The legislation would require certain tax-exempt groups involved in political advertising — which currently are not required to disclose the names of their donors — to release the names of those who give donations of $10,000 or more. A similar vote Monday ended with the same result. – Senate Republicans block DISCLOSE Act for second straight day
THE DISCLOSE ACT is something on which everyone should agree, especially in the post Citizens United era. That it received a majority in the Senate, 51-44, but didn’t pass, is par for the filibuster course.
It goes to the heart of the column I did last week on the “social welfare” scam by Karl Rove, the Koch Bros, and groups like 60 Plus. These groups operating what amounts to slush funds of millionaire donations, who can remain anonymous, is why the Obama administration, and Democrats, separately, have filed complaints against them.
“What really frightens me is not just the disastrous nature of Citizens United, but the whole trend that we are seeing lately, economically etc., of moving this country toward an oligarchic form of government. What you have right now is incredibly unequal distribution of wealth and income,” Sanders says, going on to note that “the Walton family of Walmart itself owns more wealth — one family — than the bottom 40 percent of the American people.” He continues, “You’ve got that reality out there, and then what’s happening now — what Citizens United is about — is these guys are not content to own the economy, to own the wealth of America, they now want to own lock, stock and barrel the political process as well.” – “Viewpoint,” with Eliot Spitzer [Current TV]
What Sen. Sanders reports about the health of the Walton Family of Wal-Mart (see video) will leave your jaw on the floor.
Statement on Republicans blocking the DISCLOSE Act from the League of Women Voters:
SENATE REFUSES TO DEBATE DISCLOSE ACT
Voters deserve to know origins of secret money in elections
Washington, DC (July 17, 2012) – Twice this week, the U.S. Senate refused to allow full debate on the DISCLOSE Act, which would require complete disclosure of spending on big-money advertising in candidate elections. Twice, the Senate failed to invoke cloture, the procedural motion that requires 60 votes before the Senate can even consider legislation.
“Huge sums of secret money are flooding into our elections, and without full disclosure the voters won’t know who is trying to buy influence,” said Elisabeth MacNamara, national President of the League of Women Voters. “Secret money should have no place in our elections, but we all know it is there, drowning out the voices of everyday Americans.”
“Twice this week, our elected leaders in Washington, the men and women who had the power and opportunity to help, failed to take up the DISCLOSE Act. They decided that they didn’t even want to debate this important issue,” MacNamara said. “Instead of talking about how they could help voters understand where all of this secret money is coming from, they decided to kill the bill without any debate. This is a sad day for voters and America’s democracy.”
“The League supports the DISCLOSE Act of 2012 because we believe that Americans deserve all the information they can get before they vote,” said MacNamara. “The DISCLOSE Act builds on disclosure requirements already approved by the Supreme Court in Citizens United when it said that disclosure is important to ‘providing the electorate with information.’”
“The League and its partners in the voting rights community will continue to push for passage of DISCLOSE because secret campaign money undermines the role of the voter and corrupts the election process. Tell us where the money is coming from and let the voters decide. The DISCLOSE Act is an important step towards eliminating secret money,” concluded MacNamara.
Republicans, also known as ” Suck Ass Pigs ” should be made to fillibuster the old fashioned way, i.e., made to stand there and talk until they drop dead. Obama and the democrats should use this in their public statements everyday, all day long, to show quite plainly who the obstructionists are and whose side they are on.
So much damage in so little time has been perpetrated by the god damned filibuster.
Why don’t the Dems just invoke the constitutional option (called the “nuclear option” by Trent Lott which I refuse to call it: how the GOP has used language to distort shit). The Senate can do this.
This is from Wikipedia:
The Senate can reinterpret a procedural rule by invoking the argument that the Constitution requires that the will of the majority be effective on specific Senate duties and procedures. This option allows a simple majority to override the rules of the Senate and end a filibuster or other delaying tactic. The new interpretation becomes effective, both for the immediate circumstance and as a precedent, if it is upheld by a majority vote.
Oh, right, what was I thinking, the Dems don’t have enough members in the Senate who have intestinal fortitude to make that happen.
Ironic that Spitzer was interviewing Senator Sanders given that Spitzer passionately defended the Citizens United ruling. I notice he never said a word about his position which is related to the Disclosure Act. Well, Spitzer’s boss is Al Gore so I doubt he will defend as passionately a ruling that was as destructive to this country as Jim Crow laws were.
I guess I don’t find it jaw dropping that comment about the weath of the Walton family as a
Bring back the League of Women Voters to run the POTUS and VP debates because the
Plus, as I’ve mentioned a time or two, at the beginning of every session the Senate has the option of changing the rules it works under, including the filibuster rules, by a simple majority vote. The Senate Democrats like the filibuster just fine, it would seem. It makes a dandy excuse at election time for why we need at least 60 Democratic Senators, and in the meantime all those Senators have the option of holding up anything they want.
Which kinda makes you wonder how all that regressive legislation gets passed, doesn’t it?
Sorry, I mistakenly hit a button that posted that before it was ready.
To complete what I was saying;
I find it disturbing what Sanders said about the Walton family, but I guess I don’t find the statement jaw dropping because in my head somewhere I knew it was as bad as that. Nevertheless, it’s just more bad news.
And, I would like to see the League of Women Voters once again running the POTUS and VP debates because the overlords of these debates, Commission on Presidential Debates group which is composed of members of both party’s has made these debates cumbersome and almost unwatchable.
That javascript-based editor is a tad touchy. I was using it the other day, and hit some key by accident, and there my comment was, published before its time…
I turn off javascript in this domain, which works fine for me. Then again, I know all the HTML tags I need to.
As of now, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Mexico, Hawaii and California have called for a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United. Next week the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearing about CU. Numerous cities and towns have passed similar resolutions.
CU has been one Occupy focus. Those silly, dirty, lazy, get a job, they don’t know what they want hippies …
I suppose this is an argument in favor of limiting campaign financing, which I am not particularly in favor of. It’s pretty clear that we aren’t going to get disclosure, and I suspect that whoever the politicians are who are “filibustering” here will not suffer consequences if their roles are disclosed.
The DISCLOSE Act is opposed by the ACLU……. “would inflict unnecessary damage to free speech rights and does not include the proper safeguards to protect Americans’ privacy. The bill would severely impact donor anonymity, especially those donors who give to smaller and more controversial organizations.”
Exempts organizations that have over one million members, have been in existence for more than 10 years, have members in all 50 states, from the disclosure requirements…….. exempting virtually all of the major unions from having to disclose contributions while heavily regulating such activity for any corporation.
The then Dem majority drafted the bill behind closed doors without Congressional hearings or markups.
Go pound sand, good-government hypocrites. Go back and come up with a bill that passes the smell test of actually being applied uniformly and I’ll consider listening to the rant.
You forgot this bit here:
Which is to say that claiming unions are exempt is nonsense. Thanks for playing “Mine That Quote”. See you next time.
Anyone who thinks that foreign entities aren’t playing “Let’s buy the American election” is just not paying attention. Anyone who thinks that the SCOTUS didn’t purposely legalize bribery-well, I have some swamp land to sell you.