Blame the FEC

I first became aware of Citizens United while doing current events for government, however it wasn't until I started watching The Colbert Report that I began truly researching the case and campaign finance. This article was really helpful to me because I have always thought that Citizens United was to blame for the chaos and I never took the time to explore other causes for campaign corruption. Citizens United played a large role in allowing unlimited campaign spending, but it can not be held responsible for the two biggest problems in campaign spending, which are Super PACs and secret donors.

Stephen Colbert focused a lot on campaign spending during his show and he actually created a Super PAC to demonstrate to his audience how sketchy campaign spending can be. He managed to collect around 800K from anonymous donors for his Super PAC, and through many legal loopholes he ended up not having to report how he spent the money collected. The thing is a lot of these loopholes could be closed if the FEC enforced campaign law more strictly. Partisan disagreements and stubbornness have been the cause for all the problems, like the rest of Washington, people are more concerned with their party winning rather than talking things out and compromising. The FEC is equally split party wise, however since about 1996 both parties have sought to protect soft money contributions. FEC regulations have been weakened in order to protect the use of soft money, and while the Democrats have become more anti soft money, the Republicans embrace it even more. This division has resulted in grid-lock, meaning there is no room for action so all the old ineffective laws have remained.
The law states that Political Action Committees are supposed to be independent from Candidates yet with loose enforcement this past election PACs were created by candidate family members, friends, previous employees, and so on; often the Candidates would meet with committee leaders and publicly endorse the PAC. Correct me if I am wrong but that is not independence. The law is present but the FEC is failing to do it's job.
A change need to be made to stop the secret spending and law bending. One option is to stop appointing partisan officials and appoint bipartisan outsiders willing to enforce the laws and set regulations rather than seek to please their party. This year it can be said that the election wasn't bought because Romney lost, yet Obama had the advantage of being an incumbent and with that gone in 2016 the chaos of this year will be a joke compared to what can happen if laws aren't enforced.
I have a lot of trust in this article because it was written by Trevor Potter. Usually I don't know the authors of  article so I rely on their credentials, but as a faithful Colbert viewer I am familiar with Mr. Potter. He is Colbert's Lawyer and a previous FEC commissioner and chairman; he has made many appearances on The Colbert Report discussing campaign spending and helping Colbert expose the loopholes many political contributors and Politicians use.

Potter, Trevor. "We Can Stop the Tidal Wave of Secret Political Cash." Washington Post. 18 Nov 2012: B.1. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 11 Dec 2012.