The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for March 7, 2023
Today’s Links
Articles & Resources:
U.S. Congress – DISCLOSE Act – 2022 version
Open Secrets – (2022) With Deadlocked Vote on Dark Money, DISCLOSE Act Fails to Clear Senate
Open Secrets – ‘Dark money’ groups aligned with party leadership steer hundreds of millions of dollars into 2022 federal elections
Congressman David N. Cicilline – Whitehouse, Cicilline Reintroduce DISCLOSE Act to End Corrupting Influence of Dark Money in American Democracy
Groups Taking Action:
League of Women Voters US, Sierra Club, End Citizens United, Brennan Center for Justice
Today’s Script: (Variations occur with audio due to editing for time)
You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.
Over $606 million dollars in Dark Money was poured into the 2022 midterm races by nonprofit groups, most of which do not disclose their donors. The DISCLOSE Act, just proposed again in the U.S. Senate, tries to shine a light on those donors.
February 23rd, U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and U.S. Rep. Dan Cicilline reintroduced the legislation, along with 163 House & Senate co-sponsors. The bill deadlocked in the U.S. Senate in 2022.
Should it pass, the legislation requires nonprofit 501c3 and 501c4 groups making political expenditures to immediately disclose any donor contributing $10,000 or more. Money-in-politics research group Open Secrets found that both Republican and Democratic dark money groups funneled millions in cash into ads and SuperPACs, much of which was never disclosed directly to the Federal Elections Commission. Since the 2010 Citizens United decision, dark money skyrocketed from $5 million dollars in 2006 to over $1 billion dollars in 2020.
The legislation would also crack down on the use of shell corporation donors, and requires an organization running television advertising to disclose its top five funders at the end of ads.
We have more about the DISCLOSE Act and stunning Open Secrets dark money data at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org. For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl.