"... a dollar contributed anonymously may be becoming less influential than a dollar contributed by a real person." Let's hope so.

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'Dark money' begins to sully campaigns
Our View: Anonymous donations are now starting to hurt the campaigns they're supposed to help.
By Editorial Board, The Republic, October 3, 2014

American elections now are four years into the Citizens United era, which, depending on your point of view, either unleashed corporations to spend countless millions in "dark money" on an unprepared political system, or freed the First Amendment from 35 years of artificial, post-Watergate bondage.

Take your pick. Like it or not, a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions culminating in 2010's Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission, has altered the terrain of campaign financing.

But there is another effect on our elections prompted by the growth of so-called "dark money," and it is one that contributors who wish to remain anonymous ought to consider:

Efforts to influence elections anonymously are fast becoming the issue itself. They are coming to dominate the debate landscape.

In a cost-benefit analysis of the value of a dollar — or a million dollars — contributed to an anonymous, independent-expenditure campaign, dark-money contributors may no longer be getting the bang for the buck that they once thought they'd get.

From the start, the most contentious impact of Citizens United has been to permit unions and corporations to make virtually unlimited contributions to non-profit, independent campaign organizations. Limitations on contributions flowing to individual candidates remain in effect, but the net consequence of Citizens United has been to enable organizations whose sources of funding often are veiled to spend heavily on many of our most important elections.

Thus, the rise of dark money. The debate over dark money in American elections has become so compelling, so controversial, that its presence often overwhelms the issues and the candidates themselves.

A mere glance at the top Arizona political story of the day — a burgeoning controversy surrounding Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Ducey and his contributions from the billionaire Koch brothers, as well as from at least two dark-money non-profit organizations — tells that tale.

On Friday, The Arizona Republic reported on Ducey's connection to the largely libertarian Koch brothers, including his attendance at an event in California hosted by the brothers.

Is all that attention paid to people who, when all is said and done are merely exercising their right to free speech as the law allows, fair? Perhaps not entirely.

According to the campaign-finance website Open Secrets, Koch Industries dwells far down on the list of known political contributors — at No. 59 — over the past 25 years. And, for that matter, of the top 20 organizations contributing to political campaigns over that period, 15 of them contribute overwhelmingly to Democratic candidates and liberal causes. With more than $121 million contributed from 1989 to 2014, the liberal Act Blue political-action committee is the nation's most well-heeled contributor.

But the accent is on the word "known." Since Citizens United, the influence of unknown political contributors has burgeoned. And, commensurately, so has the admittedly cynical suspicion among voters that murky and powerful special interests are playing puppeteer with the American political process.

That dampens the influence of anonymous contributions. In short, a dollar contributed anonymously may be becoming less influential than a dollar contributed by a real person.
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