Unreported

False equivalency watch: Union versus corporate spending

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Chamber of Commerce (right) delicately finesses democracy (left)

I overheard CNN’s John Roberts worrying his pretty, neatly-coiffed anchor head about the vast amount of cash being pumped into this election cycle from outside entities. He’s right to be concerned. So far, $4 billion has been spent on the midterms, which according to Open Secrets, is enough cash to “run the city of Pittsburgh for two years, [b]uy every resident of Topeka a nice used car, [o]r treat each and every American to a Big Mac and fries.”

Have I mentioned one in eight Americans is on food stamps? Mm’k.

But the strange part happened when Roberts appeared to draw a false equivalency between unions and corporate spending. He kept lumping the two sources together as though unions were spending just as much on the midterms as outside corporate influences. That’s all shades of wrong.

Election 2010 to Shatter Spending Records as Republicans Benefit from Late Cash Surge
This outside money, made considerably easier to raise and spend by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision primarily purchases television, radio and print advertisements. Sometimes, these messages promote a candidate.

But often, they attack politicos. And of this spending, about $176.5 million has come from non-party-committee conservative organizations, through Wednesday. That compares to $81.6 million from non-party-committee liberal organizations. In four U.S. Senate races, outside groups have spent more than the candidates themselves through mid-October.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($34 million), American Action Network ($22.1 million), the Karl Rove-backed American Crossroads ($19.9 million) and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies ($16.2 million) and ranked one, two, three and four among outside organizations spending money on independent expenditures, electioneering communications and other political communication costs through Wednesday. All are overtly conservative organizations.

They’re followed in fifth and sixth place by two liberal labor unions – Service Employees International Union ($15.5 million) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees ($11.8 million).

So the outside corporate influences (Chamber, AAN, American Crossroads -which discloses its donors- and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, which does not,) have thus far spent a total of some $92.2 million dollars on the midterm elections, while unions have spent $27.3 million, less than a third of corporate spending.

Certainly, $27.3 million isn’t chump change, but it’s important to keep these things in perspective. Outside corporate groups are spending way, way, way more than labor unions. Most importantly, while unions must disclose their donors, groups like Crossroads GPS can use virtually unlimited funds from anonymous sources for the sole purpose of undermining the public sector, which of course includes things like federal workers and unions.

This is the first election after the Citizens United ruling, and we’re beginning to see the effect of SCOTUS’s decision. Unfortunately, private business will always be able to outspend labor unions, which is partially why the labor movement has been diminishing over the past few decades. But now the process is really accelerating.  Consider these figures from Open Secrets:

In 2006, the federal midterm election cost $2.85 billion, while in 2002, it cost $2.18 billion. The 1998 election cost just $1.61 billion. Races during the 2004 presidential election cycle are tallied at $4.14 billion – only a small fraction more than the predicted cost of the 2010 midterm cycle. The 2008 presidential election cycle, at nearly $5.3 billion, remains the most expensive overall.

Now we’re talking about $4 billion on a mid-term election, a large chunk of it from outside, sometimes anonymous, sources. There’s just no way small, individual donors can compete with that cash machine.

In a democracy, every vote is supposed to have equal weight. But in hyper-Capitalistic America, the rich can buy influence, and the rest of us get left behind. That’s what’s happening here. To frame it as “both unions and corporations” hijacking the democratic process is really misleading. By far, it is corporate spending which has corrupted the political system.

Written by Allison Kilkenny

October 28th, 2010 at 9:56 am

Posted in corporations,politics

Tagged with , , ,

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7 Responses to 'False equivalency watch: Union versus corporate spending'

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  1. Great article, it amazes me how the “liberal” media just pushes these ridiculous false equivalences in the name of being fair and balanced.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 2 Thumb down 0

    Super Justin

    28 Oct 10 at 4:52 pm

  2. Simply put, John Roberts is a professional douche bag. It was once rare to find a television reporter so committed to his personal wealth and fame that he willingly betrays his role and the American people in one gobsmacking neo-fascist whine.

    The man drips with arrogance by the bucket load. He is one of the few reporters who deserves a drubbing about his ears and shoulders for being such an oily wimp. I’m not claiming what he does is bad, because it is much worse than that.

    Journalism was once a respectful business, but modern journalism is a combination of false equivalencies, right wing propaganda, and disrespect for their readers or viewers. It isn’t that one should not expect this repugnant behavior from a few journalists, but when there are so many who are willing to sell out their duty, calling, and profession for a few dollars more proves that decadence can surpass all good.

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 4 Thumb down 1

    purplishOnionmati

    29 Oct 10 at 10:09 am

  3. [...] unshaven bidness (and why it’s probably a sexist waste of time,) the $4 billion midterms, corporate spending on the elections, Walmart’s exploitation of its employees, and a bunch of your Listener [...]

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    Citizen Radio: Bad Religion, Blue America, and Best Of The Left at Unreported

    29 Oct 10 at 11:08 am

  4. seems like this article disputes your contention, but I wouldn’t expect you would read someone as unreliable as the WSJ — If you can find “conservative” bias on CNN, you’re trying a little too hard
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303339504575566481761790288.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 0 Thumb down 1

    Normal person

    4 Nov 10 at 10:47 am

  5. Hi “Normal person.” The Times addressed how these seemingly irreconcilable figures can actually both be accurate:

    Last month, The New York Times reported in separate articles that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees had spent $7.9 million, $5 million and $91 million on Tuesday’s elections, while The Wall Street Journal reported that the spending was actually $87.5 million. It would seem impossible that all of these numbers could be right. But it is possible they are. The question is how you count spending.

    The first story in The Times, published Oct. 22, focused on the role the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has played in the midterm elections. It looked at spending by outside groups during the entire 2009-10 election cycle over all — meaning a two-year period — as reported to the Federal Election Commission. It said total spending by the employees’ union was about $7.9 million, as of that date.

    The second article in The Times, on Oct. 27, evaluated overall spending in the election by counting both candidates and outside groups. But it looked only at spending by the employees’ union and other groups in the House (not the Senate) and only since the start of the third quarter of 2010, meaning when the election started to really heat up. The different time frame and the exclusion of spending on the Senate races explains the difference between the $7.9 million and the $5 million figures.

    …

    The Journal took the nearly $90 million figure for A.F.S.C.M.E. — representing its estimate of overall campaign spending, not just spending counted by the Federal Election Commission — and compared it with total spending by other outside groups, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and concluded in its Oct. 22 story that the workers’ union has been the biggest outside spender. (The chamber’s spending has been going overwhelmingly to help defeat Democrats and elect Republicans, while the union’s spending has been directed at defeating Republicans and electing Democrats.)

    The Times, in contrast, looking at the F.E.C. reports, concluded that besides the political parties, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was the biggest outside spender, as this is what the commission reports showed as of mid-October. This difference led some readers to question whether a political bias was driving the news coverage.

    At The Times, reporters were reluctant to compare the total spending figures provided by groups like the employees’ union because it is impossible to know if its $90 million tally, for example, is properly compared to the $75 million figure offered by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as both groups use different methods of counting spending to reach these estimates. One organization, for example, might include money spent on communicating with members, but the other did not.

    I suggest reading the whole article. It’s really interesting, and shows how easy it is to manipulate these kinds of figures.

    Also, in the future, I’d suggest not signing in with your government-issued email. I’m sure taxpayers pay your salary to monitor the Bureau of Reclamation, not to leave politically-biased comments on blogs :)

    Like or Dislike: Thumb up 2 Thumb down 2

    Allison Kilkenny

    6 Nov 10 at 12:46 pm

  6. [...] remains for the forces of wealth reallocation and corporate power is the lingering, although waning, ability of unions to spend money in elections. And teachers offer the search and destroy mentality [...]

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    Rewriting the Union Label : Newsvandal

    25 Feb 11 at 5:10 pm

  7. [...] Re: 62% against stripping public employees' bargaining rights Originally Posted by The Prof afscme gave 87.5 mil to union friendly candidates last cycle Public-Sector Union AFSCME Now No.1 Spender in 2010 Election Cycle – Political Hotsheet – CBS News of course, those days are over You look at but one component without looking at the entire picture False equivalency watch: Union versus corporate spending at Unreported [...]

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    62% against stripping public employees' bargaining rights

    3 Mar 11 at 6:56 am

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