Fred Wertheimer for Huffington Post: “Government Corruption Is and Remains the Fundamental Danger of Individual-Candidate Super PACs”

The Huffington Post

Government Corruption Is and Remains the Fundamental Danger of Individual-Candidate Super PACs

By: Fred Wertheimer 

Governor Scott Walker and former Governor Rick Perry dropping out so early in the Republican presidential primary race has raised questions about whether individual-candidate Super PACs are as big a problem as originally believed. (Both Walker and Perry had individual-candidate Super PACs supporting them.)

This question, however, misses the point.

Government corruption is and remains the fundamental danger of individual-candidate Super PACs.

Candidate contributions limits were enacted by Congress and upheld by the Supreme Court to prevent corruption.

Individual-candidate Super PACs are used to allow a candidate and the candidate’s supporters to circumvent these candidate limits and to provide six and seven-figure contributions to directly support the candidate.

These Super PACs are vehicles for the Super Rich to buy government influence and results.

History and common sense tell us that opportunity for undue influence with the candidate, i.e. corruption, is created when an individual provides $500,000 or $1 million to elect a candidate.

The Supreme Court in Buckley v. Valeo found that a system of unlimited contributions to support candidates is an inherently corrupt system. This is the system we have today with individual-candidate Super PACs that raise and spend unlimited contribution to directly support a single candidate and generally are run by close associates of that candidate.

While Walker and Perry have dropped out, their Super Rich donors are not gone. They are free to take their money to other Presidential candidates, as some no doubt will, and provide the Super PACs supporting them with further huge contributions.

The picture changes dramatically, however, when we get to the presidential general election. Here many, if not most, of the billionaires and multimillionaires who support the various presidential primary candidates can — and will — gather together to provide huge contributions to the individual-candidate Super PAC supporting the nominee of their party.

The Super Rich who support the winning presidential candidate will be in a position to obtain government access, influence and results in return for their money.

This is the essence of a corrupt system and it awaits us at the end of the 2016 presidential election.