Citizens United Helps Liberal Dem Unseat Veteran House Incumbent

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Free Beacon:

An upstart Democratic candidate unseated a veteran incumbent lawmaker on Tuesday thanks in part to the sizable support of independent expenditure groups that the primary winner has claimed to revile.

 

Iraq war veteran Seth Moulton upset nine-term Rep. John Tierney (D., Mass.) on Tuesday. November’s contest will pit Moulton against Republican Richard Tisei, who lost to Tierney in 2012. The race is expected to be tight.

 

Like many liberal Democrats, Moulton professes his distaste for existing campaign finance laws and outside spending groups emboldened by the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. FEC.

 

However, Moulton’s victory on Tuesday was aided in large measure by hundreds of thousands of dollars in independent expenditures by just those types of groups.

 

Two Super PACs backed Moulton with large ad buys and other independent expenditures. Together, they spent more than $650,000 supporting Moulton or attacking Tierney during the primary race.

 

Tierney, in contrast, received just $10 in outside support in the form of a website endorsement from the Sierra Club.