The U.S. Supreme Court was so determined to treat outside groups fairly in its 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) decision that it put these groups on course to supplant the candidates themselves as the dominant voices in our elections.

That is the finding of a newly released Public Citizen report, Outside Money Takes the Inside Track. The report compares spending by outside groups, which were permitted as a result of Citizens United to use unlimited contributions to influence elections, with that of candidates and national parties, which are subject to contribution limits.

Our findings: There is a tectonic shift in how American campaigns are being funded. Outside groups surpassed candidate spending in four of the 10 most expensive U.S. Senate races this year. That had only happened once in the last four election cycles (in 2010, which also postdated Citizens United). Outside groups’ spending this year nearly equaled that of the national parties. In no election cycle since 2004 had outside groups spent as much as a third as the parties (and that was also in 2010). Meanwhile, outside groups spent more money in the 2012 election cycle than the past four cycles combined. More

By Adam Crowther and Taylor Lincoln

Today, Public Citizen released an in-depth fact sheet on the similarities and discrepancies in reporting requirements imposed on unions and corporations for their political spending.

Given all the hand wringing by Republicans over allegations that the rules are tilted in favor of unions, the information will likely surprise you. In fact, unions already are subject to significant public reporting requirements that pertain solely to them, whereas corporations are not.

The sources of about one-fourth of outside spending in all 2012 federal races—and about half of  outside spending in key Senate races—were kept secret. The DISCLOSE Act (S. 3369) would fix most of this. But here too, the solution is being held up by Republican complaints that the measure is stacked against corporations.

The rational invoked by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is a key example of this type of complaint. Even McCain, a longstanding champion of campaign finance reform and a vocal critic of Citizens United v. Federal Election commission (he has called it “the worst decision of the United States Supreme Court in the 21st century”), has opposed this seemingly common-sense bill.

McCain’s explanation for voting against the bill was that its $10,000 threshold (per two-year election cycle) for disclosure of political contributions represented a “a clever attempt at political gamesmanship” by forcing “some entities to inform the public about the origins of their financial support, while allowing others—most notably those affiliated with organized labor—to fly below the Federal Election Commission’s regulatory radar.”

The $10,000 threshold would unfairly target corporations, McCain argued, because union funds tend to represent a portion of aggregated union dues of far smaller amounts. “What is the final difference between one $10,000 check and 1,000 $10 checks?” McCain asked in a statement accompanying his vote against the bill. “Other than the impact on trees, very little.”

But the difference is very significant, as McCain no doubt is well aware. More