A new lawsuit pushed by conservative operatives with ties to Donald Trump, right-wing power broker Leonard Leo, and a hate group could make donations to dark-money groups tax deductible. Such an outcome could further incentivize the massive surge of dark money flowing into politics, where there are already no limits on how much the rich and powerful can spend to influence elections.
“On the one hand, I don’t think it can get much worse because we have so much dark money in politics already,” said Darryll Jones, a law professor at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee who has been following this lawsuit. However, if the National Religious Broadcasters win, it may “result in a bunch of smaller and medium ‘charities’ coming into bloom precisely to get into politics… That part right there is worrisome.”
This flood of dark money in politics was ushered in by the 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United decision, which allowed corporations and outside groups to spend unlimited amounts on elections. This was part of a coordinated, 50-year effort to solidify corporate America’s control of the electoral system.
The current election cycle has seen a record-breaking amount of dark money flooding into campaign coffers.