The Senate will debate the DISCLOSE Act again Wednesday, with a vote scheduled for Thursday, according to a Twitter message from a top aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Senate Democrats will bring up the same version of the DISCLOSE Act that failed to pass a procedural hurdle in July. Republicans filibustered the bill, noting that it would provide special advantages to unions over business groups, wasn’t up for amendment through the committee process and would advance partisan interests at a time when other priorities loom large.
“Congress hasn’t even passed a budget yet and Senate Democrats are still finding time to rehash a campaign finance bill,” said Bradley A. Smith, the chairman of the Center for Competitive Politics and a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission. “While Americans are concerned about the economy and jobs, Senate Democrats seem most concerned about their own political careers.”
The DISCLOSE Act would make it harder for independent groups to criticize incumbent Members of Congress, forcing bulky disclaimers as much as three times as long as candidate disclaimers and mandating a strict disclosure regime for citizen groups while exempting large interest groups such as the National Rifle Association.
A report in Politico notes the irony of Democrats putting off a vote on the DISCLOSE Act for a high-dollar campaign fundraiser. Another report in Roll Call hones in on the political posturing of a DISCLOSE Act revote: “With virtually no chance of meaningful legislation being enacted before the election, Reid has sought to use the floor as a campaign forum by scheduling votes on issues supported by the Democratic base.”
Rather than make even minor changes, Sen. Chuck Schumer, the bill’s sponsor, plans to simply force another vote on the original bill, which contains outright prohibitions on the speech of government contractors and companies with international investors. No prohibitions exist for similarly situated labor unions.
Last week, the Center for Competitive Politics released a poll showing strong opposition to different standards for labor unions and business groups. Fifty-nine percent of likely voters agreed that “[a] law prohibiting businesses that receive government contracts from running political ads should also prohibit unions that represent workers at government contractors from running political ads.”
The poll also found mixed support for disclosure provisions and majority support for allowing advocacy groups to spend money on political advocacy, which the Supreme Court allowed in its January decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Democratic leaders drafted the DISCLOSE Act to roll back this ruling.
President Obama has regularly demagogued Citizens United, referring to it in his weekly address Saturday as “destructive to our democracy.” As part of this P.R. push for the DISCLOSE Act, pro-regulation groups routinely warn about billions of dollars of corporate profits potentially pouring into campaigns. Nonetheless, spending attributed to Citizens United has been relatively modest, with no corporation devoting mass sums to political expenditures.
Furthermore, a political scientist released a study this month showing that states allowing such expenditures before Citizens United do not differ in important respects to other states. Associate Professor Ray La Raja of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst released a study showing that Citizens United will likely increase the spending of all groups (not just business groups), that companies will still mainly emphasize traditional, direct political giving via PACs rather than making large independent expenditures and that there is no evidence (in the 28 states that allowed such spending before Citizens United) that lifting the ban on independent spending will help elect more Republicans or tilt policies toward business interests.
“The Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United does not need to be fixed,” Smith said. “Congress has more important things to do than silence grassroots groups in the heat of a campaign cycle.”
