We, the people.

• Author: Ahmad, Meher
• Position: Comment - Spendings on negative political advertisements - Essay

This year's elections, are shaping up to be some of the nastiest we've seen in recent history. If you haven t already been swamped by a barrage of negative ad campaigns, prepare yourself. It's going to get worse.

While negative advertisements have seemingly become a permanent facet of our election cycle, this year will see the largest amount of money ever spent on negative ads. Total spending on ads will probably surpass $3 billion.

The 2012 Presidential election is the first under which "money as free speech" has been given free rein in political campaigns, thanks to the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. In its 5-to-4 vote, the court allowed unlimited political spending by corporations, unions, and other special interest groups so long as they maintain the fiction that they are not coordinating their efforts with the candidates.

And the spending is adding up. Pro-Republican Super PACs have raised a combined $64 million already, and wealthy donors are willing to spend hundreds of millions more. The vast majority of that money is being funneled into negative ad campaigns, with a 57 percent increase compared to the 2008 elections. Profits from negative ads have become so staggering that Bill Wheatley, former executive vice president of NBC News, likens operating a television station in an election battleground state to winning the lottery.

Committees and campaigns put out negative ads because they work. There used to be at least one deterrent: A candidate might not go too negative for fear it could damage his own reputation. Now, however, Super PACs such as Restore Our Future, Winning Our Future, and Strong America can take the blame for any negative feedback, instead of the candidates themselves. "Organizations with meaningless names, no membership, no accountability, and no concern about their reputation are controlling Republican primaries with vast amounts of money," says Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen. "There's nothing to restrain them from going negative."

How to address all the money in politics that Citizens United has unleashed? There are three ways.

One is the legislative route. Both the House and Senate introduced the DISCLOSE Act in 2010, which would have banned certain types of campaign contributions and created some transparency in political ad buying. But even this anemic bill fell one vote short of passing in the Senate. The current Congress is more hostile to the idea of campaign finance reform than the...