Omnibus Bill: Dangerous Campaign Finance Riders Were Defeated

FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | MARCH 22, 2018

“We were successful in keeping out any new campaign finance riders from the final bill.”

One of the many fights that took place in reaching a final $1.3 trillion Omnibus Appropriations bill this week was a concerted effort by the reform community to keep damaging campaign finance riders out of the bill.

A letter to Members of Congress, organized by Democracy 21 and signed by 24 reform groups and watchdogs, strongly opposed campaign finance riders being pushed by congressional Republicans.

While campaign finance riders that had been in previous bills were continued, as expected, we were successful in keeping out any new campaign finance riders from the final bill.

One dangerous rider that was defeated would have gutted an existing law, the Johnson Amendment, which prevents churches and other charitable organizations from engaging in campaign activities. Contributions to these groups are tax-deductible and this rider would have meant that taxpayers would be subsidizing contributions made to these groups that were used for campaign activities.

A second rider that was defeated has been pushed for years by Senate Republican Leader McConnell, the longtime opponent of all campaign finance laws. The McConnell rider would have gutted the limits on political party spending that is coordinated with a candidate – a limitation, upheld by the Supreme Court, that prevents massive circumvention of the candidate contribution limits.

The third defeated rider would have prevented the SEC from even studying needed new regulations to require disclosure of campaign activities by public companies to shareholders. The SEC is already prohibited from issuing a final regulation on this by an earlier rider.

The Clean Budget Coalition, which includes Democracy 21, fought and lobbied hard against all of the poison pill riders being pushed for the Omnibus bill. In the end, Senate Democratic Leader Schumer and House Democratic Leader Pelosi get the lion’s share of the credit for blocking the campaign finance riders and most of the other poison pill riders that were pushed.

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Fred Wertheimer is the Founder and President of Democracy 21, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to strengthen our democracy and ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections.