The Republicans are filibustering a bill that would require political ads to disclose who funded them. Democrats need only a single vote to break the filibuster, but not a single Republican will support the bill. This bill is a small thing that would reverse some of the Supreme Court decision (“Citizen’s United“) that opened up the floodgates for corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on political ads, with no accountability.
I don’t think there could be a clearer signal of who owns the Republican Party, and whose interests they represent.
8 Comments
I’m not understanding this debate. They are trying to fix the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002 after the 2010 supreme court ruling yes? The big issue of contention and dispute here is what? Both sides agree corps need to disclose, and one side also thinks unions need to disclose as well? Am I missing any thing else.
Given the below poll results from just after the ruling, it seems most of America agrees (not necessarily the politicians who profit form elections, but the average joe):
In a Washington Post-ABC News poll in early February 2010 it was found that roughly 80% of Americans were opposed to the January 2010 Supreme court’s ruling. The poll reveals relatively little difference of opinion on the issue among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling), Republicans (76 percent) and independents (81 percent).
Why not disclose everything? Done.
Because Karl Rove and his henchmen are behind this with rapidly changing names. Karl Rove does try to keep ONE secret: that he wants the wealth in the top 5% of this nation. The rest of us become peasants.
I prefer to think of them as peons, actually.
PatriotsGT, you make my point. The only things that don’t want full disclosure are some corporations. The vast majority of actual people want it. In this case, once again the corporations have won. The bill has failed, and failed exactly along party lines.
It is true that Democrats brought this bill to a vote to force the Republicans to vote the wishes of their corporate masters, but that doesn’t make it any less true. In fact, it just shows that the Republicans would rather give their opponents ammunition in the upcoming election, than do anything that would possibly piss off Karl Rove.
Why I do not see any comments (even though it says there are comments)? This is happening for last few days on all of the posts.
Iron Knee, thanks. Now help me out one more time.
As I understand, the house (when they passed it) did a managers amendment that exempts organizations who have greater than 1 million members from the reporting requirement. This means that big labor groups like AFL-CIO, SEIU and big activist groups like NRA can contribute soft money, run adds, etc without disclosing. Why would the Dems add that amendment in there, just take it out. They’d get rid of the NRA’s money that way. I think there are politics on both sides going on and regular joe’s are once again being held hostage for political gain and being fed misinformation.
My understanding (which is limited) is that the Senate took out that amendment, so that unions would also be required to disclose. The NRA was still exempt (I think AARP too). Does anyone know the full story?
But I think you and I both know why the House added that amendment in the first place. Nobody is immune to power.
NY Times has a decent editorial on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/opinion/28wed2.html
See also http://washingtonindependent.com/92926/next-steps-for-the-disclose-act
The very fact that the Republicans’ favorite son, the NRA, was exempted only further bolsters the point that the Republicans will oppose ANY legislation favored by Democrats.
On the Disclose Act: http://www.scribd.com/doc/30711024/Disclose-Act-Senate-Version
All 94-100 pages. It’s a typical cluster. I found 1 good article from this blog site which mostly seems to present both sides of the issue.
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/07/republicans-thwart-new-campaign-fin.html
Ok as I understand, after the house version where exemptions for certain groups were placed in the bill AND Kucinich added one for Off shore oil driller like BP, then Schumer took out Kucinich’s add on only. As far as I can tell all the other Union, NRA, AARP exemptions remain. If anyone is brave enough to read the bill, use the link. Lets get to the truth.