“We are determined to prove that transparency is not a radical concept.  Our bill is as simple and straightforward as it gets – if you are making large donations to influence an election, the voters in that election should know who you are.”
~Senator Tom Udall (D-N.M.)

Every single Republican either voted against (or failed to vote) against the DISCLOSE Act.  The DISCLOSE Act would require anyone contributing $10,000 or more to the political process via 3rd party groups etc to disclose the donors who are giving in such large amounts.  Every Democrat voted for this (1 didn’t vote and Harry Reid voted against it so he could bring the bill back to the floor at a later date).

All the bill does is require transparency.  The Republican party believes a billionaire should be able to invest $1 billion into the political process without having to disclose that they gave that money by manipulating a loophole that exists.  If you were to give $1,000 directly to a candidate … federal law says that your contribution has to be disclosed.  If terrorist organizations or foreign governments or criminal organizations were to invest money into political candidates we simply have no way of knowing.  If a billionaire who has foreign holdings with an interest that conflicts with America’s best interests … he can use his money from said foreign country to invest into the political process (Sheldon Adelson as an example).  Republicans blocked your right to know.

The First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.
~Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in his Majority Ruling for Citizens United 

There is NO SUCH THING as a moderate Republican.  Scott Brown voted against it.  Olympia Snowe voted against it.  Susan Collins voted against it.  Lisa Murkowski voted against it.  Moderate republicans do NOT exist.  As we have experienced throughout the entire Obama administration – this bill received a majority of votes with 51 … but failed to pass due to the Republicans requiring a minimum of 60 votes in order to stop their filibuster.  In other words – despite a majority vote to pass the law … Republicans killed the bill by manipulating Senate rules as they have for the past several years.

You can read the DISCLOSE Act S.3369 HERE.

You can see an interactive of the Roll Call Vote HERE.

The Washington Post explains HERE:

Reid said without change, after the election, “17 angry old white men will wake up and realize they’ve just bought the country. That’s a sad commentary.”

Formally, Reid voted against proceeding with the bill–a procedural tactic that will allow him to call the measure back up for another vote on Tuesday.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who has given a series of speeches defending political giving as free speech, said the bill was an attempt by Democrats, who have realized they can’t “shut up their critics” to “go after the microphone instead, by trying to scare off the funders.”

“As a result of this legislation, advocacy groups ranging from the NAACP to the Sierra Club to the Chamber of Commerce — all of whom already disclose their donors to the IRS — would now be forced to subject their members to public intimidation and harassment,” he said.

As we have written about in “Moneyball” – Republicans blocked the DISCLOSE Act with Democrats only getting 59 votes … one vote short of shutting down a filibuster.  Every Republican voted against transparency in the campaign process and every Democrat voted for it.  And it is precisely that unknown, undisclosed black hole of unlimited money from billionaires, criminal organizations (potentially), foreign interests (potentially), terrorist organizations (potentially), aliens (potentially) that gave the Republican party the ability to finance a takeover of the House of Representatives with their Tea Party brand of deregulated, Tea Party conservatism … and it’s that lack of disclosure that they hope will give them an advantage with $1 billion being spent to attack the Democrats and color your thinking … disenchant your thoughts.

And – if you’re one of the weak minded who is starting to believe “they’re all the same” … “my vote doesn’t count” then all you’re really doing is proving that a billionaire can buy an election and you’re a fucking mark.  YOU are the mark.

This is video of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) calling the DISCLOSE Act “harassment and intimidation tactics” to silence political opposition.  This was just yesterday.  Seriously.  Earlier this month – McConnell said this act was “unAmerican” in an OpEd in the USA TODAY … and in the video below he said this:

The attacks on speech are legion. Perhaps the most prominent is the so-called DISCLOSE Act.

This is the Democrats’ legislative response to Citizens United, in which the Supreme Court correctly ruled that Congress may not ban political speech based on the identity of the speaker. The DISCLOSE Act aims to get around this ruling by compelling certain targeted groups to disclose the names of their donors.

…

This is nothing less than an effort by the government itself to exposes its critics to harassment and intimidation, either by government authorities or through third-party allies. And that should concern every one of us.

Those pushing the DISCLOSE Act have a simple view: if the Supreme Court is no longer willing to limit the speech of those who oppose their agenda, they’ll find other ways to do it.

Politico says “Mitch McConnell DEAD WRONG on DISCLOSE Act“.

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