INFLUENCE OF SUPER PACS IN US POLITICS

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THE INFLUENCE OF SUPER PACS IN US POLITICS
Introduction
Each electioneering period in America seems to induce controversies related to funding of the political parties. During the presidential campaigns of 2008, Barack Obama, the current USA president became the first candidate in a general election to snub the citizen’s financing of political campaigns. This was his approach in avoiding regulations of having to comply with spending confinements. In 2008, Dean Howard and George Bush became the first Democrats and republican respectively to refuse public financing for a primary campaign. In addition, the Watergate financial regulations introduced by the Federal Election Commission were introduced around this time.
In the present perspective, Super PACs have been significant, particularly in the 2012 campaign. The Super PACs are indipendently-established committees, which offer support to a specific political candidate of their choice. Although they may not directly contribute to that candidate, they may run ads that show favoritism on their preferred candidate through the media.
Additionally, they can also run negative ads on the candidates that they oppose. A majority of the ads that are sponsored by these groups are found to be negative. Most of the operators of these PACs are found to be associated with the political figures that they support. A good example can be depicted from the PAC that supported HYPERLINK "/us/government/presidential-campaign-2012-mitt-romney.html"Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election. The managers of the PAC were literally his former aides (Rowen 2012, p1). The regulations require PACs to disclose their donors; however, there exists a technicality in this regulation, which allows the PAC donors to remain anonymous for some time.
The Influence of PACs in USA Political System
It has been observed that donors of the super PACs are not just common individuals but few elites and large firms. This means that contributions from the common citizens are utterly insignificant and therefore leaving these few elites to exercise much of their influence in the party affairs. In addition, they are left to manipulate the operations and manifestos of the parties they sponsor. In the last two years alone, super PACs have raised and average of $181 million. More than half of that money came from fewer than 200 elite individuals (Schoen, 2012).
It is therefore not surprising that the common American citizens are not very happy about the manner in which the super PACs influence the American politics. A survey carried out by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research indicated that 62% of the citizens were opposed to the Supreme Court’s Citizen United ruling. Additionally, more than three quarters of the respondents opined that, politicians should make reforms pertaining to campaign funding a “major” issue. On the same note, another stud...