Note that it's not just anonymous campaign contributions, either. It's anonymous influence in other ways, too. For example, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a right-wing political activist who's created a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central.
From the New York Times:
Mrs. Thomas is the founder and head of a new nonprofit group, Liberty Central, dedicated to opposing what she characterizes as the leftist “tyranny” of President Obama and Democrats in Congress and to “protecting the core founding principles” of the nation.
It is the most partisan role ever for a spouse of a justice on the nation’s highest court, and Mrs. Thomas is just getting started. “Liberty Central will be bigger than the Tea Party movement,” she told Fox News in April, at a Tea Party rally in Atlanta.
But to some people who study judicial ethics, Mrs. Thomas’s activism is raising knotty questions, in particular about her acceptance of large, unidentified contributions for Liberty Central. She began the group in late 2009 with two gifts of $500,000 and $50,000, and because it is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, named for the applicable section of the federal tax code, she does not have to publicly disclose any contributors. Such tax-exempt groups are supposed to make sure that less than half of their activities are political.
First, does anyone really believe that "less than half" of this group's activities will be political? Virginia Thomas has been a right-wing political activist for three decades. This group is entirely about politics. And yet, anonymous donors are getting tax breaks for their donations.
Who is giving a half million dollars to this group? What is their purpose? Wouldn't you like to know? Sorry, but it's a secret. Now, suppose a case comes before the Supreme Court that affects this anonymous donor. What then?
A federal law requires justices to recuse themselves in a number of circumstances where real or perceived conflicts of interest could arise, including in cases where their spouses could have a financial interest. But the decision to step aside is up to each justice; there is no appeal from the nation’s highest court.
“It’s shocking that you would have a Supreme Court justice sitting on a case that might implicate in a very fundamental way the interests of someone who might have contributed to his wife’s organization,” said Deborah L. Rhode, a law professor and director of the Stanford University Center on the Legal Profession.
“The fact that we can’t find that out is the first problem,” she said, adding, “And how can the public form a judgment about propriety if it doesn’t have the basic underlying facts?”
Justice Thomas might recuse himself and he might not. In any case, it's up to him. But since these huge donations are anonymous, none of us will ever know if he had a conflict of interest or not. Is this really the kind of judicial system we want in America?
Nonprofit groups with political agendas like Liberty Central are operating in this election cycle under evolving legal and regulatory standards, most notably the ruling last January by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case, which eased restrictions on independent campaign spending by corporations and unions. In that case, Justice Thomas, long an advocate of dismantling campaign finance restrictions, was in the 5-to-4 majority. Wealthy individuals and some corporations, emboldened by the ruling, are giving to such groups to influence the election but still hide their tracks.
Not only has the Supreme Court, in that same 5-4 vote that's given us so many terrible decisions already, opened the floodgate to corporate spending (spending money which might be owned by you and me, in millions of small retirement accounts, but which is controlled by corporate management and other wealthy individuals), they've also made it easy to hide what's going on.
These people like to operate under a cloak of secrecy, at least partly so they can pretend that protests - like the Tea Party movement - are grassroots efforts by ordinary people, instead of funded, promoted, and otherwise manipulated by fat cats behind the scene.
In the weeks before a 5-to-4 majority of the Supreme Court, including her husband, decided the 2000 election for George W. Bush over Al Gore, Mrs. Thomas was compiling résumés for potential appointees to a Bush administration from her job at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative, Republican-leaning research group.
This was bad enough. (Why didn't Justice Thomas recuse himself in this decision? And why was this the only "states' rights" argument these right-wing justices have ever failed to support?) But at least it wasn't a secret. Never before has a sitting Supreme Court justice had such a politically active spouse, one intensely concerned with the Court's decisions. But these days, two-career families are the norm. There is a conflict between the appearance of impropriety in any judge and the right of his or her spouse.
But we already know how to handle that. The judge - even a Supreme Court justice - simply recuses himself from any decision where he or his spouse has a conflict of interest. It's simple enough - or it would be, if all this was out in the open. But not anymore. Now it's a secret. Now it's hidden behind anonymous contributions from wealthy individuals and corporations. The people involved, their intent, their ultimate goals - all hidden from public scrutiny.
Here's an example: In recent decades, we've been sending a flood of cash to oil-rich Muslim nations, enriching some of the worst despotisms on the planet. That money floods back into purchasing stock - and influence - in multinational corporations. Heck, the second largest stockholder in News Corp., the parent company of Fox "News," is a Muslim billionaire from Saudi Arabia.
Is it just coincidence that Fox "News" consistently supports Big Oil and fights against environmental issues, energy conservation, and alternate energy? And since that Supreme Court ruling, News Corp. has given a million dollars to the Republican Party and another million to the Chamber of Commerce to lobby for Republican policies (including, again, supporting Big Oil).
We always hear "follow the money." Who is benefiting from such policies? It's certainly not America. But Saudi Arabia definitely benefits - at least, the wealthy despots who run that country benefit.
Corporate money is a danger to our democracy. But at least, when it's out in the open, we have a chance to make up our own minds. Yes, it's very hard to compete against millions of dollars of corporate-funded advertising, but at least it's theoretically possible. However, when all this is a complete secret, just anonymous donors shoveling money around in secret, it's completely impossible. It's hard to object when you don't know what's going on.
And that's the whole point. This is where our nation has been headed for decades. Wealthy supporters of the Republican Party have not only gotten windfall tax breaks, they've also succeeded in packing our Supreme Court with far-right extremists. The Supreme Court then overturns precedent and opens the floodgates not just for corporate money, but anonymous money. The benefit goes right back to those wealthy supporters again, making them even wealthier. If this was an investment, they've gotten a good return on their money.
It's hard to imagine anyone thinking that corporations had too little power previously, but now, it's especially frightening. We citizens haven't been smart enough to stop this earlier, and now it's going to be much, much harder. Think about it. Who really thinks that anonymous is the way to go? What will fester in the dark, away from the light of public knowledge? Well, we won't know, will we? Not until it erupts into complete disaster.
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