FEC ILLEGALLY IGNORES SPENDING BY ROVE´S CROSSROADS GPS GROUP

...Karl Rove, developer of anonymous political spending organizations.



Karl Rove, also known as "Bush´s Brain", his past illegal election activities actually pale when compared to those of today.

Well, as has been predicted, due to the Citizens-United decision by the highly activists, conservative US Supreme Court, this will by far be the most expensive mid-term election in the history of US elections.

Republican strategist Karl Rove recently boasted on Faux News (Now, where else would Rove do something like that?) that his two new organizations are the best places for donors to go after they have maxed out on giving to Republican election committees. He is of course, referring to places for trying to influence the upcoming mid-term elections.

However, Mr. Rove may be in for a big surprise and he may be setting himself up for a congressional investigation. Rove´s Crossroads GPS, is legally not supposed to be focused on political activity because of the tax code under which it was set up. Still, both groups, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, are spending like there´s no tomorrow on GOP political ads. What is so troubling is not just that the American public doesn´t know who is donating all the funding, it is apparently being done by a very small group of millionaires and billionaires. And they may also be from organizations outside of the US.

It has now been reported that out of a total of only 345 contributors between Sept. 1 and Oct. 13, just five of Crossroad´s donors contributed 88% of the organization´s total funds. These organizations are now being referred to as "super PAC´s" (Political Action Committees) affiliated with the former Bush White House Senior Adviser, Rove, and the former Republican National Committee Chairman, Ed Gillespie. Crossroads has raised $14,778,673 for September and the first two weeks of October alone, according to Federal Elections Commission (FEC) reports. In other words, 5 donors contributed $13 million of the latest total funding.

Public Citizen and Protect Our Elections has now filed a complaint with the FEC asking the federal agency commission to investigate whether Crossroads GPS is breaking numerous campaign finance laws, including the failure to register as a political committee. Crossroads has also failed to file committee financial disclosure reports and they have failed to comply with political committee organizational requirements.

The President of Public Citizen, Robert Weissman has stated: "American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS are this year´s poster children for everything wrong with our campaign finance system in the wake of the Supreme Court´s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, The decision [has] paved the way for unlimited corporate spending on elections, and more generally signaled that the Wild West rules now prevail for elections. Yet Crossroads GPS manages to transgress the modest rules still in place, failing to register with the Federal Election Commission as a political committee. We need the FEC to act to redress this apparently wrongful activity. More than that, we need Congress to pass the DISCLOSE Act, so we know which corporations and billionaires are behind the attack ads now polluting our airwaves. We need Congress to pass the Fair Elections Now Act, to replace the private election financing system now poisoning our democracy. And we need a constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision and get corporate money out of elections."

The US Supreme Court´s ruling in Citizens United has ushered in a flood of corporate money into this year´s election. Major corporations, companies and wealthy business executives are now donating to these bogus proxy groups (such as Rove´s) so they can continue to remain anonymous.

What is so disturbing is that the Citizens United ruling, while protecting the rights of corporations to spend freely, did uphold requirements that the outside groups spending money on campaigns must identify their donors. The FEC has however, all but ignored campaign spending by these independent organizations. Last month, Public Citizen released a report that found only 32% of the outside groups spending money on the midterm elections were disclosing their donors, compared to almost 100% in the 2004 election.

The problem is that the FEC has been very busy this year doing things other than enforcing election law. Unfortunately, it´s all a big mystery, as no one seems to know just what those other FEC "things" might be.

While the country waits for the FEC to get "off its royal butt" to review the complaint against Rove and Gillespie, maybe something will come from the Illinois Senator Dick Durbin´s request for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to look into Crossroads GPS´ 501(c)(4) tax status. It has now been written in the congressional Roll Call report that the Illinois Senator has asked the IRS to investigate how Crossroads and other outside organizations are raising and spending money on campaigns this year.

Unfortunately, with only a week to go before the election, I seriously doubt that we will know who these donors are, (if ever) until well after the election.

Copyright: G.Ater 2010

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