It’s not just the Canadian wildfires that are blowing smoke.
On the heels of Trump’s Thursday night grievance trip down 2020 election fantasy lane where he accused China and other foreign entities of election meddling, Brian Fitzpatrick announced that the House unanimously passed the Fitzpatrick-authored “Stop Foreign Funds in Elections Act.” Wow. Sounds important. But upon closer scrutiny, Fitzpatrick’s Act isn’t breaking new ground; foreign funding has been illegal since 1974 when the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 was amended to forbid contributions to candidates from foreign nationals. Fitzpatrick simply added some clarification: after “candidate elections” he added, "including a state or local ballot initiative or recall election.” That’s it. Smoke. A minor tweak to pre- existing law. Big deal.
There is a greater threat out there than alleged foreign interference. The Federal Election Campaign Act was intended to impose stricter disclosure requirements and limits on campaign spending. But in 2010 in Citizens United v Federal Elections Commission the Supreme Court held that political contributions were protected by the First Amendment. Corporations and unions, once banned, now could make unlimited financial contributions to political campaigns through Political Action Committees (PACs). Tom Moore of the Center for American Progress noted that this “opened the floodgates to unlimited outside spending, super PACs, and dark money non-profits” adding, “Americans are fed up with a political system that seems bought and sold.”
Fitzpatrick is focused on the wrong thing. The threat of foreign influence pales in the face of the enormous spending of well-funded domestic entities, super PACs and dark money to buy influence and votes. (It is to be noted that according to Opensecrets.org Fitzpatrick received nearly two million dollars in PAC money this cycle, a 265.9% increase from the previous one.) As the smoke clears, we see that Fitzpatrick’s preoccupation with non-existent foreign election interference aligns with Trump’s grievances. It does not align with voters' (our!) well-founded concerns about well-funded domestic entities who are paying to meddle in our elections like nobody has ever seen before.
