[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 21, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Page S4881]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              DISCLOSE Act

  Mr. President, on one final matter, finally, with all of these 
national crises hammering families, the Democratic majority is using 
the Senate schedule to demonstrate that they do not care.
  The Democratic leader is not spending floor time on a bill to combat 
Democrats' inflation crisis or their immigration crisis or their 
violent crime crisis or their energy crisis, not on legislation to help 
American families' daily lives in any way. Instead, the Democratic 
leader is setting up a vote on a bill to erode the First Amendment and 
make political speech more difficult. Instead of trying to address the 
root causes of their unpopularity, Democrats are attacking the American 
people's ability to speak out against them.
  The Democrats try to ram through political takeover bills like this 
zombie DISCLOSE Act once or twice every year. This legislation would 
give Democrats' friends in the unelected bureaucracy even more power to 
police the political speech and activism of private citizens.
  Remember, donations to political action committees and electioneering 
nonprofits are already publicly disclosed. That is already the law. 
What Democrats want is a huge, new step that would reduce private 
citizens' privacy and chill Americans' constitutional rights. The same 
Democrats who wouldn't condemn angry mobs gathering outside the private 
family homes of Federal judges now believe that vastly more information 
about private citizens' political views should be made public.
  It is no mystery as to how these things fit together. Even the 
liberal ACLU warned years ago that what the Democrats want to pull off 
``unconstitutionally infringes on freedom of speech and the right to 
associational privacy.''
  I don't often say the ACLU has it right, but they do here.
  Instead of addressing the reasons why Americans are upset with 
Democrats, the Democrats are trying to legislate our citizens into 
sitting down and shutting up.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Nevada.