Registering a Super PAC appears to be as easy as an individual sending a letter and form to the FEC. The people doing the registering are often unheard-of front people, with no resources themselves; many don't even maintain a Web site or any further information. It's the corporations behind these groups, the actual donors, that are so incredibly hidden. Often these corporations are shams themselves, straw companies, in effect, that disappear after the donation is made. Untangling it is a holy mess:
The Legal Center and Democracy 21 have been at the center of the corporate contributions controversies surrounding the pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future. The two reform groups filed a complaint calling for an investigation into the alleged $1 million donation from the short-lived corporation W Spann's to the pro-Romney group.
The reform groups are now calling for an investigation into two other obscure corporate donations to Restore Our Future, Eli Publishing and F8, LLC, for making contributions in someone else's name.
"The enforcement agencies need to send a clear message to donors that they need to put their name on the check if they're going to be giving to Super PACs and I hope that reporters are taking a close look at filings by other Super PACs so that these types of abuses are smoked out," the Campaign Legal Center's Ryan said in a statement. "The fact that Restore Our Future has been the recipient of all three mysterious $1 million contributions warrants exploration of the PAC's knowledge of or involvement in this 'straw company' donation scheme."
The Huffington Post previously reported that the Utah state business records show that Eli Publishing and F8, LLC are registered with one of the founders of the Provo, Utah-based marketing company Nu Skin Enterprises and a lawyer connected to the company.
Unlike human beings, corporate donors need only disclose the name of the company, which in the case of W Spann provided no public information, and for Eli Publishing and F8, LLC provides little immediate information. That problem extends to many of the other corporations giving to Super PACs that also have relatively obscure names with little immediately available information on the humans behind the contributions.
2GIG Technologies, B/E Aerospace, National Label Company and R.P. Lumber Co. are just some of the obscure names that appear on Restore Our Future's disclosure report. The reports filed by American Crossroads and other groups also contain corporate names that have little distinguishing characteristics and are often subsidiaries of bigger companies
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/11/super-pac-corporate-donations_n_924865.htmlBefore we can talk about lawsuits, I still maintain that laws have to be put in place to make the process wholly transparent. Otherwise, we're just going to institute an entire industry of "smoke-out" litigation that will provide its own inner justification for existence, because its bound to be incredibly remunerative. Better yet, reverse Citizens United. Take the whole thing back to SCOTUS somehow. Otherwise, we're just going to have everybody trying to sue everybody else, and vice versa and so forth, and it's an incredible waste of time and resources.
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