Fred Wertheimer Statement on Disclosure Bill Introduced By Senators Wyden and Murkowski

The introduction of campaign finance disclosure legislation yesterday by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is an important step forward.

The bill represents a breakthrough as the first bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate to address the problem of secret money being spent by outside groups to influence federal elections.

Democracy 21 commends the two Senators, and in particular we commend Senator Murkowski for her leadership and willingness to become the first Republican Senator to formally support legislation dealing with the serious disclosure problems that exist in the campaign finance laws.

We supported the DISCLOSE Act sponsored by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in the last Congress. We continue to believe that the general approach used in the DISCLOSE Act is required to obtain the disclosure that is needed. This approach provides necessary bright line tests to determine when disclosure information must be reported and does not rely on the FEC, a dysfunctional agency, to decide if campaign-related ads need to be disclosed.

Senator Whitehouse has made clear in the past that he is interested in working with Senate Republicans and others to negotiate a new, mutually acceptable disclosure bill.

With the new involvement of Senators Murkowski and Wyden and with the potential involvement of other Senators, we are hopeful that such a negotiation can set the stage for passing disclosure legislation in the Senate in this Congress.

We again thank Senators Wyden and Murkowski for introducing disclosure legislation and for making publicly clear that, unlike in the last Congress, there is no longer uniform Republican opposition in the Senate to solving a very serious campaign finance disclosure problem.