The U.S. scored the same as Tajikistan in an assessment of the country's regulation of campaign funds to politcal parties
LONDON (TrustLaw) – The U.S. framework for regulating political parties’ funds has weakened in the past two years, largely due to a 2010 Supreme Court decision on campaign financing, according to a new study by anti-corruption watchdog Global Integrity.
Out of 31 countries surveyed, Colombia and Germany are the only two that scored higher than 60 out of 100 on an assessment of the effectiveness of laws regulating campaign financing to political parties, the Global Integrity Report 2011, released on Friday, said. The United States scored just 29 in the category, level with Tajikistan and 42 points behind Columbia, 54 behind Germany.
“We remain deeply concerned by the lack of progress globally on effectively regulating the flow of large sums of private money into the elections process in many countries,” Global Integrity’s Executive Director, Nathaniel Heller said in a statement.
“Political financing remains the number one corruption risk around the world, and absent meaningful reforms will continue to hinder many other open government and transparency initiatives,” he added.
The 2011 report assessed not only the rules and regulations that a country has put in place to fight corruption but also how well measures have been implemented. It does this by using 320 “Integrity Indicators” in addition to in-country reports from journalists.
The last time that Global Integrity assessed the anti-corruption framework of the United States was in 2009. In that report, the U.S. received a score of 42 in the category of regulating money to political parties.
The sharp drop in the intervening three years can be explained in part by the controversial “Citizens United versus the U.S. Federal Election Commission” Supreme Court decision of 2010, Global Integrity said.
The “Citizens United” decision lifted limits on political fundraising and spending by corporations, unions and other non-campaign groups by equating their rights to those of individual citizens.
Liberia (up 17 points), Armenia (up 15) and Tajikistan (up 15) saw the biggest increases in their overall scores showing demonstrable improvements in their anti-corruption frameworks since they were last assessed (in 2009 or 2007), Global Integrity said.
Sierra Leone (down 5 points), Mexico (down 4) and Zimbabwe (down 3) fell the furthest since they were all last assessed in 2009.
(Editing by Rebekah Curtis)
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