Why The 2012 Election Will Cost $6 Billion

Indiana lawyer James Bopp is on a mission to unravel the nation’s campaign laws.

The 2012 election is shaping up to be the most expensive ever, by a lot. Between congressional contests and the Presidential campaign, the 2008 race came in at about $5 billion. This go-round is on track to exceed $6 billion, thanks in large part to recent court decisions that relaxed limits on corporate and union spending. All that money sloshing around—much of it hard to trace to the giver—infuriates government accountability groups. But it absolutely delights the man most responsible for making it happen: James Bopp Jr.

Never heard of him? The 63-year-old proprietor of a small law firm in Terre Haute, Ind., Bopp is far from a household name. In Washington, though, he is revered by campaign fundraisers for his three-decade-long crusade to eliminate restrictions on political contributions, which Bopp, a conservative Republican, sees as a violation of free speech. It was Bopp who filed the initial Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission lawsuit that ultimately led the Supreme Court to rule, in 2010, that corporations and unions could spend unlimited amounts to support or oppose candidates as long as they didn’t give the money to the candidates themselves.

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