When the Republican National Convention begins in Cleveland on Monday, it will be the first time in four decades that a major political party’s nominating convention is underwritten nearly exclusively with private cash—funneled in from the same billionaires, corporate lobbyists and Super PACs whose influence over politics Trump has enthusiastically lambasted from the stump. The RNC’s near total dependence on private money is the direct result of a series of recent federal rule changes that eliminated public funding for conventions and made it easier for parties to rake in unlimited sums of private cash, with no extra oversight. The new rules, which passed with little fanfare in 2014, allow individual mega donors to give ten times more to national parties they they could in 2012. They also fail to close a loophole allowing corporations, lobbying firms, Super PACs, and special interest groups, which are formally prohibited from giving to the parties’ conventions, to give unlimited amounts through special, non-profit committees, which are not bound by normal disclosure rules. As a result, the public won’t find out who the major corporate funders are to either the Republican or Democratic conventions until sometime in the fall. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton will preside over the first Democratic convention to receive money from both lobbyists and corporations since the party attempted to disavow such donations in
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