In Utah, Payday Lenders Bought the Attorney General

Disturbing story about corruption in state politics, exposed only because the participants foolishly wrote everything down:

In Utah, the documents show, a former state attorney general, John Swallow, sought to transform his office into a defender of payday loan companies, an industry criticized for preying on the poor with short-term loans at exorbitant interest rates. Mr. Swallow, who was elected in 2012, resigned in November after less than a year in office amid growing scrutiny of potential corruption. “They needed a friend, and the only way he could help them was if they helped get him elected attorney general,” State Representative James A. Dunnigan, who led the investigation in the Utah House of Representatives, said in an interview last week.

What is rare about the Utah case, investigators and campaign finance experts say, is not just the brazenness of the scheme, but the discovery of dozens of documents describing it in fine detail.

Mr. Swallow and his campaign, they say, exploited a web of vaguely named nonprofit organizations in several states to mask hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from payday lenders. His campaign strategist, Jason Powers, both established the groups — known as 501(c)(4)s after the section of the federal tax code that governs them — and raked in consulting fees as the cash moved between them. 

I suppose the silver lining here is that Swallow's fellow Republicans in the state legislature led the investigation into his misdeeds. In Utah, at least, there are limits to the level of corruption the system will accept. On the other hand, the Times says that Jason Powers has helped elect many other top Republicans in the state, and it remains to be seen whether these revelations will hurt his business or help it.

The professionals who run campaigns for both parties have thrown up so must dust around the process that voters cannot see what is happening, and most have given up caring. Everyone does it, we shrug. The real beneficiaries are, not the candidates or the donors, but the campaign pros who set up these entities and collect fat fees for moving money around. Our campaigns are being reshaped to benefit them. And what, I ask, are their interests?