This Is What Washington Corruption Really Looks Like

“Fortunately, in the United States, we have very little of the overt corruption where someone comes in and says, ‘here, Senator, I’ve got a bag a cash. If you vote my way, I’ll give you this cash,” former Senator George Mitchell tells Yahoo Finance in the video above. “That doesn’t happen.”

Article by Rick Newman

But Mitchell’s message isn’t meant to be reassuring. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling in 2010 opened the door to unlimited political donations from corporations, unions and wealthy donors. Super PACs are one type of group that can accept such funds, and they have to report who their donors are. But so-called dark money groups can accept donations without revealing the donors or what their interests might be.

“It’s the worst of all possible worlds,” says Mitchell, a Democrat from Maine who was Senate Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995. “There’s been a dramatic increase in the money going into the system, and a dramatic decline in transparency.”

Big donors often back politicians with millions of dollars because it gives them access to government decision-makers they might not be able to reach otherwise. In a recent documentary by Alexandra Pelosi, big donors such as Republican T. Boone Pickens and Democrat J.B. Pritzker said they didn’t except outright favors in exchange for money. But they did expect the ear of policymakers.

Such cozy relationships between rich capitalists and the nation’s policymakers are the essence of the problem, Mitchell says: “The corruption is that the trust of the American people in their representative and in the political process, that trust has been severed. It doesn’t exist any more.” Few voters would argue with that.

It’s not hopeless, the former senator says. He sees a possibility the Supreme Court could reverse Citizens United and related decisions, if the makeup of the Court shifts toward a more activist bench willing to intervene in politics. If the Court did overturn Citizens United, it wouldn’t automatically stop the flow of big money into politics. Congress would then have to pass new laws doing so, far from a given.

Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created when Justice Antonin Scalia died earlier this year, might be inclined to vote to overturn Citizens United. Republicans have said they won’t vote on his nomination, leaving the appointment to whoever the next president it. Maybe, says Mitchell, echoing others who think the Senate could confirm Garland in a lame-duck session, if Hillary Clinton wins the White House in November. “The Republicans have said they’ll never do it, but that’s before the election,” Mitchell says. “I think he does [have a chance] right now.”

Rick Newman’s latest book is Liberty for All: A Manifesto for Reclaiming Financial and Political Freedom. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.

Read more at: finance.yahoo.com