We do need to know

Ed Stein's commentary:

Thanks to a combination of the Supreme Court’s overreach in the Citizen’s United case, which opened the floodgates to corporate campaign cash, and the GOP’s successful blockage of the DISCLOSE Act, this election features an unprecedented tide of secret money attempting to sway voters. This unholy combination is  blow to the democratic process, allowing wealthy individuals and corporations with their own agendas to influence the political process, with no transparency or accountability. We’ve already seen how the Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch have surreptitiously funded the Tea Party, and how the same Koch family is attempting to derail environmental regulation in California. We only know because enterprising journalists have doggedly followed the money trail, not because those running for election have willingly revealed their sponsors. How many more ad campaigns are secretly underwritten by folks with narrow business or personal economic interests in the outcome? We don’t know, and we won’t if Republicans are successful tomorrow in blocking the next vote to require politicians to disclose the sources of their funding.