Blockage of Disclose Act boosts secretive special-interest campaign clout

[babylonsister]

In the dark
Blockage of Disclose Act boosts secretive special-interest campaign clout
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
July 31, 2010, 4:37PM


With midterm elections just around the corner, the continuing partisan gridlock in the U.S. Senate has jammed consideration of the Disclose Act, an attempt to mitigate the damage done by the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.

Earlier this year the high court ruled that corporations, unions and other groups have free speech rights to independently spend unlimited funds to support favored candidates. Not only did the 5-4 vote by the court's conservative majority shred campaign finance laws in 24 states that restrict such activities, it left it to Congress and the states to decide what disclosure requirements should accompany the expected spending frenzy.

President Barack Obama urged Congress to craft rules to provide transparency in campaign spending. The Democratic majority in the House passed legislation with provisions aimed at revealing the identity of the funding sources for campaign ads and large contributions to nonprofit groups that support candidates.

On Tuesday the Senate failed by a largely party-line 57-41 vote to garner the filibuster-proof 60 votes necessary to debate its version of the bill. Not a single Republican supported it. As a result, legislation to let the American people know who is behind an expected blitz of campaign advertising in November will not likely be approved before the elections. Republicans argued that the Disclose Act favored Democrats because it targeted large corporations, which tend to favor the GOP. But the bill also regulated big contributions from Democratic-leaning labor unions.

Once again the Senate has put partisanship over the best interests of the American people. We will soon find out just how damaging a torrent of anonymous special-interest money can be to the electoral process.

more...

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/7133894.html

[90-percent]

1. CITIZEN'S UNITED; Mister Ed here at DU NAILS IT

This is Mister Ed's work, plagiarized from a previous post and a private exchange between us. (I was complimenting him on his magnificent CRITICAL THINKING)




Citizen's United could possibly even prove to be the Doomsday Machine that undoes American Democracy.

I think it might be Thom Hartmann who pointed out that the greatest harm done by Citizen's United will be the part we never hear or see. Large corporations will now be able to dictate policy to many or most of our legislators. All they'll need to do is say, "Vote our way on this matter, or we'll spend whatever it takes to put you out of office in the next election. Legislators will know it's no empty threat. They'll cave, and we'll never even know it happened.

Citizen's United is predicated on three whopping lies:

1) That corporations are people.

2) That payment is a form of speech.

3) That bribery is a constitutionally-protected form of free speech.

It's that simple.




Thank you Mister Ed. This Citizen's United decision from last January is one of the most democracy destroying and anti people Supreme Court Decision since Dred Scott! All the current crop of Supremes had to do is COMPLETELY DISREGARD about 100 years of Supreme Court and legal precedents!

If our democracy is not already completely dead, it will be within the next two major election cycles!

[msongs]

2. our congresspersons pretend to be outraged. while taking the money of course nt