Weekend Open Thread

Well, yeah. What I'm getting at is how much of our political change now happens in "off-year" elections, reflectd by 16 million dollars.

The recalls, Amendment 66, tax law changes – all of this happens when most Americans aren't paying attention.  Which can lead to a "tyranny of the minority", mirroring what is happening in the US House of Representatives.  And, I think, to even more corporate takeover of government.

Issue committees have so much more flexibility than candidate committees. They can pop up, fund a $150K smear campaign (as  AFP-Colorado's "Free Colorado" campaign did against John Morse and Angela Giron"), then become inactive. Tax filings don't come out for a year, and can be laundered through other committees. Katherine Kennedy, at 2318 Curtis St, is the registered agent for over 40 conservative issue committees and 527s. Go to TRACER, do a registered agent search, put in Kennedy, and 47 results will come up, most of which will trace back to Katherine or Katie Kennedy at the Curtis St address.

The same thing happens if one does a search with "Nicolais" as registered agent. 6 lobbying "issue committees" come up, along with generalized campaign slush funds such as the Senate Majority Fund.

I guess that my point is that, absent a reversal of the Citizens United decision, we need to get better at tracking issue committee expenditures, because they are well on the way to determining our political futures.

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