Republicans Are Suing The FEC to Give The Koch Brothers More Power To Steal Your Vote

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To take another axe to the nearly non-existent campaign finance rules in a post Citizens United world, the Republican National Committee sued the Federal Election Commission on Friday according to the AP, because they want to be able to raise unlimited money, like their buddies the Super PACs. “Republican officials emphasized the move was to seek parity with super PACs, which have grown in influence since 2010 and can help a few deep-pocketed donors exercise incredible influence.”

Now that the court has given Super PACs so much “freedom” with “speech”, the RNC feels it’s being treated unfairly and requests the same alleged freedoms of speech. Here’s how to keep moving that goal post, per the AP:

The central committee, chairman Reince Priebus and Louisiana Republicans filed a joint lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking for permission to set up an independent account that could raise and spend potentially enormous sums of money to help federal candidates. Under the current rules, the RNC may only accept $32,400 each year from donors, and local-level parties are capped at $10,000.

“The patchwork of limits on political speech undermines the First Amendment and puts high transparency, full-disclosure groups like the RNC on an unequal footing with other political entities,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement. “We are asking that political parties be treated equally under the law.”

For the “both sides do it” chorus, once again Republicans are trying to steal elections from the people and hand them over to the wealthy. They do this by taking an ice pick to campaign finance laws in every way possible.

The RNC has helped to chip away at campaign finance rules in recent years, most recently joining a lawsuit that ended a two-year, $123,200 aggregate limit on donations. Now, donors can give the maximum amount to as many candidates as they want. The caps on how much a donor can give to each candidate, however, remain.

Republicans also fight legislatively to keep these dark money donations secret, voting against bills like the DISCLOSE Act (Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act), which was created in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. The Act would have banned campaign spending by corporations that have significant foreign ownerships and corporations that have received federal bailout money and forced disclosure of corporate money behind groups Freedom Works.

As Harry Reid said recently, the Koch brothers are trying to remake the Republican Party. The point of this lawsuit is to let the Koch brothers, and other right wing billionaires, directly buy the RNC. Of course, Republicans don’t want the world to know that they are owned by a few billionaires, so they are opposed to any actual transparency, but they definitely want those Koch dollars.

Republicans haven’t learned anything from their wasted money in 2012. They still think that if they mess around with the rules enough, they can find the magic formula to buy the White House. Instead of fighting the Koch brothers for control of the Republican Party, the RNC has decided to hang a for sale sign on the front door.

This all part of the Republican plot to equate democracy with dollars, and to make money more powerful than votes. As long as the people continue to vote, the Koch brothers and the Republican Party will fail. The Koch brothers can buy almost anything, but they can’t buy your vote.