Republicans block bill requiring dark money groups to reveal donors
by Alexander Bolton - 09/22/22 12:30 PM ET
Senate Republicans voted Thursday to block the consideration of a bill to promptly require organizations that spend money on elections to promptly disclose the identities of donors who give $10,000 or more during an election cycle.
The body failed to invoke cloture on the measure, in a 49-49 vote. Every Republican present voted against the measure, while every Democrat voted for it.
Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) were not present for the decision.
Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) brought the bill to the floor to highlight the reliance of Senate Republican candidates on huge cash inflows from GOP dark-money groups, such as the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC linked to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), according to Democratic senators familiar with Schumer’s thinking.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), has been a top Democratic priority since the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United in 2010 that enabled corporations and other outside special interest groups to spend unlimited amounts of money on federal elections.
Schumer on Thursday morning said the court’s decision more than a decade ago “has disfigured our democracy almost beyond recognition.”
The Democratic leader cast Thursday’s vote as a defining issue ahead of the election, when voters are bombarded by televised political ads funded by tens of millions of dollars in anonymous donations.
“Republicans today must face the music. Either vote to bring transparency and fairness back to our elections as the vast majority of Americans want, or block this measure and cast their lot with the forces of dark money,” Schumer said before the vote.
McConnell, a longtime opponent of campaign finance restrictions, dismissed the bill as a “liberal pet priority” that he said would give “unelected federal bureaucrats vastly more power over private citizens’ First Amendment rights and political activism.”
He called it an “insult to the First Amendment” and slammed Democrats for bringing it to the floor instead of legislation to curb inflation or to address other economic problems.
Schumer, however, noted on Tuesday that McConnell has supported requiring donor disclosure in the past.
“Even Leader McConnell used to support disclosure … then he did a 180-degree about-face,” Schumer said, quoting McConnell’s statement from 1997 that he thought disclosure was “the best disinfectant.”
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https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/3656002-republicans-block-bill-requiring-dark-money-groups-to-reveal-donors/
