The great dodge in DC is “Nobody could have expected…” Which is gargantuan bullshit ninety-nine percent of the time. The Supreme Court ruled some years ago that then-President Clinton could be sued by his political adversaries over activities prior to his becoming President, with John Paul Stevens offering the notion that “…[the case] appears to us highly unlikely to occupy any substantial amount of [the President]’s time.” Now who could have possibly imagined that this would open the door for nuisance litigation leading to impeachment, given that it was 1997 and that the past four-plus years had been spent engaging in using every possible legal means to attack the President – including through the courts?
Now here we go again. The Supreme Court is using the “HOOCOODANODE” defense, as they are shocked, SHOCKED, that the ruling in Citizens United opened the door for one imperial shit-ton of third-party money to pour into the electoral system.
I’m going to make this simple: we have seen third-party money employed for some time now. Hell, some of the landmark moments in political advertising in recent years came via third-party efforts. (Willie Horton, anybody?) We also know full well what kind of enforcement mechanism the FEC actually has and how good they are at using it – to wit, NOT AT ALL. And even if they had enforcement power, what good would it do? If you’re going to allow unlimited money into politicking, exactly what is to prevent people just pouring in the cash and eating the fines later? Hell, once you’ve won the election, what do you care about a wrist-slap and a few thousand bucks and the “naughty naughty” lecture from some nameless bureaucrat or the woeful tears of the “good government” advocates?
Nothing that has happened with third-party money this year should be a surprise. Anybody with eighth-grade civics under their belt should have been able to see how this works. The fact that the Supreme Court didn’t – or wouldn’t – strongly suggests that they are either idiots or complicit. And the recent record of the Court strongly suggests the latter.