Hello everybody.

There Should Be No Secrecy In Political Donations

For any successful campaign you need money. Money is the fuel for speech.
However there are cases in businesses and individuals clouding their
donations because people did not want their donations exposed to scrutiny.
Recently a top Romney donor Frank VanderSloot had customers cancel their
business relationships with him because they did not want to patronize a
businessman who had views that were contrary to their principles because
Frank harbors deep prejudices to the LGBT community.

President Obamas campaign has showcased a few of the top donors to his
campaign in the website Keeping the GOP Honest. Conservative blogs consider
this as an enemies list, but knowing who candidates are getting funds from
are a healthy indicator of what type of interest and policies candidates
are getting their appeal from. However instead of crying to your
compatriots about how Obama is hurting your business, scrutinize Obamas
contributors to his Super PAC and his regular campaign committees as well.
I bet Obama has just as many shady characters just as much as Romney.

Individuals and businesses should be able to stand by their donations
instead of hiding from them. If you did not like my donations to Ron Paul,
then you should be free to patronize or not patronize me if I was a captain
of industry. I think its responsible for consumers to pull out their
business if business people have principles contrary to their values.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Just as how Fred Karger exposed the
major players who helped to fund discrimination in California, people
should have the choice not to patronize the San Diego storage business
owner Terry Caster who spent over 693,000 in sponsoring Proposition 8. Even
the National Organization for Marriage wants people to boycott Starbucks,
but unfortunately for them their boycott targets usually get more business.

Target also received negative publicity for supporting an inequality loving
candidate for Minnesota Governor as well, even though Target portrays
themselves with a progressive ethos their corporate office sent money to
help defeated candidate Tom Emmer which gave them negative press and even
Lady Gaga dropped her deal to promote her new album with the chain. They
said helping Tom Emmer was because of his economic policies, but maybe
Target should of realized they need to raise a crop of legislators who may
be pro-corporation, but makes sure not to treat LGBT people as second class
citizens.

With the Citizens United decision, it has opened the floodgates for
corporate political donations. Since corporations want their outsized
influence, the American people deserve to know how our political candidates
and causes are being sponsored. We should know who our political candidates
are being beholden to or what they stand for. Unfortunately there is
another roadblock to transparency.

Donors of a 501(c)4 should have their donations automatically disclosed,
just as how it took 4 years to find out that Romney hid his donation for
the Proposition 8 donations. Even though it was questionable about leaking
the information, the information should be legalized in the future. If a
group influences public policy, secrecy is not an option.

Even the Supreme Court stated that signatures for ballot measures are not
confidential. Doe v. Reed states that disclosure of signatures on a ballot
measure does not violate the first amendment.

If a political candidate wants to restrict your civil rights or ship your
job to China, India or Mexico you should be aware of the implications of
supporting that candidate for office.

Matt


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