[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 128 (Wednesday, September 22, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7311-S7313]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            THE DISCLOSE ACT

  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, just yesterday, the Columbus 
Dispatch, the second largest paper in my State, reported that one 
single Cincinnati-based corporation gave more than $450,000 to Karl 
Rove's outfit. Lest we forget, Karl Rove was the very political person 
in the Bush administration who was sort of the mastermind of dirty 
tricks and of raising tons of special interest money and the mastermind 
on a lot of the sort of, shall we say, disinformation coming out of the 
White House in the Bush years during the lead-up to the Iraq war--that 
Karl Rove. Again, the Columbus Dispatch reported that one single 
Cincinnati-based corporation gave more than $450,000 to Karl Rove's 
outfit to support advertising for one single Ohio Senate candidate.
  That was reported from a generally conservative newspaper. The 
Columbus Dispatch is no friend of Democrats. They are a pretty 
Republican organization, although the reporters are fairminded. So one 
corporation sent $450,000 to one single Senate candidate. That 
corporation can do that because of the Roberts Court decision--the 
Supreme Court decision, with its new ultraconservative Court, which is 
perhaps more conservative than any Court in the 21st or 20th centuries, 
in a case called Citizens United. It is an outright corruption of our 
democratic process. But with the Citizens United case, it is a reality.
  The Supreme Court opened the floodgates, allowing multinational, 
large corporations to bankroll their favorite political candidates and 
build a Congress in their image. They don't have

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to be American; they can be foreign corporations. It is not like the 
drug companies, oil companies, and insurance companies don't have 
enough power in Washington, DC. When they sneeze, too many people 
around here get a cold. When the drug companies, insurance companies, 
and the oil industry--these large corporations--want something, far too 
often they are successful in the Halls of Congress. That is the reason 
we have seen the obstruction in the last year and a half. That is why 
it is so easy for Leader McConnell to get 41 Republicans to oppose what 
we are trying to do in this body--because of the influence of these 
drug companies, insurance companies, the oil industry, and others--
these huge companies that outsource jobs.
  The Supreme Court is made up of almost all conservative appointees--a 
majority of them--backed by these major moneyed corporate interests, 
and this Court has given even more power to these corporations. In some 
cases, they said they can be foreign-based corporations.
  In Citizens United, the Supreme Court swept aside decades' worth of 
established jurisprudence to abruptly--and radically--change the rules 
of the game to remake, if you will, our democratic system. The Roberts 
Court couched their activism in arguments about the first amendment.
  I am not a constitutional lawyer; in fact, I am not a lawyer at all. 
When I hear: Should General Motors or should Pfizer drug company or 
should any large corporation have the same free speech rights as 
individual Americans, I don't think so. The Founders never thought 
about corporations having all the same first amendment free speech 
rights as individuals, as the pages sitting here do or as Americans in 
Toledo, Akron, and everywhere do by nature of the fact they are 
American citizens. They have free speech rights.
  The Roberts Court decision said we are going to give free speech 
rights to corporations in every way, which means the free speech of an 
individual American is washed away, in political terms, because of the 
huge influence that a small number of corporations can have because 
they have so much money to inject into the political system.
  Citizens United, therefore, buries the voices of everyday Americans, 
as Fortune 500 companies straddle the globe and reap billions in 
profits, and they can take just pennies on the dollar and lavish huge 
dollars on American campaigns. If a multibillion-dollar company drops 
$1 million to help a candidate--as we are seeing with Rove's sort of 
sordid political operation--that is not very much money to that 
company. But that $1 million certainly can wash away and so much 
counteract a bunch of American citizens in Mansfield, Lima, 
Springfield, and Zanesville, OH, who are giving $20 each.
  Average households are struggling to break even. How can you compare 
their ability to influence--ability to exercise their free speech--to 
that of a multimillion-dollar Fortune 500 company?
  Look how that plays out. In 2009, corporations spent $3.3 billion 
lobbying Congress to influence legislation, exerting far more influence 
on our political process than they should.
  We saw how special interests spent more than $1 million a day in an 
attempt to shape health care reform and Wall Street reform, and because 
of Citizens United they will be able to spend unlimited amounts of 
money to intimidate, retaliate against, and replace their foes in 
Congress.
  If you speak up, as I am doing now at some risk--I am on the ballot 
in 2012. I know what this crowd is going to do because I do not always 
agree with BP's agenda or the drug companies' agenda. In fact, I 
usually do not. I also know these companies already have so much 
influence lobbying the Congress day after day, and now they are going 
to have greater influence in electing their allies to the House of 
Representatives and the Senate. They have turned this advantage into a 
corporate monopoly of political speech.
  When campaigns overwhelmingly are run on television now, with 
millions of dollars spent--at least $10 million will be spent in Ohio 
in the Senate race, probably more than that in the Governor's race--
when there is that kind of money, it too often drowns out everyday 
Americans' free speech.
  Most Americans today do not advocate for, nor would the Framers have 
envisioned a democratic system in which $10 million contributions from 
corporations drown out $20 donations that represent real people's real 
concerns. A lot of people give me $10, $20, or $50 for my campaign. 
They are not trying to buy influence. They do not buy influence with 
that. They contribute to me and the Senator from Illinois and others 
because they agree with what I do. They like the positions I take. They 
think I represent them reasonably well. But they are not going to 
influence the system. Contrast that with this more than $400,000 
donation to one political candidate from one corporation. What does 
that suggest might happen down the road?
  Our democracy was once--I hope still is--on the power of a single 
person walking into a voting booth and casting a vote. It is based on 
individual rights, not corporate profits. But the Citizens United case 
gave corporations the power to put corporate profits squarely ahead of 
personal rights. That is why the legislation we are working on, the 
DISCLOSE Act, is so important. I guess that is why Republicans en masse 
seem to be opposing the DISCLOSE Act.
  The DISCLOSE Act fights back by giving individual Americans more 
power to understand, to cast sunlight into the shadows of corporate 
political spending. It grants citizens power of information--
information that breeds accountability and transparency. If a company 
engages in political activity, that company should be willing to 
identify itself--but not the way the Citizens United case is. That 
means the DISCLOSE Act would make CEOs do what political candidates do 
when they pay for political advertising.
  When I ran for office, as I did in 2006 for the Senate, I looked into 
the camera and said: This ad was paid for by friends of Sherrod Brown, 
so people would know I am responsible for this ad. Why shouldn't a 
corporation that writes a check for $1 million to a political 
organization--why shouldn't that CEO be willing to and be told to and 
be forced to and be compelled to under law stand in front of the camera 
and say: This ad was paid for by XYZ Corporation. I take 
responsibility, and I am the CEO.
  It helps the public follow the money behind the multimillion dollars 
that buy ads from shadowy groups. If BP were to give $1 million to a 
political candidate in Ohio or Pennsylvania and nobody really knows it 
is a BP ad that has gone into this group, then the voters do not have 
any way of judging very much from that ad. But if the CEO of BP had to 
walk out in front of that camera and say: I am the CEO of BP, and I 
paid for this ad, that is going to send a message to voters: Do I want 
to support this candidate BP is supporting? But, instead, BP can get 
behind the desk and hide from disclosure.
  I have heard people in this body--the Republican leader most 
prominently--argue ad nauseam on campaign finance laws that we need 
full disclosure, we need the sunlight to shine. This is his opportunity 
to step up and argue for full disclosure and go down to that well and 
cast a vote: Yes, I agree with full disclosure.
  They are not doing it now. Do you know why? So far, not one 
Republican has been willing to walk out here and make a CEO say: I am 
responsible for this ad. My corporation paid for this ad. They are not 
willing to because Republicans really know that come election time, 
when multinational corporations are willing to write million-dollar 
checks, they are going to be the beneficiary--not that my party by a 
long shot is perfect, but we know that Republican candidates are almost 
always supported by the biggest multinational, often foreign 
corporations in this country--the big oil companies, the big insurance 
companies, the big drug companies--that already have too much power 
here, but they are going to have more power here because they are 
spending all this money to elect conservative, Republican, pro-
corporate, at-any-cost candidates. What that means is higher taxes for 
individuals as corporations pay less--less corporate responsibility for 
deregulation of Wall Street and the environment. Look at what happened 
to Wall Street in the last 3 years. Look at what happened to the 
environment with BP. The merry-go-round will continue.

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  The DISCLOSE Act also has a provision that says political decisions 
cannot be influenced by foreign-owned companies. We are putting a 
prohibition in this bill that a foreign-owned company cannot come to 
America and buy elections. I am incredulous that my Republican 
opponents--who always talk about nationalism, always challenge 
patriotism of people with whom they do not agree, always are talking 
about our national interests, always bashing immigrants--would not 
agree with us that foreign companies ought not be able to come in and 
buy American elections. I guess that is OK to them too, because our 
bill says foreign-owned corporations may not participate in American 
elections in this way.
  To me, it is bad enough that a company based in the United States--
this is the case where a company that is based in the United States but 
owned by a European interest can still contribute. That is what the 
Citizens United case said. We are saying no to that. Think of a U.S.-
based, Chinese-owned company spending millions to influence a trade or 
manufacturing bill.
  One of the things I fought for--and I know the Presiding Officer 
agrees with this, and it has been supported--is made-in-America 
provisions. We have seen in downstate Illinois, in suburban Chicago, in 
Dayton and Springfield, OH, Cleveland and Toledo, a significant erosion 
of our manufacturing base. One of the reasons for that is that 
companies have moved offshore because of bad trade agreements and bad 
tax law that we are trying to fix even though it has been blocked by 
the other side. We also know most Americans would love to buy clothes 
made in the United States, would like to buy products. They go to 
stores and cannot find products made in the USA. Tell me that a 
foreign-owned corporation that spends political money, comes in and 
gives hundreds of thousands of dollars to a conservative political 
candidate, tell me that corporation is not going to lobby that Member 
of Congress against some of our made-in-America laws we have tried to 
enact. You can bet those conservative politicians who love to trumpet 
their patriotism and accuse others who disagree of not being so 
patriotic will find a way to oppose strengthening made-in-America 
rules.
  If anything should bear the label ``Made in America,'' it should be 
our elections. I am amazed that Republicans in this body do not agree 
with that.
  It used to be that the disclosure of campaign expenditures was 
bipartisan, Republicans and Democrats. It is bipartisan in the public; 
it is just not bipartisan here. We should not want to see our 
democratic system become the puppet of corporate America or any special 
interest. Transparency matters. People ought to know from where these 
dollars come. Disclosure matters. Companies should have to disclose and 
take responsibility for those ads and those contributions. By enabling 
Americans to see behind the curtain, the DISCLOSE Act ensures Americans 
will not be left in the dark.
  The bill restores some of the integrity and the transparency that the 
Citizens United decision stripped from our political process. Let's not 
forsake this opportunity. I know it will not affect the tens of 
millions of dollars Karl Rove and his friends in the Bush 
administration are spending in campaigns this year, but if we do this 
bill right, it can affect elections in the future in a positive way so 
that elections, one, will be made in America; and second, for people 
who give money, there will be transparency and disclosure so the public 
knows which corporations are putting how much money into whose 
campaigns, and it will mean ultimately that corporations take 
responsibility for the decisions they make and the money they spend in 
the American political system. It is what the rest of us have to do. 
CEOs should have to do the same.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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