All Checks, No Balances: Campaign Finance Sells Out

Thanks to the Supreme Court, corporations are free to spend whatever they want on elections. They just don’t want to be seen doing it.

Peter Stone — Mother Jones

For much of the past decade, the Business Industry Political Action Committee has been a powerful force in helping tilt elections for corporate-friendly candidates. The blue-ribbon business group, made up of more than 400 companies and trade associations—from Lockheed Martin to the American Petroleum Institute and the Financial Services Roundtable—maintains the “Prosperity Project,” which includes a state-of-the-art database to track candidates’ stands on issues from regulation to taxes to health care.

Many of BIPAC’s members circulate this analysis (PDF) to their employees. In the past, that’s all a company could do—provide employees information it hoped would prod them to vote for pro-business candidates. But now, thanks to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling, these corporations will be able to go much further. They’ll be able to tell employees exactly, and in detail, which politicians their bosses favor—in effect, campaigning directly in the workplace.

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