Congressional Black Caucus has used campaign finance laws to build a campaign powerhouse

WASHINGTON — When the Congressional Black Caucus wanted to pay off the mortgage on its foundation’s stately 1930s redbrick headquarters on Embassy Row, it turned to a familiar roster of friends: corporate backers like Wal-Mart, AT&T, General Motors, Coca-Cola and Altria, the nation’s largest tobacco company.

Caucus members accepting a donation to the foundation from Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical giant and a major contributor.

Soon enough, in 2008, a jazz band was playing at what amounted to a mortgage-burning party for the $4 million town house.

Most political groups in Washington would have been barred by law from accepting that kind of direct aid from corporations. But by taking advantage of political finance laws, the caucus has built a fund-raising juggernaut unlike anything else in town.

It has a traditional political fund-raising arm subject to federal rules. But it also has a network of nonprofit groups and charities that allow it to collect unlimited amounts of money from corporations and labor unions.

From 2004 to 2008, the Congressional Black Caucus’s political and charitable wings took in at least $55 million in corporate and union contributions, according to an analysis by The New York Times, an impressive amount even by the standards of a Washington awash in cash. Only $1 million of that went to the caucus’s political action committee; the rest poured into the largely unregulated nonprofit network.

Supreme Court strikes some prohibitions against corporate and union campaign spending

The U.S. Supreme Court today struck down part of the landmark McCain-Fiengold campaign finance bill that prevented union and corporate-paid issue ads in the final days of election campaigns. The court also ruled that cooperations can spend as much as they want to support candidates for Congress of President.

In a 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the court overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for their own campaign ads.

Under the ruling, corporations and unions will still be prohibited from giving direct contributions to candidates.

The majority opinion fell in line with those who argued stricter limits on campaign finance amounted to an unconstitutional muzzle on free speech.

"The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion, joined by his four conservative colleagues.