Efforts to curb special interests in elections stymied.

[JohnWxy]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2010-06-21-campaign-spending-legislation_N.htm?csp=34news

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Disclosing donors

Democratic leaders, including the bill's chief architect Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., have made the campaign-disclosure bill a top issue for the party and have sought to move quickly to put rules in place before November's midterm elections for Congress. In his State of the Union address in January, Obama assailed the Supreme Court ruling as opening "the floodgates for special interests" and urged Congress to pass legislation quickly.

The bill would require non-profits, corporations and unions that broadcast campaign ads to disclose their top five donors. CEOs and union chiefs would be required to appear in political advertising they fund, and companies with government contracts worth $10 million or more and corporations with 20% or more foreign ownership would be barred from political spending.

Furor erupted last week after the bill's authors exempted the powerful National Rifle Association and other groups with membership of more than 1 million or that rely on corporations for less than 15% of contributions from the disclosure requirements. The bill has since been changed to exempt groups with membership of more than 500,000.

That has not quelled criticism from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), which has withdrawn its backing, and other critics. "We support the disclosure that's at the heart of the bill," said Lisa Gilbert of PIRG. "But we think it's a problem to set up a dual system: one set of rules for certain groups and a different set of rules for everyone else."
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Okay, it's not perfect to give the most powerful pressure group in the country, the Rifleman Religion, special treatment. BUT, HOLW HARD WOULD IT BE TO DISCERNE WHICH ADS WERE SUPPORTED BY THE NRA? The idea here is to have the groups (corporations, and groups of corporations) to identify themselves as paying for political ads.

It's incredible to me anybody could say they are against disclosure with a straight face (suppressing the sneer). Why should any entity or group NOT want to stand up and say they paid for an ad? Seems to me if a group does NOT want to be identified with an ad they are paying for - that's all the more reason that citizens (who are going to be affected by the results of the election) should know who is paying for the political ad!