The Citizens United ruling opened the doors to the creation of super PACs, political action committees that can accept unlimited donations from individuals and corporations and spend unlimited amounts supporting or opposing candidates. Restore our Future, a super PAC supporting Romney, has raised more than $30 million and has used the money to barrage Romney’s Republican rival Newt Gingrich with negative ads.
Bopp told the New York Times after the Citizens United ruling that he had a “10-year-plan” to take down campaign finance restrictions. “If we do it right, I think we can pretty well dismantle the entire regulatory regime that is called campaign finance law,” Bopp told the Times.
Even before that, Bopp had been active for years using legal challenges to oppose campaign finance restrictions – challenging parts of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, and opposing various donor disclosure laws and caps on political contribution. Asked whether Romney supports Bopp’s efforts, Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement, “Governor Romney is a strong supporter of the First Amendment and believes that Citizens United was rightly decided. He opposes the irrational campaign finance rules that are driving so much funding away from candidates and toward unaccountable third parties like super PACs. He believes that Americans should be permitted to donate as they wish to the candidates of their choice.”
Asked about Citizens United by a New Hampshire voter in August, Romney, who has been a major beneficiary of corporate contributions, defended the decision as a way of equalizing the influence of corporations with the influence of unions and of newspapers, which can provide endorsements. (The ruling applied to corporations and unions, which are both barred from contributing directly to candidates.)
