Opinion | Leonard Leo’s $1.6 billion donation exhibits how cash corrupts politics

The Marble Freedom Belief donation, presumably the biggest ever to such an advocacy group in U.S. historical past, manages to encapsulate in a single case the issues with the established order. The difficulty isn’t merely the distortion of democracy enabled by 2010′s Residents United v. Federal Election Fee. That call allowed for limitless political spending by firms and out of doors teams — to which, in flip, the ultra-wealthy can funnel limitless funds of their very own. The difficulty can also be that the distortion stays, typically, invisible. Nonprofits teams registered as 501(c)(4)s, like Marble Freedom Belief, don’t need to disclose their donors.

Including insult to harm, donors also can use these nonprofits to dodge taxes — on this occasion, to the tune of someplace round $400 million. To promote his firm on his personal, Mr. Seid would have needed to pay capital good points taxes, leaving him with much less to bequeath to Marble Freedom Belief. However as supposed “social welfare group,” 501(c)(4)s are exempt from paying taxes. So as a substitute he handed his shares over to the trust, which then itself offered Tripp Lite: for the $1.6 billion now in Mr. Leo’s coffers. In consequence, dutiful on a regular basis taxpayers primarily finance the extravagant expenditures of the privileged few, who use their know-how to keep away from their obligations and twist the political panorama.

Congress ought to shut the tax loophole these donors exploit. And the Disclose Act, some model of which has been languishing in Congress for greater than a decade, blocked by GOP filibusters, would no less than inform voters who’s making an attempt to purchase their votes. The Inner Income Service can enhance issues by itself by amassing donors’ info once more, after it stopped in 2018. Sadly, with no change in Supreme Courtroom precedent or a constitutional modification, solely marginal enhancements are potential.

Mr. Leo defended his gambit by saying it’s “excessive time for the conservative motion to be among the many ranks of George Soros, Hansjörg Wyss, Arabella Advisors and different left-wing philanthropists, going toe-to-toe within the struggle to defend our structure and its beliefs.” Actually, it’s not toe-to-toe however billions-to-billions — and neither aspect needs to be pleased with that.