Money talks in elections

President Obama says Americans should demand a better political system by clearing out the undue influence of money. But voters have been making that demand for years only to see a smug political class ignore them.

The Federal Elections Commission, evenly divided with three Democratic appointees and three Republicans, is supposed to enforce campaign finance laws. But it has been hopelessly deadlocked along partisan lines for years. Before 2008, according to Public Citizen, the FEC voted on about 727 enforcement actions a year. That has dropped to 178.

The FEC has not effectively reacted to the Supreme Court's ill-conceived Citizens United ruling in 2010, which permits unlimited corporate donations to political campaigns, nor to other court decisions allowing secret money to flow into races.

Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Service has done a poor job of determining whether nonprofit groups are real charities that may legally withhold donors' names or fronts shielding secret contributors. And the Securities and Exchange Commission shot down a rule requiring publicly traded corporations to disclose political spending.

The Citizens United ruling left the door open for better disclosure of political donations, but reformers in Congress have been unable to climb over Republican opposition to get a better law passed. At least Obama thought the problem was important enough to mention in his final State of the Union address. But talk of an executive order on disclosure has died down.

"I believe we have to reduce the influence of money in our politics so that a handful of families and hidden interests can't bankroll our elections," said Obama. If he believes that, he should jump-start the reform effort by issuing an order requiring federal contractors to disclose all political spending, including secret donations to supposed nonprofits.

That won't cover all that is wrong with too much money in politics, but it would open the eyes of stockholders and customers so they can decide whether they agree with the kind of politics their money is financing. If they don't, they just might choose different stocks or buy different products.

An executive order on federal contracts would also encourage those who have unsuccessfully battled for campaign finance reform. It's what voters want. A recent New York Times/CBS poll showed that 84 percent of Americans believe money has too much influence on elections.

That influence is evident in a study by the nonpartisan Sunlight Foundation, which showed that 200 companies that invested $5.8 billion in politics between 2007 and 2012 received $4.4 trillion in federal contracts, tax loopholes, subsidies, and other favors. This should be a bigger issue in the presidential election, with candidates detailing how they would address it.