Inquirer Editorial: Money wins elections

Now is not the time to surrender in the fight to preserve this country's campaign-finance laws.

If Super PACs, the bottomless political money buckets of choice for corporations, wealthy individuals, and unions, are allowed to work hand in glove with a candidate's campaign, the 2012 political races will become a carnival of boundless influence peddling.

American Crossroads, a political action committee affiliated with Republican strategist Karl Rove, has asked the weak-kneed Federal Election Commission if it can feature candidates in ads that reiterate that candidate's campaign messages.

But just because a Republican group wants to tear down the rules that ban candidates from working with Super PACs, don't think Democrats aren't taking notes.

Since the 1970s, the U.S. Supreme Court has acknowledged that corruption may be limited by restricting how much money special interests can give to candidates. That is why federal candidates cannot accept direct donations from corporations, unions, or other special interests. It's why contributions from individuals and political action committees are capped.

But a Crossroads deal would blow away the restrictions by making a candidate's campaign indistinguishable from a PAC's operations. It would allow Super PACs to work side by side with a candidate's campaign, pumping out television ads or slick brochures - as needed, and on message.

Such a high level of complicity between Super PACs and candidates would put politicians under even more pressure than they are now to pay attention to big donors who want government contracts, approvals, or special legislation.

To draw heat away from its odious request, Crossroads says it is simply asking to do what U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.) is doing in that state. Nelson, who is up for reelection in 2012, is featured in ads developed and paid for by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which is a PAC. That led Nebraska Republicans to file a complaint with the FEC.

However, little can be expected from the commission, which has been deadlocked in a partisan split since 2008. The terms of five of the six FEC commissioners have expired, but President Obama hasn't replaced them.

That means another 3-3 vote is likely when the FEC takes up the Crossroads case in December, and the tie will effectively give the Super PACs permission to work with candidates.

Obama needs to appoint true advocates for voters to the FEC, and the Senate must confirm those appointments, so that the commission can start acting in the public's interest and stop being led by partisan politics.

If Super PACs are allowed to join a candidate's campaign, elections to an even greater extent will be decided by cash. It will worsen the environment created by the courts' ruling last year that corporations have the same free-speech rights as an individual to finance campaigns.