Mitt Romney On Citizens United: Limit Union Contributions

"It is okay to limit contributions from unions but I think it is okay for my friends in the private sector to give as much money as they want."

In general, Mitt Romney is scant on details believing that any specifics offered by a candidate would become fodder for the opposing campaign so it is best to make vague promises and come out with details after the election.  Romney apparently believes Americans are not smart enough to digest such information and capable enough to filter out any incorrect assumptions made by the opposition but that is another topic altogether.  During an NBC-sponsored forum on Tuesday, Mitt Romney let some details regarding his opinions slip, discussing with moderator Brian Williams what he believes is unfair with Citizens United.

Mitt Romney made the observation that unions seem to favor Democratic candidates more and that it is not right for unions to be able to contribute to political candidates in the same fashion as corporations, or as Mitt Romney calls them - people.

“We simply can’t have a setup where the teachers unions can contribute tens of millions of dollars to the campaigns of politicians and then those politicians, when elected, stand across from them at the bargaining table, supposedly to represent the interests of the kids," Romney said. "I think it’s a mistake. I think we’ve got to get the money out of the teachers unions going into campaigns. It’s the wrong way for us to go. We’ve got to separate that.”

Romney's position is a little confusing considering he is perfectly fine with corporations making unlimited contributions despite the obvious conflict there.  For instance, Romney could benefit from millions in contributions from the financial sector and then if elected president, a Romney administration would essentially be "stand[ing] across from them at the bargaining table, supposedly to represent the interests of the" nation but who is to say that those contributions would not influence the decision making of candidates like Romney who received money from such groups?

Romney's newest position only highlights his partisanship and reinforces comments he made during a May fundraiser for millionaires where he was secretly tapes, in which he stated he would not represent half the nation if elected.  This position also couples well with his previous criticism of the Citizens United ruling where Romney had commented that corporations should just be allowed to contribute to campaigns directly instead of super PACs.

"My own view is now we tried a lot of efforts to try and restrict what can be given to campaigns, we'd be a lot wiser to say you can give what you'd like to a campaign," Romney told NBC last year. "They must report it immediately and the creation of these independent expenditure committees that have to be separate from the candidate, that's just a bad idea."

"I would like to get rid of the campaign finance laws that were put in place, McCain-Feingold is a disaster, get rid of it," he said during a debate earlier in the year. "Let people make contributions they want to make to campaigns, let campaigns then take responsibility for their own words and not have this strange situation we have people out there who support us, who run ads we don’t like, we would like to take off the air, they are outrageous and yet they are out there supporting us and by law we aren’t allowed to talk to them."