Democracy 21 Releases Excerpts from dozens of Editorials Across the Nation Supporting the DISCLOSE Act

Below are excerpts from dozens of examples of the nationwide editorial support that exists for campaign finance disclosure and the DISCLOSE Act.

During the recently concluded national elections, well over a hundred million dollars in secret contributions was spent by outside groups to influence congressional races.

For the first time in nearly forty years huge amounts of secret money were injected into federal elections, courtesy of the disastrous Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case.

"There is overwhelming public support for requiring disclosure of the secret money that is invading our elections and buying influence over government decisions," said Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer.

According to a New York Times report (October 28, 2010) on a poll conducted by the Times and CBS News shortly before the election:

In a year of record campaign spending, Americans overwhelmingly support limits on corporate and advocacy group funding of campaign advertisements, strongly support limits on how much campaigns can spend and favor full disclosure of spending by both campaigns and outside groups.

The Times report stated that the poll found that 92 percent of Americans supported disclosure of campaign expenditures and the donors providing these funds.

"Similarly, there is widespread editorial support throughout the country for requiring outside groups to disclose the donors financing the campaign expenditures they make," according to Wertheimer.

---

Here comes the cash
September 20, 2010
The Baltimore Sun (MD)

Big money and political campaigns have long been bedfellows, but what is novel and troubling in this political season is the lack of disclosure. By funneling money into trade associations, contributors can often escape detection. That eliminates the one safeguard our porous campaign finance laws had previously afforded – if politicians were being bought, we could have at least figured out by whom.

…

Short of public financing for Congressional elections – an unlikely event in this political climate – what is needed are regulations mandating clear and timely disclosure of who is spending money on political campaigns. The Senate should pass the Disclose Act.

 

Rove v. Obama
October 10, 2010
Bangor Daily News (ME)

Crossroads GPS is set up as a 501(c)4 nonprofit, meaning that its "primary purpose" must not be political. But, as The New York Times points out, IRS officials say that what may seem like political activity to a lay person may not be considered as such under the agency’s rules.

 

So existing law, weakened by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, is letting a flood of unidentified money flow into the congressional races, mainly this year to support Republican nominees.

 

This lack of transparency, which also allows unions and trade associations to pour money into Democratic campaigns, has troubling implications far beyond the coming election.

 

Political advertising: prepare for more than the usual spin
August 25, 2010
Biddeford Journal Tribune (ME)

This will be an important election year, with the two parties struggling for control of Congress, and political spending is expected to be heavy. Under these circumstances, the role of corporate and special interest spending on behalf of political candidates should be clearly disclosed.

 

Legislation requiring such accountability failed in Congress last month, thanks to a Republican filibuster in the U.S. Senate. By refusing to allow a vote on the bill, Republicans ensured that special interests could avoid accountability for partisan electioneering.

 

‘Speech’: Campaign Cash
October 8, 2010
Charleston Gazette (WV)

The Citizens United decision let business firms pour company cash into political campaigns. Corporations traditionally back Republicans. The ruling also let labor unions spend member dues in campaigns — presumably for Democrats — but unions are penniless, compared to corporations.

 

The Supreme Court breakthrough even lets businesses hide their identity as they funnel cash to front committees that buy smear ads. To halt this concealment, Democrats in Congress drafted the Disclose Act, which would force big donors out into the daylight. They still could spend freely to buy elections, but they could no longer hide from the public.

 

The House passed the Disclose Act, but Democrats in the Senate twice could not overcome Republican opposition. "Not a single Senate Republican and only two in the House have been willing to vote for the Disclose Act," the San Jose Mercury News noted.

 

The Senate is expected to try again after the election — before more winning Republican senators take their seats. We hope the bill finally passes. It’s disgusting that firms now can spend millions of company money to sway elections, under the silly pretext that such spending is free speech. At least, they shouldn’t be allowed to hide while they do it.

 

Anonymous donors bad move for good politics
October 19, 2010
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer (OH)

Candidates and their backers should be able to make their case – and needle opponents. The trouble arises when individuals or groups seeking to influence elections can shield their identities and massive money flows from public view.

 

Many are taking advantage of a tax loophole and of last winter’s Supreme Court decision striking down a ban on direct election spending by corporations and unions to raise the ante and to prevent voters from knowing the source of their money.

…

An informed electorate is the best defense against political misinformation. Anyone who attempts to hide the sources of his or her money is an enemy of thoughtful voters.

 

Require full disclosure, but don’t limit spending
October, 29, 2010
Daytona Beach News Journal (FL)

 … [L]oopholes in the tax laws allow the groups to shield the identity of individual donors. The groups are accountable, but the individual donors aren’t.

 

Congress should close those loopholes and let the sun shine on all political contributions. With transparency, voters can decide for themselves whether campaign contributors unduly influence candidates.

 

End anonymity in campaign contributions
October 38, 2010
Des Moine Register (IA)

The Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United means that Congress cannot change the law to ban corporations from spending money on political campaigns. Congress could, however, require that groups organized for the purpose of supporting or opposing the election of political candidates at the very least report all sources of their money. That way, if you see a particularly nasty TV ad, you have the option of boycotting the businesses that helped pay for it.

Regardless of which candidate for the U.S. House or Senate you vote for next Tuesday, tell him or her to support legislation that will open the windows so the American people can always see who is paying to affect the outcome of elections.

 

Anonymous donations must be stopped
October 27, 2010
Dubuque Telegraph Herald (IA)

Reporting contributions has been the rule of the game since Congress seriously got into the business of regulating campaign spending in the wake of the 1970s Watergate scandal.

…

Wasn’t it just yesterday we had laws on the books making campaign disclosures more transparent than ever? Sure, you can look up just about any elected official’s contribution forms online, and that’s great. But somehow anonymous donations have slipped in the back door this political season.

…

You have to go back to the 1970s and the Watergate era to find so much anonymous cash impacting elections. But political groups have poked holes in the reforms made in the 1970s. It’s time lawmakers close those holes and demand public disclosure as a component to election donations — no matter what group the donor stands behind.

 

Our views: Torrents of cash
November 7, 2010
Florida Today (FL)

You can blame the U.S. Supreme Court and its disastrous February ruling that allowed corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to spend limitless amounts of money on campaigns, much of it in secret.

…

This destructive practice will get worse in the 2012 presidential election, further threatening the integrity of elections and the sanctity of our democracy.

 

That’s why we strongly call again for Congress to pass the Disclose Act to clamp down on secret corporate campaign donations. The measure would place strict limits on money foreign-owned companies could spend in campaigns and require nonprofits like Crossroads and the U.S. Chamber to disclose donors.

…

This is not a partisan issue, at least outside Congress.

 

Where’s The Accountability?
October 4, 2010
Hartford Courant (CT)

Now, considering the changing campaign finance landscape, even disclosure looks good. Too bad it has become a dirty word.

 The U.S. Supreme Court’s awful Citizens United decision allowing corporations and unions to donate unlimited amounts of campaign money, combined with the soaring popularity among political operatives of certain nonprofit corporations that can accept unlimited amounts of money from anonymous donors, poses a new threat to our democracy.

The nonprofits are spending big this election cycle on U.S. Senate and House elections. But voters don’t know who’s supplying the money and are thus unable to make informed decisions. That’s a sure-fire recipe for corruption.

 Whatever happened to disclosure, folks?

 

Public has right to know who is funding campaign ads
October 28, 2010
The Holland Sentinel (MI)

American voters can’t make an informed decision without knowing who is spending the big money to support particular candidates. Who is it that will be seeking a return on their "investment" after the election? Are candidates campaigning against government bailouts while taking money from the beneficiaries?

…

One of the first priorities of the newly elected Congress should be a bill requiring full disclosure of contributors to all groups that seek to influence the outcome of an election. Such a law passed the House this year but unfortunately died in the Senate. We can’t make truly informed voting decisions or have real confidence in our elected officials without full transparency about their backers. Why would the people who ask for our trust prefer to keep this information hidden from us?

 

In the dark-Blockage of the Disclose Act boost secretive special-interest campaign clout
July 31, 2010
The Houston Chronicle (TX)

Whatever one thinks of the proposition that corporations and other organizations have free speech rights to throw unrestricted amounts of cash into the electoral process, at minimum their expenditures should be publicly identified. As the Supreme Court majority opinion in Citizens United stated, "Transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages."

We are now in the worst possible situation: expanded special-interest influence in elections with no disclosure. That’s a dagger aimed at the heart of our democratic process.

 Corporate big bucks literally buying U.S. politicians
October 15, 2010
Idaho Mountain Express & Guide (ID)

Influencing American democracy through anonymous financing is not the American way. Accountability by, and identity of, donors must be restored.

The notion that corporations should enjoy the same rights as individual voters is an outlandish judicial conclusion. No group of voters has the collective financial power of a single major corporation.

Elections: Too much, too secret
October 25, 2010
Journal Sentinel (WI)

It is a simple enough concept: When it comes to political campaigns, the governed cannot be kept in the dark by those who govern, those who aspire to govern or those who would seek to influence how or to whose benefit we are all governed.

…

In a democracy, it shouldn’t be left to groups with the public interest at heart to sleuth out the kingmakers. In a government of the people and by the people, who "the people" are should not be a secret.

 The U.S. Supreme Court, in its Citizens United ruling this year, opened the floodgates for this kind of spending. But it also has said donor transparency could be required. This should be the preferred route.

Money from special interests is stealing our democracy
October 17, 2010
Kalamazoo Gazette (MI)

The people need to have full disclosure of the names of individuals and groups that are secretly contributing huge amounts of money right now to attack and defeat candidates and, in doing so, influencing the outcome of elections in America.

 Shine brighter light on who’s buying politicians
October 31, 2010
Kansas City Star (MO)

One solution being offered is the DISCLOSE Act (Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections), which passed the U.S. House this summer, but not surprisingly stalled in the Senate.

 

The act, simply summarized, seeks to force those pumping money into campaigns to take personal responsibility for their actions and not hide behind front organizations.

 

It must be passed. Specifically, corporations, labor unions and nonprofits would have to disclose their donors, and their leaders would have to appear on their television ads noting "I approve of this message."

…

The DISCLOSE Act might not change the amount of money spent on campaigns, but the sources would be known.

…

Stopping the wealthy from buying and manipulating elections may be a lost cause. But the DISCLOSE Act may be the best chance to give the knowledge of who is buying the democratic process back to the American people.

 Campaign spending should be transparent
October 7, 2010
The LaCrosse Tribune (WI)

As we warned at the time, trust and transparency are casualties of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case. As the Post points out, recent Supreme Court rulings have allowed corporations and interest groups to spend at will on politics.

 

If a political party receives a donation, the law stipulates that the donation must come from a person whose identity is public knowledge; the amount of donation is public record; and the amount is limited by law.

 

But interest groups play by different rules. Many of them are registered as not-for-profit entities. They don’t have to report who the donors are or how much they give. They don’t have to make such declarations with the attack ads they produce, either.

…

It’s an absurd game that serves no one except those who have a big wallet, want to have a big voice and want to stay absolutely anonymous.

 

That’s not how transparency should work.

 McConnell’s hypocrisy on campaign disclosure
August 1, 2010
Lexington-Herald Leader (KY)

Mitch McConnell believed in public disclosure related to campaign contributions in 1987. In a commentary published in the Herald-Leader, he lauded "post-Watergate disclosure laws" that help "flush out" politicians who "sacrifice duties or principles to get more money."

…

In a commentary published by the Herald-Leader the following year, McConnell wrote, "Public disclosure of campaign contributions and spending should be expedited so voters can judge for themselves what is appropriate."

…

Now that corporations are people, too, in the eyes of the court and free to spend at will on political causes, McConnell doesn’t want his buddies in the nation’s boardrooms pestered by any disclosure rules.

 

So, he’s leading the filibuster that so far has blocked passage of a proposal to require corporations, unions and most other independent organizations to open up the books on their political spending.

…

After all if "money is free speech" in American politics, as McConnell so often has argued over the years, what’s wrong with letting voters see who’s talking?

 Shed light on the money trail
November 4, 2010
The Lincoln Journal Star (NE)

When the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts on elections, the majority noted that "disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages."

 

In an era when digital information can be made easily accessible, there’s no excuse for keeping voters in the dark. Quick and comprehensive campaign finance disclosure would make for a more healthy democracy.

Behind the attack ads
October 19, 2010
Los Angeles Times

Whatever the outcome of the November congressional elections, the voters are already the losers.    They are being inundated by attack ads paid for by organizations with benign-sounding names that refuse to identify their donors. 

…

One remedy for the avalanche of anonymous attack ads is the DISCLOSE Act, which would require nonprofits like Crossroads GPS and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (which is covered by a different provision of the tax code) to disclose the names of the companies, organizations and individuals who fund them. The legislation has been approved by the House but was blocked in the Senate by a Republican filibuster; it could, and should, be revived in a post-election session.

…

There is no cogent argument against maximum disclosure. (The notion that disclosure would lead to the harassment of donors is laughable.)

…

If those who seek to influence elections don’t have the courage of their convictions, Congress must act to identify them.

Politics in the dark
November 3, 2010
Miami Herald (FL)

Regardless of which candidates win, voters lose when they are left in the dark about who is signing the checks to pay for the commercials — mostly, attack ads — that dominate political campaigns. Disclosure enables voters to make informed decisions about the message and the candidate. Secrecy leaves them clueless.

 

The remedy lies in the Disclose Act, which the House has passed and is pending in the Senate. It would expand disclosure requirements to help the public know more about the rivers of money pouring into campaigns. Thus far, it has failed to attract any Republican support, but sponsors say they are willing to drop some nonessential provisions — prohibiting government contractors from making donations, for example — to attract at least one or two Republicans.

 

This bill should be at the top of Congress’ agenda in the lame-duck session that begins later this month. It’s too late to do anything about this year’s elections, but it can remove the shield of secrecy before the next round of races in 2012. A failure to act benefits only those who thrive in political darkness.

Elections, Incorporated
September 28, 2010
Minnesota Daily (MN)

Now, even the right of the public to know where and how much these special interests are spending is at stake. Last week the U.S. Senate failed to advance legislation that would merely require special interests to disclose these essential details.

…

Amid all the gathering armies of wealth and influence, one thing seems sure: once it’s in play, money has a way of entrenching itself in politics. Meanwhile, the voice of a single American vote isn’t getting any louder. Without fast and sweeping campaign finance reform, we risk it shrinking to a whisper.

Show US the Money or at Least the Donors
October 4, 2010
News & Advance (VA)

What is troubling, though, is that it is virtually impossible for the general public to determine who’s behind the money and what their agenda might be. That’s the sort of information needed to evaluate fully the message being broadcast. Democracy requires political sunlight; these groups require secrecy.

In the shadows
September 16, 2010
The News & Observer (NC)

Congress has considered requiring full disclosure of sponsors and financing in the public’s interest; Republicans have stood against it. Given that such action wouldn’t put further limits on contributions, wouldn’t stop the ads, wouldn’t do anything to curtail this free speech (that is far from free), what’s the problem?

Campaign money to burn 
November 5, 2010
New York Times

The moment could not be more pressing for lame-duck senators to revisit – and pass – the "Disclose Act." It has been approved by the House and would mandate that the public at least be told which deep-pocketed corporate and union donors are politicking from the underbrush. The measure failed by one vote in a September filibuster by Republicans.

…

The Democratic majority needs just a few Republicans to break party lock step and stand up for politicking in the sunshine.

                                                                           …

The so-called Republican moderates – Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of MaineMassachusetts – have been critical of what seem to be peripheral details. If it takes a stripped-down version to win enactment of true disclosure, that is worth pursuing. and Scott Brown of

Stealth Money
October 18, 2010
New York Times

A campaign finance bill, the Disclose Act, fell a vote short in the Senate last month. Another vote is promised after the election, with Democrats offering to negotiate changes that keep the focus on transparency. Might voters dare to hope that the frenzy of stealth spending could prompt support from Republicans prized for their supposed independence: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and Scott Brown of Massachusetts?

 

If not, the three and the entire Republican Party should explain why they prefer Senator McConnell’s diktat that voters are best left in the dark.

The Secret Election
September 19, 2010
New York Times

The Citizens United decision, paradoxically, supported greater disclosure of donors, but Senate Republicans have filibustered a bill that would eliminate the secrecy shield. Just one vote is preventing passage. That act is coming back for another Senate vote. The two Republican senators from Maine, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, might want to read a recent poll by the Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, which showed that 80 percent of the state’s voters support public disclosure.

 It is too late for a new law to have any effect on the dark swamp of this year’s elections, but there is still hope that Congress will allow the sun to shine on the elections of 2012 and beyond.

War chests show role of money in politics
October 4, 2010
News Sentinel (TN)

With the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in recent years supporting campaign donations as a form of free speech, we shouldn’t expect more laws limiting political contributions.

 

On the other hand, we have a right to expect transparency and accountability: to know where the money comes from, where it goes and what is at issue.

 

And we hope enough other officeholders – like Duncan – will regard it as a necessary evil.

Disclose donations-its good politics
October 15, 2010
North County Times (CA)

With all the angst expressed by politicians and pundits over the gush of money flooding into this midterm election season, we would like our representatives in Congress and in Sacramento to consider the one piece of campaign finance reform that makes sense: sunlight.

 

And maybe it will happen after the midterm elections are over.

…

What will help keep politics clean are disclosure rules —- and all the technology for that is available now.

…

In the spirit of this reasoning, consider Justice Anthony Scalia’s remarks in a case upholding the disclosure of the identities of referendum petition-signers (Doe v. Reed, also this summer): "Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed."

Our View: The secret cash in our politics
October 18, 2010
Pasadena Star Chronicle (CA)

WE don’t like the way anonymous campaign donations, which were supposed to have been  eliminated in post-Watergate reforms, have sneaked back into power politics this election season.

We don’t at all buy the excuse from the lawyers who defend politically oriented nonprofits from disclosing their donors: "It would lead to intimidation and harassment of contributors," as one attorney explained to analyst Jill Abramson in The New York Times.

Meanwhile, we need to find a way back to the system that did create something like full transparency in American political funding for several decades after the 1970s reforms.

Show us the money…and who contributed it
November 8, 2010
Philadelphia Daily News (PA)

The DISCLOSE Act, passed by the House of Representatives last year, would require, among other things, that political donors be publicly identified. The bill has majority support in the U.S. Senate, but twice has been blocked when not one Republican senator would vote to break a filibuster – even senators who have supported campaign-finance reform in the past.

There’s one last chance to impose a minimum check on the Wild West environment that campaigns have become: let the disclosure provision of the DISCLOSE Act come to a vote in the "lame duck" session of the Senate that begins next week.

Court ruling has changed the election game
October 11, 2010
Philadelphia Daily News (PA)

Democrats in Congress have been trying for months to pass legislation called the DISCLOSE Act that, while it would not limit corporate donations, would require that the identities of political contributors be made public. The bill got a total of two Republican votes when it passed the U.S. House of Representatives last summer. And – all together now – it was filibustered (and blocked) in the U.S. Senate twice.

While expectations of what could be passed in the "lame duck" session of Congress after the election are unrealistic, a stripped-down DISCLOSE Act ought to be at the top of the list. It may be impossible to keep businesses, industries and even foreign governments from buying members of Congress – but at least we should know who owns them.

Follow the money
October 14, 2010
Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial (PA)

Voters have a right to know who’s behind campaign ads, to better assess the motivation and accuracy of the message. Advocacy in free, open democratic elections should not depend on anonymity.

 

A bill stalled in the Senate, the Disclose Act, would alleviate some of the mystery now shrouding federal elections. It would require groups to reveal who’s paying for their campaign ads. The legislation was approved by the House last summer, but Senate Republicans have blocked it.

 

It’s too late to clear up this growing problem in the midterm elections. But Congress must address the growing secrecy invading federal elections before the 2012 presidential race.

Cash box
November 8, 2010
Press Democrat (CA)

Congress must act to require newly empowered labor unions and corporate interests to disclose their role in independent expenditure campaigns. Many of the most noxious messages delivered during the 2010 campaign were inexcusably cloaked in anonymity.

…

Money can’t be driven from politics, and the U.S. Supreme Court isn’t likely to change its mind any time soon. What should be driven from politics is anonymous money.

DISCLOSE!
June 23, 2010
Roll Call

For as long as we can remember, Republicans opposed to campaign finance reform -supposedly on free-speech grounds – claimed that they wholeheartedly endorsed full and fast disclosure of contributions and expenditures as the surest protection against corruption.

 

But now that the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has opened the way for unlimited corporate spending on campaigns, suddenly Republicans are backtracking on disclosure, claiming it will "chill" free speech.

 

It’s rank hypocrisy, and those who indulge in it ought to be ashamed of themselves.

 
Court opened up floodgates with its campaign ad decision
October 31, 2010
Sacramento Bee (CA)

Reasonable people can disagree on whether or not campaign donations ought to be capped. But on this there can be no dispute: the public should know the source of big donations.

 

Writing for the majority in Citizens United, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy appeared to be terribly out of touch with how federal campaign finance disclosure works. Kennedy wrote that the advent of the Internet would result in "prompt disclosure of expenditures," providing citizens "with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable."

Corporations, wealthy dominating politics
November 3, 2010
San Jose Mercury News (CA)

After the Supreme Court’s radical decision in the Citizens United case, corporations now have the same rights to make political donations as individuals, drowning the voices of those who don’t earn billions or employ armies of lobbyists. And anyone who thinks campaign spending only influences elections is delusional; it’s directly related to what laws are made or blocked.

 

At the same time, a bevy of organizations has sprung up to take advantage of Citizens United and existing tax laws by accepting donations to pay for political ads. Many of these donations can stay secret, and while they are thought to account for about 10 percent of election spending this year, their success this time around means they are expected to grow exponentially in 2012.

 

Donor secrecy is insidious because campaign spending gives the clearest possible picture of who stands to win and lose in any given race.

Senate must pass DISCLOSE Act
October 5, 2010
San Jose Mercury News Editorial (CA)

As voters consider the issues and candidates, they’re awash in an unprecedented flood of campaign advertising, much of it funded by people who don’t identify themselves — and don’t have to.

…

We hope that once the election frenzy subsides, a few Republican senators will listen to their consciences. Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, John McCain, Richard Lugar and Thad Cochran all previously have voted for much more restrictive campaign finance laws.

 

The Disclose Act will be just a start at solving campaign finance problems. For example, Congress and the IRS need to examine whether independent groups are abusing their nonprofit status. But the act will help solve one very real problem, and if the Senate doesn’t pass it, we’ll have even more evidence that lawmakers are out for themselves and their donors — not the people.

‘Free’ speech unaccountable
October 19, 2010
Scranton-Times Tribune (PA)

Congress missed an opportunity to ensure that accountability when Senate Republicans blocked the Disclose Act, which would have required identification of contributors. That made this election campaign an experiment that, so far, has produced miserable results. Congress should revisit the issue and establish disclosure requirements as a simple matter of honest accountability for political messages.

The right ruling on corporate speech
September 21, 2010
The Star Tribune (MN)

As we said shortly after the Citizens United ruling, we don’t fully share the alarm of the decision’s most impassioned detractors because we are believers in the truth-revealing power of free speech. That very much includes the speech that will be directed back at corporations and unions that choose to enter the political fray.

 

But disclosure, as we also said last winter, is the key to keeping that two-way conversation going. There is no respectable argument for secrecy among large, influential institutions.

…

In this information age, there is no good reason to delay a full accounting of just who is doing the speaking.

If you don’t know who’s paying for that campaign ad, why believe it?
September 27, 2010
St. Louis Post Dispatch (MO)

 Democrats couldn’t muster a 60th vote among Republicans to bring the bill to the floor.

This, even though in previous years, prominent Republican senators, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, John Cornyn of Texas and Jeff Sessions of Alabama, all had said full disclosure and transparency were key to campaign spending reform.

…

Today we have hundreds of "astroturf" front groups for corporate interests spending millions of dollars to influence elections and congressional votes, even fronting money for some Tea Party groups. The source of the money remains secret, and the motivation of donors remains suspect.

 

Until the nation can get money out of politics – or at the very least, get better disclosure laws – a good rule of thumb for voters is this: If you can’t tell who’s paying for a campaign ad, don’t believe it.

Unleashing the attack dogs
October 24, 2010
Stockton Record (CA)

[This] opened the gate not only to corporate and union spending at unprecedented levels but also allowed most of that spending to be laundered through shell organizations that can – and usually do – protect the identity of their donors. Not only are those behind the groups kept secret, it sometimes is hard even to find out who’s running the organizations themselves.

…

In reaction to Citizens United, the House passed the DISCLOSE Act, which would require nonprofits to disclose the names of the companies, organizations and individuals who fund them.

 

The act also would require the chief officers of corporations and nonprofits to appear in ads and take responsibility for them, just as candidates do for advertising sponsored by their campaigns.

 

That doesn’t seem too much to ask. The public should be able to tell whose money is behind what candidate.

 

Unfortunately, the DISCLOSE Act was blocked in the Senate by a Republican filibuster.

It should be taken up again after the election.

 
Unfettered and anonymous
November 3, 2010
The Times Record (ME)

Common sense should tell us that when unfettered corporate spending is also anonymous – as is allowed for donations to certain types of nonprofit third-party groups, such as Rove’s Crossroads GPS – the voting public loses.

 

If spending caps are now illegal, we at least should strengthen disclosure requirements so voters will know how much corporations are spending on political donations. The DISCLOSE Act – which was blocked by a unanimous Republican "no" vote in the U.S. Senate this September – tried to do just that.

 …

Campaign financing shouldn’t be secret.  Honesty, not "deniability," should be the guiding principle of our elections.

Elections for sale
November 8, 2010
Toledo Blade (OH)

Decided by a 5-4 majority in a fit of judicial activism, the high court’s ruling gutted federal campaign-finance law and its long-established principles. The majority preposterously equated the First Amendment rights of corporations and unions with those of individual citizens.

 

In dissent, then-Justice John Paul Stevens warned prophetically that this "radical change in the law dramatically enhances the role of corporations and unions – and the narrow interests they represent – in determining who will hold public office."

 

Worse yet, many of the independent sources of money in this high-profile election were unknown to voters. Secrecy offered the incentive for unscrupulous interests to spend freely.

…

With the headache of bitter politicking still fresh, Americans of all political persuasions must take post-election stock of what happened and demand a change.

 

The Disclose Act, a response to the Supreme Court ruling, seeks to increase transparency of corporate and special-interest money in national political campaigns.

 

The measure passed the House in June. But Senate Republicans blocked it, calling it an effort to favor Democratic interests. Viewing it through a partisan prism is shortsighted.

 

Republicans reeled in more campaign money than Democrats this cycle, but the thing about cycles is that they go around. It’s time to put country, not party, first – and cure an ill that has made Americans suffer.

Our view on campaign finance: Who’s buying this election? Who knows?
September 27, 2010
USA Today

This noxious mix of unlimited money and secrecy means that Americans have no idea who is trying to buy this year’s elections. Some of these ads could be underwritten by a single industry, a single company, or even a single person with a vendetta.                                 

       …

 

With the Supreme Court having struck down limits on the size of corporate and union contributions, megamoney pouring into elections is apparently here to stay. But the court’s January decision explicitly invited disclosure rules, so more transparency would be an improvement.

Secret donations pervert campaigns
October 13, 2010
The Virginia Pilot (VA)

One of the huge loopholes in American election law – and it existed before and after Citizens United – permits third-party advocacy groups to legally shield their donors from campaign-reporting requirements. That loophole lets individuals hide behind advocacy strawmen; it may now do the same for corporations.

…

Money will always be a perverting factor in American politics. The least voters can expect, as their political system is twisted, is to know who is doing it and what it costs.

Capping the secret money gusher
October 31, 2010
Washington Post

What it’s not possible to argue – not plausibly, anyway – is that the proliferation of outside groups that spent heavily but kept their donors secret is a healthy development for democracy.

…

To have campaigns underwritten or votes swayed by money whose source is not known is the antithesis of a well-functioning democratic system.

 

…

Passing a stripped-down, disclosure-only version of the DISCLOSE Act should be at the top of the agenda for the lame-duck Congress.