If laws are only as good as the people who enforce them, maybe we should give up on campaign-finance regulations.
Bad enough that the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision opened the door to unfettered purchasing of elections by wealthy donors. But so much worse when the few remaining restrictions on the buying of elections are ignored, as well.
North Carolina has a picture of how bad it can get. We see it in Carolina Rising, a 501(c)(4) social-welfare organization that apparently served the welfare of just one man: Thom Tillis, who now represents North Carolina in the U.S. Senate.
According to Carolina Rising's tax filings, the group spent $4.7 million in 2014 on advertising that extolled Tillis' legislative virtues. He was speaker of the N.C. House at the time, running to unseat then-Sen. Kay Hagan.
Tillis won, in no small measure because of Carolina Rising's efforts. Afterward, the nonprofit's director, Dallas Woodhouse, rejoiced for a TV news camera: "$4.7 million. We did it." Woodhouse, who more recently became executive director of the state Republican Party, later walked that back, saying it was victory-party euphoria, and all of Carolina Rising's spending was within the letter of the law.
But the letter of the law specifies that 501(c)(4) organizations can't spend a majority of their money for political purposes and they can't work for the benefit of an individual or a single group. It looks as if those were Carolina Rising's only reasons for existence.
But where were the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Commission, the agencies that are supposed to police nonprofits and political spending? Apparently, they were hearing no evil and seeing no evil - and they certainly haven't been speaking up about it.
Like other such groups, Carolina Rising is allowed to keep its donors secret. But the group does have to partially disclose its funding sources, and nearly 99 percent of the money came from one donor.
It would be good to know just who bought the election for Thom Tillis. Even in an era of unrestrained political spending, we should know where the money's coming from. But "dark money" is gaining a powerful grip on our electoral system.
If Carolina Rising gets away with what it did in 2014, that grip is likely to tighten, and voters will be as deeply in the dark as the money that's being spent to buy elections.
FEC? IRS? Will you do your jobs, or will you let the darkness prevail?
