one singular person or event because the concept of dark money has been developed over years of politicians' and voters' schemes. I am also wondering what the groups use the money for and how "malicious intent" is kept track of...
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