Two days ago, the Washington Post published the results of a survey it conducted, which indicated a majority of Americans could not properly explain what a super PAC is. Ironically, the Post ran a story today on the Massachusetts U.S. Senate race to fill the seat of former Sen. John Kerry, in which it reported, “[Democratic candidate Ed] Markey has accepted more than $3 million from out-of-state super PACs . . . .”
This is demonstrably false, and it must come as news to Markey’s campaign that it “accepted” more than $3 million from super PACs. Under federal law, it is strictly prohibited for candidate campaigns to “accept” even a penny from a super PAC, whether it is in the form of direct monetary contributions or coordinated advertising. And if a super PAC ad is not coordinated with the candidate, then it is misleading to suggest that a candidate has “accepted” the super PAC’s support.
As CCP Chairman Brad Smith has written, much of the public opposition to the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision, which paved the way for super PACs, is based on widespread misunderstanding of the ruling and its effects. Smith’s observation is borne out by both the Post survey from this Tuesday and the Post’s article today. We cannot have a proper debate on whether Citizens United should be repealed, or the merits of legislation like the so-called “DISCLOSE Act” or Wyden-Murkowski, or attempts to have the SEC force corporations to disclose their political spending, until there is proper public understanding of the legal status quo. Media outlets like the Washington Post have a journalistic responsibility to foster such public understanding by being more accurate with its own reporting on campaign finance law.
The Post’s story today also illustrates another more specific debate currently pending before the Federal Election Commission. Recently, the comment period closed for the FEC’s request for input on its enforcement procedures. One of the important questions the agency raised was whether the Commission may rely on media reports that its enforcement attorneys dig up, and if so, whether a respondent should have a chance to respond to those materials before the Commission makes a “reason to believe” finding against the respondent. As CCP explained in its comments, the agency should not do so, precisely because of the many inaccuracies in the media’s reporting on campaign finance law, as illustrated in today’s Post article.
