Mr. Colbert Goes to the FEC
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ShareVideo by Brad Shannon of the Huffington Post.
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Stephen Colbert enters FEC headquarters.
Photo by Nicko Margolies for the Sunlight Foundation
Even before the Supreme Court handed down its controversial decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (a 2010 ruling that allows corporations to spend unlimited money to influence elections), comedian Stephen Colbert has been using his signature style to lambast the legal findings underpinning the decision: that corporations are people, and that money is speech. During a 2009 show, he pointed out that "corporations do everything people do except breathe, die, and go to jail for dumping 1.3 million pounds of PCBs in the Hudson River."
On May 13, Colbert took his satire to a new level when he went to the Federal Election Commission to file the papers to form his own political action committee, to be called Colbert Super PAC. (Super PACs, officially called "independent expenditure-only committees," became legal following the Citizens United decision. They can accept unlimited donations to influence political elections, though they are prohibited from working directly with campaigns. American Crossroads, a super PAC founded by Karl Rove, is perhaps the best known.)
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"I believe in the American Dream," Colbert told the cheering crowd outside the FEC. "And that dream is simple: That anyone, no matter who they are, if they are determined, if they are willing to work hard enough, someday they can grow up to create a legal entity which can then receive unlimited corporate funds which can be used to influence elections."
While Colbert has joked about forming a super PAC before, he maintains that this time is for real. He presented the FEC with a request for an advisory opinion on whether Viacom (The Colbert Report's parent company) should be reported as a donor if Colbert uses his show's airtime to promote the PAC. The FEC's decision, due in 60 days, may have implications for others with super PACs and media contracts—for example, Rove and Sarah Palin.
Whatever happens, the legal and political complexity involved in Colbert's move highlights the extent to which our political system has changed as it's become more and more open to the influence of corporate cash. As Colbert joked, "we stand here on this historic site, where 250 years ago George Washington filed his papers to form his independent expenditure, non-connected political action committee..."
Brooke Jarvis is web editor for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions.
Interested?
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Who is behind the push for reform this time?
By Ryan Sager Published 03/18/2005 http://amendment10.tripod.com/jerrymaguire.htm
Excerpt:
That's because campaign-finance reform is not a "movement" as its proponents have claimed, it is a lobby -- funded and orchestrated by eight very liberal foundations which fooled Congress and the American people into believing that the front groups they set up were grassroots organizations.
Senator McConnell Smelled the Pew in 2001
http://amendment10.tripod.com/mcpew.htm
BIPARTISAN CAMPAIGN REFORM
ACT OF 2001—Resumed
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore.
The Senator from Kentucky.
Mr. MCCONNELL.
Who wins?
As I said the other day, who wins are people such as Jerome Kohlberg. This is the billionaire who has decided this is going to be his legacy. This is the full page ad he ran in the Washington Post the other day on behalf of this legislation. I suspect a lot of the lobbyists out in the hall right off the Senate floor are either on his payroll directly or indirectly. People such as Jerome Kohlberg and the big charitable foundations are underwriting the reform movement, hand in hand with the editorialpages of the Washington Post and the New York Times, which have editorialized on this subject an average of once every 6 days over the last 27 months.
At least in the Senate, they are going to get their way shortly, but this new world won’t take a penny out of politics, not a penny. It will all be spent. It just won’t be spent by the parties. It will be spent by the Jerome Kohlbergs of the world and all of the interest groups out there. As everyone knows, the restrictions on those interest groups will be struck down in court, if we get that far.