"Justice on the take"

Justice on the take

by Christopher Moraff at al Jazeera

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/12/judicial-electionsdarkmoneycitizensunitedjustice.html

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Outside groups helped make the 2014 elections the most expensive midterm campaigns in U.S. history. But it wasn't just aspiring governors and legislators who benefited from the flood of dark money unleashed by the 2010 Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission decision, which prohibited the government from restricting campaign contributions by nonprofit corporations and other independent groups.

Since 2011, special interest groups have significantly increased their targeting of judicial campaigns in the United States. Groups such as the Americans for Prosperity and the Center for Individual Rights — which are funded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch and exist largely, as Andy Kroll put it in Mother Jones, to “keep dark money in the dark” — have committed unprecedented sums to influence state judicial elections, including a number of key state supreme court retention races.

While overall spending declined from the last elections — in part due to the absence of contested races in the expensive states of Pennsylvania and Alabama — the 2014 electoral cycle broke several state spending records, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

In Tennessee a record $2.4 million, mostly in TV advertising, was funneled into three state Supreme Court retention races. Similarly, outside groups helped push fundraising for judicial candidates in North Carolina to $5.2 million — more than double the previous record. This comes barely a year after the state’s Republican-controlled legislature defeated a public-financing program designed to limit the influence of special interests on judicial elections.


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