More from The Lever on JD Vance's court case to get to Citizens United 2.0 for his donors
"... If the Supreme Court ends up hearing Vance’s new case, it would give the additional three President Donald Trump-appointed judges who were not on the court during Citizens United an opportunity to go even further than that landmark decision — an outcome hinted at by Justice Clarence Thomas in his Citizens United concurring opinion saying the ruling didn’t go far enough.
Experts say Vance’s lawsuit, as well as a new regulatory decision allowing a candidate to work hand in hand with a deep-pocketed outside election group, is part of a coordinated effort, decades in the making, to destroy the last vestiges of campaign finance laws designed to prevent the wealthy and the powerful from spending limitless amounts directly on candidates and demanding favors in return.
In 2010, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission used a relatively esoteric and narrow campaign finance dispute to issue a sweeping precedent removing restrictions on independent election expenditures as long as they were “not coordinated with a candidate.” The decision gave rise to “independent expenditure-only committees,” or super PACs, which are political action groups that can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns, so long as they do not directly coordinate such expenditures with candidates for public office.
Vance’s new lawsuit — filed alongside the National Republican Senatorial and Congressional Committees, and former Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) — aims to abolish some of the last barriers separating candidates and buckets of cash from corporations and wealthy donors. In specific, the case argues for permitting megadonors to use national party committees to directly coordinate their limitless spending directly with candidates...
“It’s a blatant power grab aimed at giving their corporate special interest and billionaire donors more power and influence over government,” deLaubenfels said in a statement to The Lever. “While we’re encouraged by the Sixth Circuit’s ruling to strike down this challenge, we have no faith in the corrupt Supreme Court majority.”
At the same time, a new Federal Elections Commission (FEC) ruling just removed one of the main firewalls stopping independent organizations like super PACs from using their unlimited pools of cash to directly work with candidates’ campaigns. The ruling was issued at the behest of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who wished to merge his campaign committee with a super PAC to create a joint fundraising committee.
Vance’s and Graham’s moves are a part of a decades-old master plan to dismantle laws aimed at curtailing corporate influence in elections. "
https://www.levernews.com/j-d-vances-master-plan-for-citizens-united-2-0/
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