Last week on Thursday, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) refused to vote on a ban on dark money. The DNC is the main organization of the democratic party. Each party in the American government has three committees, composed of the leaders of the Democratic party. The DNC is the committee in charge of overseeing the presidential democratic primaries. The resolution to ban dark money was written by Nevada Democratic Party Chair Judith Whitmer. It would’ve banned all dark money from any democratic primary elections. The resolutions would’ve also established a way to investigate dark money and punish any DNC members that accepted donations from anonymous donors. The resolution was endorsed by members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and over three dozen DNC members. Before the ban could be voted on by the whole DNC, the leaders of the DNC voted on whether to even vote on the ban. Despite the support for the ban, out of the two dozen DNC leaders, not one of them voted to put the ban up for a vote.

So what is dark money exactly and how does it work? Dark money is when anonymous donors spend money to influence politics. Political organizations don’t have to disclose their donors which leads to super PACs which are independent committees that fund many political campaigns. Super PACs are required by law to disclose their donors but money is intentionally moved between groups it’s hard to trace donours, shell companies (companies that just hold money), put millions of dollars into these super PACs that fund online ads and political messages on tv. Dark money grants between non-profits have facilitated $700 million in political spending. Dark money groups have spent nearly $1 billion since 2010. Dark money especially helped democrats in the democratic election, with over $500 million being spent on promoting democratic candidates.

The idea that our government officials should be chosen by the people is one of the main ideals of this nation. There shouldn’t be any outside influences like rich companies that don’t have the people’s best interests in mind. Dark money has no place in politics and politicians that accept this type of dark money don’t have the people’s best interest. Getting rid of dark money in at least one party would be a big step in the right direction to making our government less corrupt. It’s disappointing that a ban on dark money was unanimously blocked when it could’ve been beneficial. It brings up the question of why politicians in the government want to keep dark money so bad when it’s just corrupting the government. In the meantime, people are going to have to keep trying to eliminate dark money from our government.