Attention shoppers: If you’re looking for a super buy, be sure to check out the “Family PAC.”
This is not a gross of toilet paper rolls packaged in plastic wrap but a newly-invented political money scam. It lets the rich families of congressional candidates dump gross amounts of money into their darlings’ campaigns, bypassing the $2,600 legal limit they can give as individuals.
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Both Republicans and Democrats are using this FamilyPAC Loophole – another “gift” from the Supreme Court’s ridiculous decree that money is “speech.” By definition, that perversion of language and nature by the Court means that speech is not free, but a commodity to be purchased in bulk by those who have the most money.
For example, Gabriel Rothblatt, running for Congress as a Democrat in Florida, is being backed by a supposedly-independent PAC that, so far, has raised $225,000 to “speak” on his behalf. The law says that these “outside” campaigns cannot coordinate in any way with the candidates they support, and Rothblatt plays along with this joke by insisting that he has no idea where this PAC came from or what it’s doing. How strange, since every dime of the PAC’s funding came from Gabriel’s mom. He says that her financial backing and the speech she’s buying for him is a total surprise, for it never came up in family conversations.
Likewise, Republican senate wannabe Ben Sasse is backed by a Family PAC funded entirely by his rich granduncle, and GOP senate nominee Dan Sullivan in Alaska is supported by a PAC getting the bulk of its money from his family and their business associates.
Why would we want anyone in office who uses such a blatantly corrupt ploy then – with a big wink – insults us with the “I had no idea” lie? To help stop this money game, connect with www.mayday.us.
“The Custom-Made ‘SuperPAC,” The New York Times, August 4, 2014.
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