Today’s Links
Articles:
Reuters – Biden pushes election ‘dark money’ disclosure bill doomed to fail in Congress
U.S. Senate Bill S. 443 – Text of the Bill
Washington Post Editorial Board – A $1.6 billion donation lays bare a broken campaign finance system
Groups Taking Action:
Issue One, Common Cause, American Promise, Public Citizen
You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.
President Biden spoke September 20th about Dark Money in our elections and voiced his support of the Disclose Act, which is expected to be voted on this week in the U.S. Senate. What is the Disclose Act, and why should voters support this campaign finance legislation?
Current campaign finance law prohibits foreign entities from contributing in U.S. elections. But both domestic and foreign contributors have used 501c3 & 501c4 nonprofits, and limited liability shell corporations to hide the source of hard-to-trace Dark Money donations. If passed, the Disclose Act prohibits foreign contributions, and would require donations above $10,000 from domestic corporations, unions or other political organizations to be disclosed within 24 hours.
The bill also expands current election law to prohibit foreign entities from making dark money contributions supporting or opposing judicial nominations, or ballot initiatives. It establishes penalties and possible jail time for those who attempt to conceal the contributions. And it would require disclaimers on political ads to reveal the largest contributors to the organization who funded the advertising.
The Disclose Act has been proposed and failed in previous sessions, and may fail again. Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz argue that anonymous donations allow corporations to fully express their First Amendment rights.
Links to articles, Biden’s speech and groups taking action are at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.
Granny D said, “Democracy is not something we HAVE, it’s something we DO!” For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl