The Supreme Court Will Hear A Republican Party Lawsuit To Make Citizens United Even Worse

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

The Supreme Court’s election-buying decision in Citizens United v. FEC enabled wealthy corporations to spend unlimited money to change the course of American elections, and a subsequent lower court decision gave the green light to super PACsfunded by unlimited donations from millionaires, billionaires and corporations. Today, the Supreme Court announced it would hear another case — brought by none other than the Republican National Committee — that would go even further towards transforming American democracy into the Wild West.

Despite recent election-buying decisions permitting unlimited donations to super PACs and other groups that exist independently of campaigns and political parties, federal law still limits individual donations to candidates and to the parties themselves. In the next election cycle, these limits include a $2,600 cap on individual donations to a single candidate, and an overall limit of $123,200 in contributions to candidates, political party committees and similar organizations. The Republican Party’s lawsuit seeks to eliminate most of these limits on election-buying — most importantly, by removing the $123,200 cap on total contributions.

As the unanimous lower court decision upholding this cap explained, removing it would corrupt our election system even more by allowing billionaires to launder as much money as they want through political party committees to individual candidates:

Eliminating the aggregate limits means an individual might, for example, give half-a-million dollars in a single check to a joint fundraising committee comprising a party’s presidential candidate, the party’s national party committee, and most of the party’s state party committees. After the fundraiser, the committees are required to divvy the contributions to ensure that no committee receives more than its permitted share, but because party committees may transfer unlimited amounts of money to other party committees of the same party, the half-a-million-dollar contribution might nevertheless find its way to a single committee’s coffers. That committee, in turn, might use the money for coordinated expenditures, which have no “significant functional difference” from the party’s direct candidate contributions. The candidate who knows the coordinated expenditure funding derives from that single large check at the joint fundraising event will know precisely where to lay the wreath of gratitude.

Significantly, this opinion was written by Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who is one of the most conservative judges in the country. Brown previously authored an opinion suggesting that all labor, business or Wall Street regulation is constitutionally suspect, and she once compared liberalism to “slavery” and Social Security to a “socialist revolution.”

As a lower court judge, however, Brown was also required to follow Supreme Court precedents. The five conservative justices who gave us Citizens United, by contrast, are not.

Over Eight In Ten Americans Support Limiting Donations To Groups Seeking To Influence Elections

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

As billionaires like Sheldon Adelson or Joe Rickettswrite six, seven or even eight figure checks seeking to buy congressional elections and the White House, the overwhelming majority of the nation believe that such election buying needs to be reigned in. According to a recent poll by the Associated Press and the National Constitution Center, more than 8 in 10 Americans — 85% of Democrats, 81% of Republicans and 78% of independents — believe there should be limits on the amount wealthy individuals and corporations can contribute to groups seeking to buy elections.

This finding closely maps a poll from last April which found that only 15 percent of the country agrees with the Supreme Court’s holding in Citizens United that unlimited corporate donations to super PACS will not lead to corruption. To put that number in perspective, that’s less than the 23 percent who believe that they have been in the presence of a ghost or the 19 percent who believe in “spells or witchcraft,” according to another poll.

Supreme Court expands Citizens United with ruling on Montana challenge

By Karen McVeigh, The Guardian/via Raw Story 

The supreme court has struck down a century-old Montana law limiting corporate campaign spending, dashing hopes of a rethink over a controversial 2010 decision by the justices that allows for vast amounts of private cash being used to influence national elections.

Campaigners had hoped the court would look again at the so-called Citizens United ruling, which paved the way for an unprecedented rise in the money flowing into congressional and presidential campaigns from corporate sources.

But in a 5-4 vote, split along the same conservative-liberal lines as the earlier case, the court’s conservative justices said the 2010 judgement also applies to state campaign finance laws.

“The question presented in this case is whether the holding of Citizens United applies to the Montana state law. There can be no serious doubt that it does,” the justices ruled.

As such they ruled in favour of three corporations – a political advocacy group called American Tradition Partnership Inc, a non-profit organisation that promotes shooting sports and a small family-owned painting business – that challenged Montana for violating their free-speech rights.

Under the Citizens United rulings, corporations are allowed to spend unlimited money to support or oppose political candidates in federal elections, as long as the finance is independent of the campaigns it is intended to help.

The 2010 judgement cited a company’s right to free speech, implying that it would cover state elections as well as federal.

Justice Anthony Kennedy declared in his Citizens United opinion that independent expenditures by corporations “do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption”.

But the state of Montana felt differently and sought to defend its 1912 law limiting corporate spending. Montana’s supreme court sided with the state defending its state law and said that a history of corruption showed the need for limits.

Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia backed Montana in its bid for stricter regulations on campaign money. They had hoped for a debate on the Citizens United decision which could have led to its reconsideration.

Monday’s ruling comes amid growing concern over the power of so-called Super Pacs in the current election cycle.

The fundraising vehicles, a direct product of the Citizens United ruling, have to be run separately from a candidate’s official campaign. But critics claim that the lines are blurred to such a degree as to make the distinction meaningless.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer wanted a full hearing in the Montana case, arguing that the Citizens United should come under fresh scrutiny because of concern over its effect on campaign finance.

Ginsberg said in February the case “will give the court an opportunity to consider whether, in light of the huge sums currently deployed to buy candidates’ allegiance, Citizens United should continue to hold sway”.

James Bopp, lead attorney for the three corporations challenging Montana, had argued in his appeal to the supreme court: “If Montana can ban core political speech because of Montana’s unique characteristics, free speech will be seriously harmed. Speakers will be silenced because of corruption by others over a century ago.”

The Supreme Court summarily ruled for the corporations in a brief opinion and reversed the ruling of the Montana supreme court.

Mitch McConnell & The Chamber of Commerce Tell The Supreme Court To Double Down On Citizens United

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

The Supreme Court is currently considering whether to hear a case that will enable it tocorrect its error in Citizens United and overrule its indefensible decision to allow unlimited corporate and other wealthy donor money to influence elections. Neither the corporate lobby nor the Senate’s top Republican are eager to see this occur, however. Both of them filed briefs in the Supreme Court yesterday urging the justices to not only reaffirm Citizens United, but to do so without even hearing argument in the case.

Neither one of these briefs are surprising. The Chamber is one of the nation’s biggest spenderson elections, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has long been an opponent of campaign finance regulation. Before President Bush appointed Justice Alito, who became the fifth vote to tear down much of America’s checks on big money in politics, the seminal case upholding America’s ability to defend against such money was McConnell v. FEC. In that case, Sen. McConnell was the lead plaintiff who sued — mostly unsuccessfully — to toss out the McCain/Feingold campaign finance law.

Yet while the briefs are unsurprising, they demonstrate both the corporate lobby and the Republican Party’s commitment to keeping wealthy interest groups’ ability to buy and sell elections intact.

Corporations get tax breaks thanks to ‘Citizens United’

by Justin Elliott, ProPublica/Via Raw Story

The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision opened up the way for unlimited corporate spending on politics and has led to the proliferation of non-profit political groups that do not have to disclose the identities of their donors. But it turns out corporations may be getting another benefit from anonymous donations they give to these groups: a break on their taxes.

It all starts with the so-called “social welfare” groups that have become bigger players in the political world in the wake of Citizens United, which knocked down restrictions on campaign activity by such groups.

Tax experts say it’s possible that businesses are using an aggressive interpretation of the law to wring a tax advantage out of their donations to these groups.

It’s almost impossible to know whether it’s happening, partly because the groups— also known by their IRS designation as 501(c)(4)s—aren’t required to disclose their donors. (That’s why the contributions have been dubbed “dark money.”)

This state of affairs is not entirely new; social welfare groups have long been involved in politics. In 2000, for example, the NAACP National Voter Fund, which is a social welfare group,ran hard-hitting ads just days before the election criticizing George Bush for his opposition to hate-crimes legislation. What’s new is the scale of involvement of such groups in elections, which has expanded dramatically in the wake of Citizens United and is part of the increasing flood of money in elections.

The most prominent of a new crop of the groups is the Karl Rove-affiliated Crossroads GPS – which raised $43 million in the 2010 midterm elections and is expected to become an even bigger force this year after pledging to raise and spend $300 million with its sister super PAC, American Crossroads. Democrats are also expanding their use of the groups, led by pro-Obama Priorities USA, which raised $2 million last year.

Precisely because they offer anonymity, such groups may be attractive vehicles for companies that want to spend money electing a favored candidate or pushing an issue. In 2010, Targetgenerated a national backlash after giving $100,000 to a Minnesota group that ran ads supporting a candidate who opposed gay marriage. Liberal activists seized on the donation after it was revealed in state filings. If Target – or any other public or private corporation – gave to Crossroads GPS or Priorities USA, the public would never know.

Companies may also be deducting from their taxes the undisclosed donations they give to these groups.

There has always been this suspicion, but I can’t prove it,” says Frances Hill, a tax law professor at University of Miami who firstfloated the concept in a brief mention in the New York Times earlier this month. “It could be put into the advertising budgets, which for many companies are very large dollar amounts.”

This is where the aggressive interpretation of the tax code would come into play.

Corporations are allowed wide latitude in deducting business expenses from their taxes – everything from workers’ salaries to marketing expenses of all kinds. But one thing they’re explicitly barred from deducting is political expenditures.

As the law puts it, companies are not allowed to deduct money spent on “intervention in any political campaign” or “any attempt to influence the general public, or segments thereof, with respect to elections, legislative matters, or referendums.”

But tax experts say a company could argue that money given to “social welfare” groups isn’t political spending at all and that the donations are instead “ordinary and necessary” business expenses.

The company might argue, for example, that ads run by a social welfare group would favorably influence opinion on a public policy issue that affects the company’s business. Thus, say, an oil company would claim a business expense deduction on a donation to a social welfare group that was running ads criticizing President Obama’s policies on domestic drilling.

The company would also have to argue the money isn’t being used by the groups on political expenditures. So it comes down to where the IRS draws the line on what is a political expenditure, and whether ads run by such groups as Crossroads GPS or Priorities USA would cross the line.

Determining what is and is not a political expenditure is a matter of intense dispute. The IRS has historically looked at various factors in assessing nonprofit spending – things like whether an ad mentions a candidate for public office or whether it’s aired close to an election. But wiggle room remains.

“It’s a smell test,” says Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a Notre Dame professor who specializes in election and tax law. Donor corporations’ lawyers “could take the position that unless an ad is express advocacy, it’s not across the line for tax purposes.” Under this argument, an ad praising Obama’s stance on foreign policy wouldn’t be classified as political unless it explicitly told viewers to “vote for Obama.”

The social welfare groups themselves also have an interest in classifying their work as issue-based or educational since they risk losing their tax status if their primary purpose is political campaign activity. Campaign finance reformers have been pressing the IRS to crack down on the new social welfare groups that, they argue, are abusing their tax status.

“The organizations themselves may be arguing that their expenditures are not political, they are issue advocacy. If you accept that characterization, you would get a deduction,” says Marcus Owens, a partner at Caplin & Drysdale and former director of the IRS’ Exempt Organizations Division.

Crossroads GPS and Priorities USA did not respond to requests for comment about what proportion of their work they classify as political. The proportion matters because if corporations are in fact deducting donations as business expenses, they cannot deduct the part of the donation that was used for political purposes.

So where does all this leave us? If a company gave $1 million to Crossroads GPS or Priorities USA and claimed the donation was a business expense, that would be $1 million of the company’s revenue not subject to taxes. If the company was paying a 30 percent tax rate, that would mean savings of $300,000.

But this is entirely hypothetical because we can’t be sure whether this tax strategy is occurring. First, the social welfare groups don’t reveal their donors. So we don’t know which companies to ask about the deduction issue. Second, if companies are taking the deduction, it would be detailed in tax returns to the IRS that are confidential.

Citizens United Has Already Doubled The Amount Of Outside Spending In Presidential Election Years

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

Election law scholar Rick Hasen offers a truly stunning visual representation of the impact ofCitizens United on our elections:

As his chart shows, spending by outside groups seeking to change the result of the 2012 presidential election is just under $90 million — or more than double the amount of outside spending during the entire 2008 election. This is true, moreover, despite the fact that the 2012 cycle still has nearly eight more months to go, and despite the fact that there is only one contested primary in 2012 while both Democrats and Republicans had a hard-fought primary battle in 2008. As a possible sign of just how far Citizens United may go in injecting big money into the race, outside spending in in congressional election years grew nearly nine times between 2006 and 2010.

Lest there be any doubt, it also appears very unlikely that spending benefiting Democrats will simply cancel out spending benefiting Republicans. Rather, as of January, seventeen of the top twenty donors this cycle were conservatives:

UPDATE

Professor Hasen emailed ThinkProgress and pointed out that this data measures total spending through March 8 in each election cycle, not through the entire election cycle. We have struck an erroneous part of one sentence.

Romney Wants His Billionaire Wall Street Donors To Be Able To Give Him Unlimited Sums Of Money

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

If campaign donations are any sign, Mitt Romney is the runaway favorite candidate of billionaires and Wall Street bankers. Indeed, Wall Street has flooded his campaign with donations and a massive 10 percent of all American billionaires donated to his campaign. So it should probably come as no surprise that, in an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd, Romney called for the super wealthy to be able to give unlimited sums of money directly to candidates:

TODD: Do you think Citizens United was a bad decision? [...]

ROMNEY:Well,I think the Supreme Court decision was following their interpretation of the campaign finance laws that were written by Congress. My own view is now we tried a lot of efforts to try and restrict what can be given to campaigns, we’d be a lot wiser to say you can give what you’d like to a campaign. They must report it immediately and the creation of these independent expenditure committees that have to be separate from the candidate, that’s just a bad idea.

Watch it:

It’s not entirely clear from this interview that Romney understands what happened in Citizens United. That decision emphatically did not follow any “interpretation of campaign finance laws that were written by Congress.” Rather, Citizens United threw out a 63 year-old federal ban on corporate money in politics. Citizens United was a case of five conservative justices deciding they knew better than America’s democratically elected representatives, and it was not a case of judges following the law.

More importantly, however, Romney’s proposal to allow wealthy donors to give candidates whatever they’d “like to a campaign” is simply an invitation to corruption. Under Romney’s proposed rule, there is nothing preventing a single billionaire from bankrolling a candidate’s entire campaign — and then expecting that candidate to do whatever the wealthy donor wants once the candidate is elected to office. Romney’s unlimited donations proposal would be a bonanza for Romney himself and the army of Wall Street bankers and billionaire donors who support him, but it is very difficult to distinguish it from legalized bribery.

As Romney himself said in 1994, when you allow special interest groups to buy and sell candidates, “that kind of relationship has an influence on the way that [those candidates are] going to vote.” Now that Romney’s running for president on the Wall Street ticket, however, he’s suddenly unconcerned with whether or not his big money donors exert a corrupting influence.

Senators Introduce Constitutional Amendment To Overturn Citizens United

By Zaid Jilani/Think Progress

One of the overarching themes of the 99 Percent Movement is that our democracy is too corrupted by corporate special interests. This corruption was worsened last year by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which allowed for huge new unregulated flows of corporate political spending.

Yesterday, six Democratic senators — Tom Udall (NM), Michael Bennett (CO), Tom Harkin (IA), Dick Durbin (IL), Chuck Schumer (NY), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), and Jeff Merkely (OR) — introduced a constitutional amendment that would effectively overturn the Citizens United case and restore the ability of Congress to properly regulate the campaign finance system.

The amendment as filed resolves that both Congress and individual states shall have the power to regulate both the amount of contributions made directly to candidates for elected office and “the amount of expenditures that may be made by, in support of, or in opposition to such candidates.”

“By limiting the influence of big money in politics, elections can be more about the voters and their voices, not big money donors and their deep pockets,” said Harkin of the amendment. “We need to have a campaign finance structure that limits the influence of the special interests and restores confidence in our democracy. This amendment goes to the heart of that effort.”

Passing this amendment or any other amendment to the Constitution is an arduous process. There are two ways to propose a constitutional amendment. Either two-thirds of Congress can agree to an amendment or there can be a constitutional amendment called by two-thirds of state legislatures (this path has never been taken). In order to ratify an amendment, three-quarters of state legislatures must agree or three-quarters of states must have individual constitutional conventions that agree.

Just Three Corporate Front Groups Spent 13 Times As Much As The Entire Labor Movement To Buy Judicial Elections

By Ian Millhiser/Think Progress

After the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate money in American elections, the decision’s defenders claimed this wasn’t such a big deal because unions could also take advantage of the decision. A new report by three leading voting rights and judicial independence groups gives the lie to this claim. According to the report, just three corporate interest groups — The Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Business Council of Alabama, and the Illinois Civil Justice League spent more than 13 times as much trying to influence state supreme court elections as the entire labor movement:

The report focuses on the 2009-10 cycle, so it does not include the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court race where incumbent Justice David Prosser narrowly defeated a progressive challenger after corporate front groups rode to his rescue with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of funds.

Sen. Sanders calls for constitutional amendment to overrule Citizens United

• By Stephen C. Webster
• 
  

Appearing with MSNBC’s liberal opinion host Cenk Uygur, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said he would support a constitutional amendment that overrule the Supreme Court’s controversial “Citizens United” decision that repealed nearly 100 years of campaign finance law.

The decision permits corporations to anonymously give unlimited sums of money to groups not officially connected with presidential campaigns.

The Washington, D.C.-based Committee for Economic Development suggested last year that the ruling could have the effect of turning corporations into miniature political parties, leading to what one of the Center’s trustees called the eventual corruption of American democracy.

“We have to pass a constitutional amendment to end [the] Citizens United ruling that brings forth the radical opinion that a Corporation is not a person and a handful of billionaires cannot pollute and take over the political system by spending unlimited sums of money in secret to elect candidates who support their agenda,” Sanders told Uygur.

This video is from MSNBC, broadcast Wednesday, May 18, 2011.

After Citizens United, Conservative Undisclosed Donors Spent 8 Times As Much As Liberal Ones In 2010 Election

By Zaid Jilani 

Last year, in perhaps the “most consequential Supreme Court decision in decades,” the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) invalidated a sixty-three year-oldban on corporate and union money directly funding individual candidates in federal elections. The SCOTUS decision sent shockwaves throughout our democracy, with many fearing that it would lead to an overwhelming amount of corporate money flooding out the voices of ordinary people.

Now, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has put out a comprehensive analysis to assess the flood of campaign money in last year’s election. One of the most shocking results of the analysis finds that the decision appeared to have a sharply partisan and ideological result. The group found that spending by Super PACs and all outside spending strongly tilted towards conservatives, and that spending by undisclosed donors actually was eight times higher for conservatives than liberals, with conservatives spending $119.6 million to liberals’ $15.7 million:

Not only did this money help elect a more conservative Congress, but it also is having a lingering effect on our campaign system. Last week, Democratic strategists announced that they will be forming Priorities USA Action, an Independent Expenditure PAC that will be relying on a strategy of collecting unlimited funds from undiclosed donors similar to the one that conservative groups used in 2010.

What this means is that federal elections in 2012 may include an unprecedented flurry of corporate and secret cash that would drown out the voices of Main Street America in a way never seen before in modern history. Ultimately, the only way to deal with this threat to our democracy is to enact a system of public financing, much like the one enshrined in the Fair Elections Now Act.

Voters Would Change Constitution To Limit Corporate Spending In Elections

By George Zornick When the Supreme Court invalidated a decades-long ban on corporate spending in federal elections in their Citizens United decision, it was by the narrowest of margins — only one justice. The public is less split on the issue, however. A new poll by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which was provided to the Huffington Post, shows that by a double-digit margin, voters want Congress to use a constitutional amendment to overturn that decision and once again restrict corporations from directly spending on elections.

Forty-six percent of voters said that “Congress should consider drastic measures such as a constitutional amendment overturning” Citizens United, while 36 percent disagreed. Only a fifth of voters were undecided on the matter. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) has already authored such an amendment, and told the Huffington Post, “I really concluded that the Supreme Court actually put the challenge out to us, here in the Congress. They said…Congress, you have no authority to regulate. And when the Court says that so directly, it only leaves us one choice.” Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Max Baucus (D-MT) are also behind the amendment, which enjoys the strong support of many law professors and former attorneys general.

Short of a constitutional amendment, which would require a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, the DISCLOSE Act offers another possible remedy to the worst aspects of Citizens United. Today in Roll Call, Norman Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank wrote a stinging op-ed calling on Republicans to support DISCLOSE:

The first is the failure of any Republican Senator to step up and support the DISCLOSE Act, to bring sunlight to the outrageous, anonymous huge funders who played a major role in the 2010 campaigns, hiding behind the cloak of 501(c)(4)s run by groups cynically manipulating weak IRS enforcement of the law. [...]

So where are the previous champions of campaign finance reform? Where is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whose greatest legislative accomplishment was given a sharp stick in the eye by a 5-4 decision on the Supreme Court? Where are previous supporters of reform — and professed supporters of disclosure — such as Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Scott Brown (Mass.)? And most important, where is Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who has always been an independent voice, whose Snowe-Jeffords amendment to the campaign reform law was the provision most assaulted by the Citizens United case, who stood up to immense pressure from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Republican leaders in 2002 to do the right thing?

With this kind of pressure building, PCCC cofounder Adam Green thinks it’s a ripe time for action. “It’s time to stop thinking small-bore. The solution to Citizens United is not merely disclosure, it’s to overturn Citizens United — and even last November’s Republican-skewed electorate agrees,” he told the Huffington Post.

Citizens United Decision Allows Corporations To Make 2010 A Record-Breaking Year In Campaign Spending

By Tanya Somanader The 2008 presidential election ushered in an unprecedented amount of campaign spending, with the presidential candidates taking in over $1.7 billion in donations. But, according to new research, corporations and their allies will trounce 2008’s “political spend-a-thon” in the 2010 midterm election season. “Liberated” by the Supreme Court’s recent Citizens United decision, corporations and “well-established political players” will pump in 10 to 15 percent more cash in 2010 to “disrupt” races with more negative ads:

After the astronomical sums of cash thrown into the 2008 campaign, everyone’s pumping in even more — about 10 to 15 percent more— according to Kip Cassino, vice president of research at the media analysis firm Borrell Associates.

“Unlike a lot of industries in the United States right now, which are seeing some downturns, political spending is absolutely a growth industry,” Cassino says.

Fueling it, he says, is corporate money — dollars liberated by the Supreme Court when it ruled that corporations and unions can be unrestrained in their campaign spending.

Cassino says corporate funds probably account for a 10 percent jump in advertising.

And of course, those advertisements are almost always negative.

“The unwritten charter of these groups is to really be disruptive and try to go in there and turn a race on its head — or put a candidate on the defense,” says Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising. “And by that nature, most of those ads that they’re gonna run this fall are gonna be negative ads.“

The political players looking to up the ante include “big budget groups” like GOP operative Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is “the biggest collection point for corporate contributions.” American Crossroads “committed to raising tens of millions of dollars” while the Chamber will spend $40 million more than 2008 this year and “may go higher.” Along with a 2007 decision backing the Federal Election Commission’s drastic undercutting of disclosure rules, “business and its allies” can continue to support right-wing candidates and “wildly misleading” ads without anyone knowing who is pulling the purse strings.

M.C.L Comment: Another reason liberals can't take this election cycle off, we gotta fight these corporate funded idiots like Christine O'Donnell or we're going back to the robber baron era because of them.

Rove Admits His ‘Shadow RNC’ Attack Group Functions Largely Because Of The Citizens United Decision

By Alex Seitz-Wald

Given the weak leadership of Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, former Bush White House adviser Karl Rove launched a “shadow RNC” in April called American Crossroads, vowing to spend $50 million to influence this Fall’s election. After an embarrassing first month of fundraising, Crossroads raised $8.5 million in June, “from an even split of individuals and corporations.”

On Fox News today, Rove directly credited his group’s success to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which overturned the decades-old ban on corporate money in politics:

HOST: Some suggest that the money that goes to American Crossroads might otherwise go to an organization like the RNC.

ROVE: Well that’s not correct, because American Crossroads is collecting money in excess of the individual contribution limits the RNC has allowed to give. What we’ve essentially said, is if you’ve maxed out the to senatorial committee, the congressional committee or the RNC and would like to do more, under the Citizens United decisions, you can give money to the American Crossroads 527, or Crossroads GPS, so we’re not tapping the people who — if you’ve giving to American Crossroads, you’re fully capable, in all likelihood, of giving the maximum to one of the national committee organizations.

Watch it (beginning 2:00):

While some reports have downplayed the impact of Citizens United on this year’s election, Rove seems to be acknowledging that his high-profile group relies on the decision for its fundraising. If Crossroads and the other new conservative attack groups raise the tens of millions of dollars they plan to spend this year from corporate donors — as Crossroads has — then the impact of the decision could be huge.

Rove explained that his donors are those who have “maxed out” contributions to the RNC and other national committees, but the individual contribution limit to these groups is $30,400 per election cycle, so Rove is clearly focused on the wealthiest of donors. As Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson noted, “By building a war chest of unregulated campaign cash…Rove would be able to wage the midterm elections on his own terms: electing candidates loyal to the GOP’s wealthiest donors and corporate patrons. With the media’s attention diverted by the noisy revolt being waged by the Tea Party, the man known as ‘Bush’s brain’ was staging a stealthier but no less significant coup of the Republican Party.”