The Republicans are seeking to insulate their constituency, Corporations and wealthy fanatics, from public scrutiny. but this also means foreign governments will not have to disclose their funding of campaign ads.
The GOP: trading our democracy for dollars.
Who needs al Kaida when you've got the GOP!http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/07/senate-gop-blocks-bill-to-tighten-campaign-spending-disclosure/1As expected, Senate Republicans have blocked legislation to require corporations, unions and other groups to disclose who pays for their political advertising.
The vote was 57-41, three short of the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster and advance the bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid voted no with 40 Republicans, a procedural move that allows another vote in the future. Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., were absent.
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Yesterday,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-disclose-act?loc=interstitialskip">President Obama urged senators to vote for the measure, declaring that opposing it "is nothing less than a vote to allow corporate and special interest takeovers of our elections."
Tomorrow there’s going to be a very important vote in the Senate about how much influence special interests should have over our democracy. Because of the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year in the Citizens United case, big corporations –- even foreign-controlled ones –- are now allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on American elections. They can buy millions of dollars worth of TV ads –- and worst of all, they don’t even have to reveal who’s actually paying for the ads. Instead, a group can hide behind a name like “Citizens for a Better Future,” even if a more accurate name would be “Companies for Weaker Oversight.” These shadow groups are already forming and building war chests of tens of millions of dollars to influence the fall elections.
Now, imagine the power this will give special interests over politicians. Corporate lobbyists will be able to tell members of Congress if they don’t vote the right way, they will face an onslaught of negative ads in their next campaign. And all too often, no one will actually know who’s really behind those ads.
So the House has already passed a bipartisan bill that would change all this before the next election. The DISCLOSE Act would simply require corporate political advertisers to reveal who’s funding their activities. So when special interests take to the airwaves, whoever is running and funding the ad would have to appear in the advertisement and claim responsibility for it -– like a company’s CEO or the organization’s biggest contributor. And foreign-controlled corporations and entities would be restricted from spending money to influence American elections -- just as they were in the past.
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