Exclusive: How corporations secretly move millions to fund political ads

Link To Article

The Supreme Court’s seismic January ruling that corporations are free to spend unlimited amounts of their profits to advertise for or against candidates may have been the latest shakeup of campaign finance – but gaping holes already allow corporations to spend enormous sums without leaving a paper trail, a Raw Story investigation has found.

Campaign finance experts confirmed that though disclosure rules remained intact in the new Supreme Court decision, there are effective methods to circumvent them.

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, an attorney and campaign finance expert at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, said corporations already effectively end-run campaign finance law by shuffling money through trade associations.

“One of their favorites right now is spending through trade associations,” Torres-Spelliscy said.

Well i'm sure this is kind of old news as we all already knew this

Just goes to show you, whether you are a republican or democrat it means NOTHING!

Trade associations are considered tax-exempt non-profit organizations under US law. While they must report contributions received from other corporations to the Internal Revenue Service, the document itself remains confidential and is not made available to the public.

WOW, how convenient!

“Money coming through the trade association doesn’t get disclosed,” Torres-Spelliscy explained. “You can’t tell if it came from particular corporations.”

For example, she said, “The disclaimer form is likely to just say, ‘This is brought to you by the Chamber of Commerce,’ with no extra ability to see behind that.”

The Chamber of Commerce is the world’s largest trade association representing 300,000 businesses and organizations.

A fellow non-profit that works on campaign finance, the Center for Political Accountability, calls trade associations “the Swiss bank accounts of American politics.”

“What was the lesson from Watergate?” Torres-Spelliscy quipped. “Follow the money?”

That's what I've always said, follow the money
Even when it comes to Wars and terroism.
Follow the money!

Trade associations such as America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) have had an enormous impact on the health insurance reform bills pending in Congress. In fact, AHIP was recently found to have solicited $10 million to $20 million from leading health insurance companies -- UnitedHealth, Wellpoint, Aetna, Cigna and Humana among them -- and funneled it secretly to the US Chamber of Commerce to underwrite anti-reform attack ads.

Disgusting!
Repulsive

Also check this
undertheinfluence.nationaljournal.com...

Well, on the bright side, at least now they dont have to be secret about it.


-sighs- Democracy is doomed...well, has been for awhile. Ultimately when the dollar broke away from the gold standard is when we fell.

The nation and any accountability in financing has been dead since 1971

Originally posted by SaturnFX
Well, on the bright side, at least now they dont have to be secret about it.


-sighs- Democracy is doomed...well, has been for awhile. Ultimately when the dollar broke away from the gold standard is when we fell.

The nation and any accountability in financing has been dead since 1971

Actually more like 1871...

It more or less began with corporations gaining the rights of citizens, even though they are not... just my opinion, of course.