Untraceable dark money is making state Supreme Courts more conservative
By Lisa Needham -January 9, 2020 10:05 AM
A new report shows just how pervasive — and influential — dark money has become in state courts.
The harmful effect of dark money in national political races is well-recognized, but the role of untraceable unlimited funding at the state judicial level is often ignored. A recent report from the Brennan Center shows just how pervasive — and influential — dark money has become in state Supreme Court races. And that dark money is helping the GOP reshape state courts.
Of course, this all goes back to the Citizens United decision, which held that this sort of spending, bottomless and hidden from oversight, was perfectly fine. With that, it was likely inevitable that state Supreme Courts would become an attractive target for special interest groups.
Spending large sums on state Supreme Court races is still a relative bargain. It's much cheaper to spend money at the state level to change the composition of the court than to install elected officials at the national level. With 39 states using some form of elections for members of the highest state courts, they're a ripe target.
The Brennan Center found that special interest groups accounted for 27% of all state Supreme Court election spending from 2017 to 2018. As a point of comparison, the report points out that over the last 20 years, congressional elections have never seen interest groups account for more than 19% of all spending in a cycle.
https://americanindependent.com/state-supreme-courts-dark-money-gop-citizens-united-republicans/
And yet the Impeachment trial, when it will be held, will be overseen by the chief justice, that thinks that money is "free speech"...........................and basically got this country what we have today ......................
November 3, 2020 cannot get here fast enough....................
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