Holman
Today in the U.S. Senate, partisan politics prevailed over the public interest as all Republican senators marched in lockstep to the orders of Republican party leaders and blocked a vote on the DISCLOSE Act (S. 3628). The failure of even a single Republican senator to vote for debate and consideration of the bill means there will be no disclosure of who is behind the expected onslaught of corporate spending in the 2010 elections – an onslaught created by the recent disastrous Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Voters will be left clueless as to who is funding the “independent” TV ads promoting and attacking candidates and how much these secretive funders are paying for these ads.
This lack of disclosure is exactly what Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the national Republican Party want. This is partisan politics at its worst.
Several Republican members of Congress have a long history of supporting transparency when it comes to money in politics, though none in the Senate displayed that sense today. The issue is not whether there is a Republican member of Congress who supports disclosure – there are plenty – but whether one or more of these public officials are willing to stand for this principle against the wishes of national Republican Party leaders.
Public Citizen strongly encourages these members to show once again the leadership and independence for which they are well-respected. They should revisit the DISCLOSE Act following the August recess and vote at long last to bring all this special interest money out from the shadows for the next election.
Wall Street and the insurance industry – angered by the efforts of the current Congress to rein in corporate abuses – are gearing up to finance a tsunami of TV commercials expected to favor Republicans and attack Democrats in the 2010 elections. Sen. McConnell and his fellow Republican senators see this expected wave of campaign spending on the behalf of Republican candidates as their party’s best hope of taking back Congress. Short-term political calculations thus underlie today’s party-line vote against full disclosure of the funding of campaign ads.
The DISCLOSE Act will not fade away. Recent polls show that eight in 10 Americans oppose the Citizens United decision, and just as many strongly favor full transparency of money in politics. Americans are likely to be repulsed by the wave of campaign attack ads, paid for by unnamed sources, and will once again demand full disclosure.
Public Citizen firmly supports swift ratification of a strong DISCLOSE Act. But Public Citizen will also continue encouraging Congress to advance bolder measures to address the Citizens United decision, including:
• providing candidates with substantial public financing for their campaigns to help offset new corporate spending in elections (H.R. 1826 and S. 751, known as the “Fair Elections Now Act”);
• requiring that corporate expenditures in politics be approved by a majority of outstanding shareholders (H.R. 4790, known as the “Shareholder Protection Act”); and
• promoting a constitutional amendment that clarifies that First Amendment protections do not apply to for-profit corporations, except for legitimate media organizations, and that corporations therefore do not have the right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence election outcomes.
The American public deserves no less.
Craig Holman is the government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen.
Please reconsider this bill – even if it doesn’t pass it shows Americans that Republicans don’t serve the people of the country, who are mostly against this Supreme Court decision, it shows them has only serving big corporate interests.
How dare the Republicans maintain secrecy of whom is supporting the candidates. It is tantamount to a traitorous act and should be looked upon as a criminal act at the very least.
If the Republicans insist on such secrecy then they all should be sent to Guantanamo as terrorists.
If corporations are given this power, I wonder how the 8 in 10 Americans who oppose the Citizens United decision are going to be able to take back our government from them? I hope I’m wrong, but it looks like at Catch-22 type of thing to me.
The election in this country are a disgrace if one cares about serving the citizens. Our election rules, laws and regulations need amending, reworking and oversight. The bribery/lobbying has fouled out nest in both houses and no doubt in other less known areas. The revolving door policy for former legislators is an example in the technique to the “sell out” yet “whistle blowers are distained.
Without election reform this country will continue to wallow in the muck of greed and dishonesty we now find ourselve drowning in.
Its a well known fact that the republican party has always been a corperate run party. It becomes more appearant every day that the people must take back the government or there will be no jobs and no manufacturing in the USA. Our government was founded as a government of the people by the people and for the people not for big oil and to big to fail banks. These people will bring about the down fall of our democracy and our great country. Voting republican will only put your fate in the hands of big corperations who will gouge all of our money and leave us with nothing.
Anyone who isn’t honest enough to divulge where they get their campaign funds, should not be allowed to run for office-period!!!!!! The Republicans have divided our country for decades and this is just another power play to keep Americans citizens, by whom they are employed, from knowing the truth about their, more than likely, illegal fund raising. Putting this country back in the hands on the Republicans would be like commiting suicide for anyone that makes less than $500,000 a year. I cannot find the words strong enough to express my sense of outrage at the behavior of our conservative politicians. They are the most self-serving people in the country and that includes used-car salesmen. They should be classified as the same and regulated as such. They aren’t fit to govern. Once again, I cannot find the words to express my outrage as an American citizen and a retired USAF Master Sergeant who REALLY did something for his country, in spite of people like our current bunch of sniveling cry-babies in today’s Senate.
It ia easy to see that the money lenders are not just in the temple of our economy, but that they own it. Please do not believe any add ut look at the logic of the pros and cons on your ballot disclosures.
If your name is on the ad or commercial you are much more likely to tell the truth about an issue or opponent.
Vote these clowns out of here!! We are sick and tired of their antics!! SICKENING!!!!!!1
Call for a march on the capital, go in and drag one out, let the crowd tear them to pieces, and then repeat until a satisfactory result is attained.
I’m so tired of Republicans voting for party and power instead of what’s best for the American people and our country. What is so terrible about requiring companies to inform the public where their political contributions are going. We need transparency here to offset the tragic decision made by our Supreme Court to allow corporations the same rights as individuals. Our elections will turn into utter shams as millions of dollars will be spent, and it’ll be harder than ever to separate the truth from out-and-out lies. I pray for the sake of our democratic system that this bill be reconsidered.
“I am shocked! shocked! to find that there is gambling going on here!” Captain Renault in Casablanca.
BH> Its a well known fact that the republican party has always been a corperate run party.
Therefore, no one should be surprised when in lock-step the geese vote in unison to prevent citizens from discovering the source of their money.
Phiber O
So far this reads like a blog of the infamously corrupt Daley Democratic machine politics. Pretty much every criticism levelled in these remarks about the Republican Party are true as far as that goes; BUT the elephant in the room, the Gorean “inconvenient truth” is that the same is ALSO true of the Democratic Party!
i will never forget the front page photo of the SF Chronicle showing a photographic flying wedge of corrupt politicians, led by the always baffled, nancy pelosi and including harry reid, chris dodd, di feinstein, and a virutal who’s who panoply of Democrats. WE must save the banks!
The Democratic Senators Baucus et. al. were the ringleaders in the depotentiation of the health care bill from it’s erstwhile beginning as a one payer solution into a frankenstinian ode to insurance company behemoths.
No my fellows among WE THE PEOPLE; arguing for one gang of traitors against WE THE PEOPLE in favor of the other main gang of traitors against WE THE PEOPLE is akin to favoring charlie mansons left side as opposed to his right side. It is absurd on it’s face!
I have similar feelings regarding how absurd it has become for so many citizens to be pointing at each other and singing the praises of one party over the other. Since for the most part we all want to retain our democracy, it appears as absurd as yelling at your own echo to shut up. It feels more and more like some shadowy orchestration meant to distract us while the magician’s other hand is performing the unseen.
I do favor one party over the other for the most part, but more and more I am beginning to believe that our president, no matter who, is not the most powerful man in government. Try as he might he can not completely avoid being a puppet of a higher power. The best he can do is to throw us some crumbs as long as he placates the wealthy elite hiding behind a cloak of secrecy.
The recent disastrous Supreme Court decision Citizens United vs.. Federal Election Commission makes me feel like I am reading about some other horrible totalitarian government we have all learned about in history and we thank God for gracing us with our democracy. I was so shocked that Disclose Act HR5175 failed to pass. I had thought that it was undeniably a satisfactory countermeasure to the potentially dangerous decision to allow corporate domination in our elections. But to be honest about it, I don’t completely understand it because of how really complicated it looks when I start to look harder at it. Can someone please explain why the NRA and other special provisions exempting certain interests are not a bigger issue, or why this bill is not more straight forward?
I can’t help but feel with the November elections just a few months away that the magicians are about to perform their grand finale. Democracy, now you see it, now you don’t.
Magician’s Oath “As a magician I promise never to reveal the secret of any illusion to a non-magician, unless that one swears to uphold the Magician’s Oath in turn. I promise never to perform any illusion for any non-magician without first practicing the effect until I can perform it well enough to maintain the illusion of magic.”
“Several Republican members of Congress have a long history of supporting transparency when it comes to money in politics, though none in the Senate displayed that sense today.”
So, why don’t these Republicans support this bill? Could it be because certain groups, like the NRA and unions, were exempted from it in order to gain their support? Whatever happened to equal protection of the law?
And, for that matter, whatever happened to the First Amendment?
Live free, and prosper.
Rycke
“It is easy to see that the money lenders are not just in the temple of our economy, but that they own it. Please do not believe any add ut look at the logic of the pros and cons on your ballot disclosures.”
Funny how statists like to talk about “moneylenders” in the temple, when Jesus actually beat the money changers and the dove and lamb sellers out of the temple.
It wasn’t about moneylending or commerce. It was about the priests making it easy for the people to put aside their habitual idolatry by allowing them the convenience of exchanging their idolatrous foreign coinage (complete with images of foreign gods and rulers) for legal Jewish shekels and unblemished doves and lambs that they could give to the Temple.
This also came into the story of “Give unto Caesar that which is Caesars,” used by many to justify paying taxes, when it was actually about paying tribute to a particular foreign god-king, obviously forbidden by the first commandment and other laws of Israel. When he asked whose image was on the money, Jesus was pointing out that it was idolatrous.
What was Caesar’s? His money and his troops, which should have been sent back to Rome. Israel, its people, their labor and their property belonged to God.
Live free, and prosper.
Rycke
We need election campaign reform, BIG TIME! It should begin with requiring all candidates to disclose where their campaign money came from. On other election advertising the person/company running & paying for the ad should have the corrage of his/her convictions & disclose who they are & what Corporation/company they are with. Please do this now!
Absolutely, all campaign ads must state who is paying for the ad, and what groups interest the ad represents, Both statements must be clearly defined. Even spineless must make that declaration. Cannot believe that the Baboon Court, as one defined it appropriately in regards to campaign donations by corporations, put American citizens as a disadvantage with corporations having the upper hand in determining who will represent us and in the back rooms what decisions that candidate will make on behalf of large donors. How have so many in congress become millionaires? How many were there when they were elected?
Money talks as the Baboons know. This is a Corporate Court and we must get laws in place which put a halt to our current mutinous court and require transparency regarding all donations in amount, subject making the donation and in whose behalf. The world thinks that Americans are asleep and are waiting for us to wake up from the dust from the cumulus clouds. Get back our country.
Maybe I should have said the “fairy dust from the chem-trails”.
Does it really matter who is putting out a particular message? If it is true, it doesn’t matter. If it is false, it still doesn’t matter. What matters is the message, true or false.
The writer of this article thinks that the Republicans will get the most help from corporations, and so wants to disclose such help (and prosecute corporate officers for not following complicated disclosure rules). This discloses his partisan inclinations; he would not support such disclosure where Democrats will be unmasked, such as union support.
Live free, and prosper.
Rycke
“Public Citizen firmly supports swift ratification of a strong DISCLOSE Act. But Public Citizen will also continue encouraging Congress to advance bolder measures to address the Citizens United decision, including:
• providing candidates with substantial public financing for their campaigns to help offset new corporate spending in elections (H.R. 1826 and S. 751, known as the “Fair Elections Now Act”);”
Don’t give my tax dollars to candidates. I will support the ones that I like.
“• requiring that corporate expenditures in politics be approved by a majority of outstanding shareholders (H.R. 4790, known as the “Shareholder Protection Act”); and”
That wouldn’t be a bad idea, except that shareholder elect boards to make those kinds of decisions for them. They are rationally ignorant; they cannot know where such expenditures may be necessary.
“• promoting a constitutional amendment that clarifies that First Amendment protections do not apply to for-profit corporations, except for legitimate media organizations, and that corporations therefore do not have the right to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence election outcomes.”
And why, precisely, would groups of people have less protection of their right to express themselves than individuals? That would restrict truly effective speech to individuals with the money and fame to reach the masses. Most of us need to join with others to make our voices heard, and the easy way to do that is to form a corporation of some sort.
But of course, Public Citizen wants to exempt their friends in the media. But what is “legitimate media?” I submit it is media that supports the Powers that Be. Our Grants Pass City Council has lately been defining media for the purpose of attending executive session; it was done to eliminate one particular newsperson from the sessions by defining his medium, a free weekly newspaper, as illegitimate.
Live free, and prosper.
Rycke
Rycke,
Corporate donations gives the shareholders a second vote, or represent them as additional persons. Donations in a pool that all candidates can draw will even the board, but you apparently would prefer a ship that has a list.
I fully support Citizen United. You obvious work for corporations, and want to assert their selfish wants here. We will get a bill that will negate the decision by the Baboon Court, whether you like it or not.