Money Tail wags the Money Dog.........

How Super PACs Can Run Campaigns

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

The 2016 presidential campaign has barely begun, but it is already clear this will be the super contest of the “super PACs” — the fast evolving political money machines that are irresistible to candidates because they can legally raise unlimited money from donors seeking favor and influence.

The idea of a super PAC created to support an individual candidate was little more than an experiment four years ago when strategists for Mitt Romney tested its potential after misguided court decisions shattered federal limits on spending on elections. President Obama, after initially denouncing unlimited contributions, used a super PAC in his re-election.

Money poured in, and this year all the major candidates, Republican and Democratic, will be counting on supposedly “independent” super PACs. They will be able to benefit from funds far greater than the amounts allowed under current regulations, which limit contributions to a candidate’s formal campaign organization to $2,700 per donor in the primary contests and $2,700 in the general election.

Super PACs are supposedly independent of the candidate’s campaign, but that distinction has just about vanished. In fact, strategists for the campaign of Jeb Bush are reportedly considering turning over some of the campaign’s central functions to their “independent” Right to Rise super PAC, making it the super-lucrative tail that wags the dog.

The difference in fund-raising power between the two political entities runs into hundreds of millions of dollars. The Bush campaign’s potential move could mean having the super PAC take over not just television advertising and direct mail, but a host of other campaign duties, according to The Associated Press. This would essentially amount to making the super PAC the true campaign center, without money limits that would apply to traditional campaigns.

Federal law prohibits coordination between the candidates’ organizations and the super PACs. That ban is fast becoming a fiction, with federal election regulators uninterested and unable to enforce the law. The result is that some of the candidates’ closest political advisers and managers are now going off to take charge of super PACs, where they manage the unlimited money pouring in for their candidates.

For example, Mike Murphy, Mr. Bush’s longtime political adviser, is reportedly expected to manage the Bush super PAC. Experienced operatives could skirt the non-coordination rule and do what a candidate needs without explicitly working with the campaign organization. Other super PACs likewise have already installed campaign loyalists at their helms while proclaiming non-coordination.

A legal challenge to this way of doing business, being prepared by two political watchdog groups, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, cites a law that bars a candidate or his proxies from effectively controlling an independent entity like a super PAC.

Unfortunately, no one in politics expects the dysfunctional Federal Election Commission to follow through on the complaint. The Justice Department has said it might look deeper into campaign abuses, but Mr. Bush and the other candidates insist they strictly adhere to the regulatory process, such as it is.

Not so incidentally, Mr. Bush has been freely raising money for his super PAC since he is not yet a formally declared candidate, so coordination isn’t even an issue.