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Article
Opaque Transparency: Outside Spending and Disclosure by Privately-Held Business Entities in 2012 and Beyond
University of Cincinnati Law Review (2014)
  • Sarah C. Haan, Washington and Lee University School of Law
Abstract
In this Article, I analyze data on outside spending from the treasuries of for-profit business entities in the 2012 federal election--the very spending unleashed by Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. I find that the majority of reported outside spending came from privately-held, not publicly-held companies, including a significant proportion of unincorporated business entities such as LLCs, and that more than forty percent of spending by privately-held businesses was characterized by opaque transparency: though fully disclosed under existing campaign finance disclosure laws, something about the origin of the money was obscured. This happened when political expenditures were spread among affiliated business donors, typically donating similar amounts to the same recipient(s) on similar dates, and when for-profit business entities were used as "shadow money " conduits.
Publication Date
2014
Citation Information
Sarah C. Haan, Opaque Transparency: Outside Spending and Disclosure by Privately-Held Business Entities in 2012 and Beyond, 82 U. Cin. L. Rev. 1149 (2014).