Clinton 'gift' just more political slush funding

There's a longstanding debate about whether money is an inherently corrupting force in political campaigns. Those who argue in the affirmative say it amounts to government run by the highest bidder; others, like noted conservative columnist George Will, say limits on campaign financing amount to the "rationing of political speech" (Will's term).

So let's ask, for the sake of argument: If political money is "speech" -- if, as this line of reasoning goes, the slush-funding of political campaigns amounts simply to a First Amendment right -- then do we at least have the right to know who's "speaking"?

Given the current state of campaign finance law, the answer would appear to be a resounding no.

The issue of massive infusions of anonymous political cash was back in the news this week (not that it's ever long out of it) with the report of an untraceable $1 million super-PAC donation to Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign. This bit of "secret admirer" largess came just two weeks after Clinton railed publicly against "the endless flow of secret, unaccountable money" in politics.

Bald-faced hypocrisy aside, the donation spotlights -- not for the first or the hundredth time -- the swelling tide of virtually untraceable money in political campaigns.

A spokesman for the pro-Clinton PAC insisted their side is "playing by the rules," and that such funding is necessary "in the face of a billion-dollar onslaught by right-wing groups" which makes it impossible to "unilaterally disarm," etc., etc., etc. (The other side started it.)

As for the "rules" they're playing by, there appears to be precious little law showing through the loopholes. For instance, nonprofits don't have to disclose their donors. Super PACs do, so they get donations from nonprofits. See how it works?

A funding group for Marco Rubio has raised about $16 million, much of it anonymous. A super PAC for Ted Cruz raised $250,000 from a corporation made up of three other corporations, the ownership and financing of which are virtually untraceable, and so on.

It's the same problem Common Cause attorney Stephen Spaulding tried to lay out last month before a Senate committee (chaired by Ted Cruz): "partisan political operatives on the right and the left" that "collectively pump hundreds of millions of dollars from secret sources into our elections."

The $1 million donation to the Clinton campaign came to her PAC from another PAC, which got it from two nonprofits that don't have to reveal their donors. Former Common Cause President Fred Wertheimer, now director of another open-government group called Democracy 21, calls the system "an out-and-out laundering operation," and it's hard to argue.

On the other hand, most anonymous expression enjoys the same First Amendment protection as the identifiable kind. If political money is indeed just another form of speech, then the current system makes perfect sense and we can stop worrying about it.

This story was originally published August 11, 2015 at 4:32 PM with the headline "Clinton 'gift' just more political slush funding."