The campaign literature that arrived in North Carolina Republican mailboxes this week was disturbing. One side had an ultrasound image of a human fetus with a message that read: we all know that. Only a few brave people can protect her. ” On the other side was a call to action: “You have the courage and conviction to vote for Randall Terry.”
But the sender of the mailer was not a supporter of Terry, a third-party presidential candidate and longtime leader of the anti-abortion movement.
Rather, the fine print reveals that it is a sneaky campaign called Civic Truth Action, funded by millions of dollars in hard-to-trace funds tied to Democrats seeking to elect Vice President Kamala Harris as the next vice president. It was shown to be the work of a new super PAC with the same name. president.
The final days of high-stakes elections are often a time for political shenanigans. The message promoted by Civic Truth Action, purported to support Terry, may be one of the most cynical yet aimed at siphoning votes from former President Donald J. Trump. I don’t know. But it’s by no means unique. Across the country, Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump’s allies are taking advantage of a patchwork of lax laws that allow partisans to funnel millions of dollars into powerful campaign tactics through a daisy chain of opaque groups. It is trying to shake up the size of political parties. Some voters in battleground states could make a difference.
Campaign workers and donors have long deployed creative accounting techniques to hide the flow of political money. But 15 years after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision paved the way for unlimited spending on political advertising, large sums of money were spent in the weeks before Election Day, despite the majority’s assertion that: It becomes especially difficult to follow the flow. Prompt disclosure of political spending will enable voters to make informed decisions.
“It’s clear now that the court got those predictions wrong,” said Ian Vandewalker, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive nonprofit that works to reduce the influence of big money in politics. That is something that cannot be denied.” Vande Walker this week published an analysis of the rise in hard-to-trace funding to super PACs. “Being able to hide the funding for these types of things is attractive to people who want to get involved in dirty tricks,” he said in an interview.
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