Today, Jan. 30, 2012, is a uniquely strange day in the history of
American democracy. It’s the day before Florida’s Republican primary,
and the gap between the million dollars in outside spending and the
possibility of transparency through technology is, quietly, bigger than
it has ever been in the history of the republic. “There’s really two
phenomena here,” says Commissioner Ellen Weintraub of the Federal
Election Commission, “the creation of the super PACs and the compression
of the primary schedule.” We’ll add a third: the blurring of the line
between coordination and independence. They add up to mean that, when it
comes to campaign spending, at this very moment we know only a fraction
of the information we have the ability to know.
Of course, Citizens United, decided by the Supreme Court two years ago this month, threw out restrictions on campaign funding by corporations and unions. But it was SpeechNow.org vs. FEC,
decided by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals two months later, that
opened the doors to unlimited spending by groups of individuals, as long
as they’re not in cahoots with campaigns. The two decisions together
created “super PACs,” largely unfettered political-spending vehicles
with comically oblique names like Restore Our Future and Winning Our Future and Priorities USA .
But these new groups weren’t free to do whatever they pleased. The
courts threw their weight behind the idea of transparency, singing of
the Internet’s ability to keep the system sane.
