The Blatant Quid Pro Quo

The basis of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision is the assumption that the presence of unlimited amounts of money in political campaigns does not lead to corruption, or even the appearance of corruption. The incredibly naive assumption they're making is that when people donate money to political campaigns there is no quid pro quo expected.

The Supreme Court should hear what some of these donors have been saying recently to see how campaign donations work in practice. From an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Bob Cummins, who has donated more than $3.5 million to Minnesota Republican causes, is telling allies he has had it with Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature and will not give their campaigns any cash this year, according to multiple sources.

The reason? Cummins paid Republicans to put a union-busting "right-to-work" amendment on the 2012 ballot, and they failed to do so. Instead, they put a voter suppression "voter ID" amendment and an anti-gay "marriage" amendment on the ballot.


The Republicans wanted to bust the unions, but they feared a backlash that would bring a flood of union money and a big labor turnout on election day that would defeat all three amendments and their Republican backers. Since this is a redistricting year, the whole legislature is up for grabs--there are no "safe" Senate seats. If there's a huge Democratic turnout in 2012 the Republicans will lose control of the House and Senate, which they took in 2010.

Now, you can see why Cummins is mad. He gave a quarter million dollars to Republicans last year, expecting them to pass a union-busting amendment. All he got was this stupid gay marriage amendment. The Republicans just aren't doing what he paid them for.

Everyone assumes that there's an unspoken quid pro quo associated with campaign contributions, but big Republican donors aren't even hiding it anymore. They have publicly announced that they expect direct and immediate action when they give politicians money.


Cummins and Grover Norquist are committing blatant political extortion and assassination. Norquist has already driven several conservative Republican icons such as Dick Lugar from office because they were too accommodating to their constituents' concerns: i.e., working with Democrats to actually get things done.

Republicans will come to regret Citizens United and the increasingly demonic role of money in politics. Soon, it won't matter how conservative you are: the only thing that will matter is how much pork you provide your corporate donors. Business interests will quickly diverge from mainstream conservative thought and focus purely on promoting a corporate kleptocracy that has no ideology other than money.

You need look no further than Mitt Romney's campaign promises: he would cut all government expenditures, except for defense. Why? Defense spending goes directly into the pockets of giant corporations. The same old military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about.