Democrats got a huge win as Republican billionaires are no longer going to be able to fund dark money express advocacy ads without having their identity disclosed.
CREW, who filed the lawsuit against Crossroads GPS and the FEC, said in a statement:
The Supreme Court today denied a stay, and lifted a temporary stay by Chief Justice Roberts, in Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s (CREW) landmark dark money case against Crossroad GPS and the Federal Election Commission (FEC). This decision, following similar decisive decisions by the district court and court of appeals this week, means that effective immediately, anyone making more than $250 in express advocacy ads — ads that tell viewers who to vote for or against — must now disclose the identities of all contributors who gave more than $200 in a year. They must also identify who among those contributors earmarked their contributions for express ads. Because of this decision, the contributors for a major category of dark money spending this fall will have to be disclosed to the public.
“This is a great day for transparency and democracy,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said. “Three courts, including the Supreme Court, have now rejected Crossroads’ arguments for a stay, meaning we’re about to know a lot more about who is funding our elections.”
There is now a cost for Republican billionaires who run attack ads
Shady dark money groups are no longer going to be able to sprout up out of nowhere, run millions of dollars in attack ads, and then vanish. The names of donors will now be required to be disclosed. One of the major selling points for these billionaires was that their names and the names of their businesses never had to be attached to these activities. That has all changed now.
People are going to finally find out who is funding our elections and what expect to gain. The missing link has always been the who part of the equation. The dark money has gone in, the attacks have come out, but voters had no idea whose money was driving these elections.
It is a great day for democracy, Democrats, and the voters of the United States of America.
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Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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