The magazine of the North Carolina Center for Voter Education • Saturday May 19, 2012

In Campaign Spending Farce, Special Interests Could Have Last Laugh

By Damon Circosta
Published: Oct. 18, 2011

RALEIGH - Stephen Colbert is no stranger to Carolina politics. His television show, “The Colbert Report,” has featured stories on the Wake County School Board and East Carolina University biology professors. But the comedian’s latest shtick has both campaign finance reformers and special interest groups smirking, albeit for very different reasons.

Colbert, a South Carolina native, has enlisted election experts and a preeminent campaign finance lawyer to create a real-life political action committee, or PAC. Thanks in part to the landmark 2010 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC, Colbert’s PAC can spend unlimited amounts of money to influence federal elections.

What’s worse, the high-powered lawyers he has as guests on his show have essentially given him a blueprint to spend these large amounts of cash without anyone knowing who is doing the spending. These entertaining comedy segments highlight the absurdity of a democracy where a few people (or corporations) can spend millions telling everyone how to vote and never have to say who they are.

The campaign finance reformers are laughing because Colbert has made an arcane component of election law entertaining. They are hopeful his mirthful examination of money in politics will bring attention to their cause. Wealthy special interests are laughing because they are free to spend vast sums to keep our elected officials in their back pocket, and the average citizen gets to know nothing about it.

Concern about big money being able to buy our democracy isn’t new. In fact, most of the reforms that were undermined by the Citizens United ruling were enacted in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Our society really hasn’t been as engrossed with money-in-politics issues since those heady days in the 1970s. Back then, TV sets were glowing with stories about CEOs flying into Washington with bags full of money to stash with the Committee to Re-elect the President (aptly abbreviated as CREEP).

In those days the forum for discussions about campaign finance was televised hearings of the Senate Watergate Committee. North Carolina’s own Sen. Sam Irvin would interrogate witnesses and chase down the facts. The American public was riveted as we watched one Nixon administration official after another speak of slush funds, secret money and payola.

Back then we were incredulous. It was almost beyond belief that some of our most admired companies would be engaged in something so seedy.  We wanted to know exactly who was involved and how our democracy was being put up for sale.

These days, such serious attention to our campaign finance system is in short supply. Most often news stories about campaign finance only get covered if there is a more salacious angle. John Edwards asking wealthy donors to stash away his mistress is broadcast news. Stories of large corporations using newfound loopholes and vast sums of cash to sway an election are most prominently discussed on Colbert’s late-night comedy program.

The issues of campaign finance reform featured on “The Colbert Report” will not, in and of themselves, restore our democracy. But with protestors on both the left and the right very concerned about bank bailouts and corporate power, perhaps it’s time all of us started paying attention to how our elections are financed. 

Watching Stephen Colbert lampoon the mess that has become of our campaign finance laws makes for some funny television. But the joke will be on us if we don’t fix our election system.