The new state of campaign finance

Just when I thought I’d seen it all, campaign 2012 started. From bases on the moon to Vice President Biden rooting for the Giants while campaigning in San Francisco, there is a never-ending source of fodder for us political chatterboxes.

Enter Steven Colbert, host of the late night show The Colbert Report. Never one to pass up the opportunity to point out the nincompoopery in our admittedly flawed political system, Colbert decided to run for president.

In June of last year, Colbert created the Steven Colbert Super PAC in the wake of the Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission Supreme Court ruling.

The Citizens United ruling, as it’s commonly referred to, allows essentially anyone to form a Super PAC and use the funds raised through both public and private donations to support any candidate’s bid for the presidency. The broad language in this ruling doesn’t even exclude supporting candidates that aren’t real, as evidenced by Colbert supporting “Rick Parry” in the Iowa caucus. (Yes, that’s Parry with an “a.”)

Colbert immediately went to work raising funds by standing on the courthouse steps soliciting donations from passersby to demonstrate the flaws he perceived in the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Although not serious in his venture to capture the Republican nomination for president, Colbert has rather effectively advanced his central message that “money equals speech.” Colbert has a point, although a misguided one. Private industry has the right to protect itself. However, in Colbert’s points about how the money is handled he is dead on. There needs to be a drastic increase in transparency, accountability, and harsh penalties for those who choose not to follow the letter of the law.

The Supreme Court was correct in its ruling. Free speech is a constitutionally protected right, but the explosive proliferation of these Super PACs show that our campaign finance laws need to be constantly reexamined. Politics is big money business and an unscrupulous one at that. Over and over, we see people on both sides of the aisle doing whatever they can to circumvent our laws.

The reporting deadline has come and gone. We will start to see the names of these political whales who are dumping literally millions of dollars into the airwaves across the presidential caucuses and primaries.

I do not have a problem with the amounts, but rather with the lame disclosure requirements. The first full disclosure in six months comes along after the biggest of the early contests, Florida, already cast its votes. Out of the early nominating states, Florida is the prize, for it has more delegates this year than all the earlier states combined. To make matters worse, this disclosure only covers the period up until the last day of the year, meaning that the oodles of dough spent in the days leading up to New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida and Nevada are not publicly available. There will be no more disclosures during the rest of the key primary season.

In the wake of Citizens United, Congress introduced the DISCLOSE act to try and address some of these issues. On a near party line vote, DISCLOSE survived the House of Representatives, but died at the hands of a filibuster in the Senate.

All 59 Senate Democrats voted for cloture, but not a single Republican defected. I’m looking at you, Sen. McCain.

The right to free speech in this country is sacrosanct, but with rights come responsibilities. The American people deserve to know where every election dollar comes from, and as we look toward a $2 billion election, it saddens me that although we will eventually get the disclosure we deserve, it may be too late.