[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 128 (Wednesday, September 22, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7325-S7327]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE DISCLOSE ACT
Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I come to floor today to tell a sad,
sad story of hypocrisy. It is not the first time we have told stories
of hypocrisy around this Capitol Building, but this one is a
particularly sad story of hypocrisy because right now, the ending is
ugly.
In America, we like nice endings. This story of hypocrisy has a very
bad ending. The name of this story is, Who is trying to buy your
government? There are folks out there right now trying to buy your
government. The saddest part of this story is that we have no idea who
they are. So why is it a story of hypocrisy? Well, we can start with
how we got here.
I have heard so many times--I cannot count how many times I have
heard my colleagues in the other party talk about the evils of an
activist court: Well, we have to make sure we do not have activist
judges. Well, no, I am not opposed to this nominee because he is
appointed by a Democratic President; I am opposed to this nominee
because of activism, evil activism. We have to watch out for activism.
So along comes the Citizens United case. If you looked up ``judicial
activism'' in a reference book, you would find the title ``Citizens
United.'' This Court went off the tracks. They created precedent out of
whole cloth in an effort to turn our democracy into a race for the
highest bidder.
I think it is hypocritical for people to come before the Senate
Judiciary Committee and be eloquent--because these are all smart
people--very eloquent about the evils of judicial activism and then
proceed to dismantle a system that is all about the public's right to
know.
There is another part of this that is hypocritical, besides the
notion that somehow conservative people are not judicial activists.
They are not judicial activists when they are active for something you
believe in. Then it is not activism. In other words, judicial activism
is in the eye of the beholder. I can think of a lot of Supreme Court
cases that could back up that assertion.
The other thing that is so hypocritical about this is the ridiculous
notion that so many people in this body have talked about transparency
like it is so near and dear to them. We must have transparency. We must
have an open door. We must have sunlight. Let me read a few quotes.
This is rich:
Public disclosure of campaign contributions and spending
should be expedited . . .
Think about that term, especially when we realize where it came from.
Public disclosure of campaign contributions and spending
should be expedited so voters can judge for themselves what
is appropriate.
Good, old-fashioned common sense. That is from the leader of the
Republican Party.
How about this one:
I think what we ought to do is we ought to have full
disclosure, full disclosure of all the money we raise and how
it is spent. And I think that sunlight is the best
disinfectant.
That came from the leader of the Republican Party in the House.
I think the system needs more transparency so people can
more easily reach their own conclusions.
I couldn't agree more. That comes from the Senator heading up the
Republican effort to elect Republican Senators this year.
I could go on and on. We have a Supreme Court decision that turns the
section of the IRS Code, 501(c), into an open bazaar. What was supposed
to be not political and not for profit is now a mushrooming industry of
nonaccountable, unaccountable organizations that nobody has any idea
where they are coming from, who is writing the checks, and what their
motivations are. These groups have fallen into a regulatory nirvana.
There is no regulation. There is nobody watching. There is nobody
asking questions.
These are social welfare organizations, 501(c)(4)s, like Crossroads,
which is one that sprung up. It has been the top spender. It hasn't
been the Republican committees or the Democratic committees. The top
spender in the Senate races is a group we have no idea what it is or
who is writing the checks.
We have to realize they don't even have to file anything with the
government, with the IRS, until February, March, April. How many people
think these organizations are going to be around after November?
Really? How naive are you? They have to find some excuse, right,
because this is embarrassing that they are blocking our efforts at
making campaign finance contributions transparent?
One can't really say: Hey, we are going to change our mind about
transparency because we have an election to win and we have a bunch of
rich people out here who want to write big checks or big corporations
that want to write big checks. So what do you do? You try to make it
about the big, bad unions. These rules need to apply to unions too.
Unions are doing ads right now. They should be saying what unions are
doing them. We should know where their money comes from. We do know
where their money comes from. It comes from their members. But we ought
to know who is doing it. This law requires the same thing of unions
that it requires of anyone else writing big checks.
Who is going to buy your government? It could be like a game show. We
could have a big wheel and spin the wheel and people could guess who is
buying the government. I am worried about government contractors. There
has been big money in government contracting. I have noticed from
firsthand experience that when we start shaking the trees of these
government contractors, they fight back. As I have tried to clean up
some of the contracting messes that have littered the financial
landscape of the Federal Government, I have run into an amazing amount
of resistance from the underground power of these government
contractors.
Let's look at Blackwater. We know they have created dozens of fake
names to do business with the government. Many of them are
noncompetitive. Many of them are highly lucrative. They are hiding the
identity of their company for purposes of contracting.
Can colleagues imagine what they are capable of if they get to write
checks to influence elections with nobody knowing it? I am in big
trouble. I have gone after a lot of these big contractors. Now I think
my picture is probably on a lot of their dart boards. Now they don't
have to worry about throwing a dart. They don't have to worry about it.
All they have to do is anonymously write big checks. Millions of
dollars. Write a check for $10 million. Blow out an election in a
State. Nobody has to know who did it.
Foreign interests, yes; the Citizens United case created all kinds of
loopholes that are actually delineated in the case. They explained the
loopholes that are being created, if one reads the entire decision, for
foreign corporations. It is like after that case we have fallen down a
rabbit hole in terms of everything we should believe in in terms of our
election processes.
In the old days, they used to have the term, ``the bagman.'' The
bagman was not exactly a positive term for people. The bagman was the
guy who was in charge of carrying the money around in a bag. There was
a time in this democracy where they actually did that. Big bags of cash
were carried around and delivered to people's desks in every level of
government in the country. The people in this great democracy rose up
and said: We want to clean up this mess. We want candidates to have to
report how much money they are getting.
Some States said: We want to limit how much they are getting. We
limit how much we get. I don't know why we are not honest about this. I
don't know why they don't just propose an alternative bill that we do
away with any kind of limits. Frankly, it might be a better tradeoff.
[[Page S7326]]
If somebody put a gun to my head and said: You have to choose. Do you
want all the money being spent on campaigns disclosed where it is
coming from or do you want limits, I think I would take the disclosure
because I trust the American people. If they know who is paying the
bill, they can make a good judgment whether they trust what that
commercial says or what that mailer says or what that robo call says.
Trust is the great intangible around here. We can't do our jobs with
dignity and with honor if we are hypocrites and if there is not trust.
Does anyone imagine that the American people are going to trust us more
when we have open season on elections by the highest bidder?
I implore my colleagues, clean up this mess with us. Don't put the
last nail in the coffin of bipartisanship. This should be a bipartisan
effort. One rich guy who has a grudge against you can make unfair
commercials and never be held accountable, regardless of whether you
are a Democrat or a Republican.
I am not as offended by the notion that wealthy people can spend
their money however they want as I am by the notion that they can buy
elections with it and not be held accountable. We have a very wealthy
guy in St. Louis, Rex Sinquefield, who is spending millions of dollars
influencing elections and issues in Missouri. I kind of admire the guy.
He is up front about it. He is not handing checks off to Karl Rove
somewhere. He is very up front.
Trust is the great intangible. Everyone who blocks the effort to
require full disclosure of money that is being spent on political
campaigns does great damage to the most precious commodity we have in
this country, and that is the strength of our democracy.
I hope the American people, who are pretty cranky right now--and I
get it; they are upset; they ought to be really mad about this--hold
every one of us accountable. If you are not willing to support a bill
that will require full disclosure of people who are spending money on
political advertising, then I don't know how seriously we can take
anything you say you stand for.
Let's get the DISCLOSE Act up now. Let's clean up this mess. I
guarantee my colleagues, it is going to have an ugly ending. This story
will not have a good ending unless we change the plot.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota is recognized.
Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, ``[c]learly the American public has a
right to know who is paying for ads and who is attempting to influence
elections. Sunshine is what the political system needs.''
We can try and regulate ethical behavior by politicians,
but the surest way to cleanse the system is to let the Sun
shine in.
I don't like it when a large source of money is out there
funding ads and is unaccountable.
I think the system needs more transparency so people can
more easily reach their own conclusions.
I support campaign finance reform, but to me that means
individual contributions, free speech and full disclosure.
Public disclosure of campaign contributions and spending
should be expedited so voters can judge for themselves what
is appropriate.
The issue is expenditures, expenditures, expenditures; and
the real issue, if we really want to do something about
campaign finance reform, is disclosure, disclosure,
disclosure.
Disclosure helps everyone equally to know how their money
is spent. . . . Disclosure is what honesty and fairness in
politics is all about. Why would anyone fight against
disclosure?
Those are all excellent points. The fact is, they were made by seven
different Members of this body, all from my friends on the other side
of the aisle. They were made either on the floor of this body or to the
press.
So let there be no doubt, for a long time, disclosure of election
spending has been a robustly bipartisan issue. But suddenly each of my
friends has changed his or her tune. They now oppose legislation called
the DISCLOSE Act--disclose, disclosure--the DISCLOSE Act that would
force companies, nonprofits, and unions to disclose the money they
spend in our elections, both to the Federal Election Commission and to
the American people.
Here is one reason why they may have changed their tune. Thanks to
the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United, which Senator
McCaskill just spoke so eloquently about, corporations today have more
power to spend in our elections than they have had in our lifetimes. In
that decision, the Roberts Court broke with a century of precedent,
overturned two Federal laws, reversed two of its own decisions, and
nullified 24 State laws, including a 20-year-old Minnesota law. The
Supreme Court did all that to allow corporations to spend as much money
as they want, whenever they want, in our elections and not just Federal
elections--State elections, county elections, school board elections.
Here is another reason my friends have changed their tune: Those
corporations are using their newfound power to disproportionately
benefit my friends across the aisle. Since August 1, Republican
interest groups have outspent Democratic interest groups 5 to 1, and
these corporations are funneling millions upon millions of dollars into
our elections without anyone knowing where that money came from.
It is no accident they are so eager to influence elections and to do
so anonymously. You know why? Because Congress has finally stepped in
to protect consumers from abuses by big businesses that have been
allowed for far too long to write their own rules. So big businesses
are giving money anonymously.
Corporations will not spend money on just any election. They are
going to spend it when we, the Congress, try to pass laws that are
tough on Wall Street or on health insurance companies. They are going
to spend it when your city council debates whether to allow a new toxic
waste dump that wants to come to town. They are going to spend it when
anyone tries to pass consumer and environmental laws that protect our
families and our homes. The best part of it is, they do not want anyone
to know they are doing it.
That is why we need the DISCLOSE Act. The DISCLOSE Act will allow
Americans to know how and which corporations and unions are trying to
influence elections. The DISCLOSE Act would make sure we do not need a
permission slip from big business to run our communities.
Let me repeat what it will do. First and foremost, the DISCLOSE Act
is about disclosure; hence, the DISCLOSE Act. That is why it is named
that. It will force CEOs, union heads, and leaders of advocacy groups,
along with their top contributors, to be identified in the ads they pay
for. These same groups, corporations, nonprofits, and unions would be
required to disclose their top donors to the Federal Election
Commission.
If a company has shareholders, they are going to have to disclose
their expenditures to those shareholders in periodic reports and on
their Web sites.
Some of my friends across the aisle are saying the DISCLOSE Act is
not just about disclosure, it has some other stuff in there. You know
what? They are right. It has a few other things in there. What are
they? Well, a prohibition on spending by companies receiving taxpayer
money in the form of major government contracts--the Senator from
Missouri talked about that as well--or companies that have received
TARP funds they have yet to pay back.
What else? A prohibition on expenditures by companies where a foreign
individual or company or nation has a controlling share, as it is
defined by Delaware and 30 other States--that is, at it is defined by
31 of the 32 states that define a controlling share with a number. This
is a provision I authored and that Senator Schumer included in this
piece of legislation. This provision will prevent CITGO, owned by
Venezuela, from using the Citizens United decision to pour money into
our elections.
I welcome the opportunity to debate these provisions. I welcome it.
So far, some of my friends will not allow that debate to happen. No
debate, and the American people will continue to suffer for it.
So I urge all my colleagues to allow debate on this important bill.
Allow debate on this bill. It is about the future of our democracy.
Allow debate.
Before I conclude, let me quote again a prominent friend on the other
side of the aisle:
Public disclosure of campaign contributions and spending
should be expedited so voters can judge for themselves what
is appropriate.
[[Page S7327]]
Let me repeat that: ``Public disclosure of campaign contributions and
spending should be expedited so voters can judge for themselves what is
appropriate.''
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona is recognized.
____________________