Thread: My Letter From Harry Reid on the Disclosure Act...

July 25, 2010

I removed my name and address


Dear Ms.
Thank you for contacting me about the DISCLOSE Act. I appreciate hearing from you, and I understand your concerns.

For decades, the Supreme Court upheld limits banning corporations and unions from funding political advertising and related expenditures in our elections. In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court recently found that the limits imposed by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (commonly known as "McCain-Feingold") violated the free speech of an independent group called Citizens United. That group planned to run advertisements funded with corporate donations in the 2008 election.

After the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, many experts predict that corporations and unions will be able to spend unlimited amounts to influence the electoral process. Some have raised concerns that special interests and large corporations with billions in profits could easily run advertisements against candidates that vote against the interest of their companies. Still others have pointed out that such corporate advertising could expose our elections to the influence of foreign companies, many of whom have US subsidiaries.

On April 30, 2010, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) introduced the Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act (S. 3295). This legislation would provide for greater transparency by requiring companies and organizations with corporate donations to identify the sponsors of their campaign ads. To prevent any undue influence from those with business before the government, S. 3295 bans government contractors and corporate beneficiaries of TARP from purchasing campaign advertisements. The Senate Rules Committee is currently considering this legislation. Should the DISCLOSE Act come to the full Senate for consideration, please be assured that I will keep your views in mind as I work for responsible reform.


Again, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. For more information about my work for Nevada, my role in the United States Senate Leadership, or to subscribe to regular e-mail updates on the issues that interest you, please visit my Web site at http://reid.senate.gov. I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

My best wishes to you.

Sincerely,
A
HARRY REID
United States Senator
Nevada


HR:vb


Now here is what the Disclose Act is about

NEWSROOM
Press Release
DISCLOSE Act: Democratic leaders push self-serving campaign finance law

April 29, 2010

Lawmakers are introducing a bill today designed to subvert the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and intimidate dissenting groups into silence as midterm elections approach.

"The First Amendment says ‘Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech,' not ‘Congress should protect some speech, but feel free to hyper-regulate the political speech of businesses and nonprofits,'" said Center for Competitive Politics Chairman Bradley A. Smith, a former FEC Chairman.

"Twenty-one Republicans voted for McCain-Feingold and still serve in Congress. The fact that Democrats were only able to persuade two Republicans to join their gimmicky bill indicates that the DISCLOSE Act would serve the interests of incumbents, especially the Democratic majority—not the public interest," Smith said.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, the immediate past chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, spent three months crafting the bill behind closed doors after rejecting significant Republican input.

The legislation would ban many companies from airing political ads, give candidates a windfall subsidy in ad time to respond to independent ads, regulate long-protected issue advocacy with more restrictive coordination rules and force nonprofits and trade groups to disclose their donors-even if donors don't intend their funds to be used for influencing elections.

"Citizens United vindicated robust political speech no matter the speaker," said CCP Vice President Stephen M. Hoersting. "The First Amendment does not need a fix from self-serving politicians seeking a monopoly on political speech."

NOTE: The following analysis is based on publicly-available information about the DISCLOSE Act. It will be updated as the legislative language becomes available.

Ban on business political speech

The legislation would prohibit government contractors and U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies from engaging in independent political expenditures. This provision is almost certainly unconstitutional after Citizens United, which held that independent corporate speech in any amount is not corrupting. Foreign nationals are already prohibited under existing law from even providing advice regarding political spending; this law would strip away the First Amendment rights of American staff and shareholders even if as many as 80 percent of shareholders in a company are U.S. citizens. Furthermore, this provision does not appear to similarly restrict unions that receive government funding, unions with significant international membership/leadership, or public employee unions—which depend on government revenue just as much as federal contractors.

Disclosure overkill

Disclosure in campaign finance law should be intended to allow citizens to monitor their government—not allow powerful incumbents and opposing activists to pressure and harass donors and members of nonprofits and politically-involved groups. That's why the law requires disclosure for direct contributions to candidates, which may have the potential to corrupt, but not for issue ads. Some disclosure proposals, like the ‘Stand By Your Ad' mandate, provide no informational benefit and reduce the amount of available political speech; they're simply designed to intimidate speakers and dramatically raise the costs of participating in politics. The provision requiring groups to either disclose all their donors over $1,000 or establish a "Political Broadcasting Spending Account" is almost certainly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has ruled that the government may not force groups to establish separate, segregated accounts to speak (Citizens United) nor require advocacy groups to disclose their backers (NAACP v. Alabama)—unless donors earmark their funds for influencing elections. Progressive groups have also raised concerns about the extent of the disclosure provisions.

Bailout for candidates

The bill contains a provision to provide candidates and parties the lowest advertising rate, triggered when an independent group airs ads in a given media market. This is a nakedly self-dealing attempt to punish independent groups for speaking out against Members of Congress. If the Sierra Club sought to air an ad informing voters that a congressional candidate is weak on environmental issues and that his opponent should be elected, the candidate would enjoy the lowest possible rate to push back. That's simply unfair. Candidates, especially incumbents, already have easy access to earned media and often enjoy benefits like high name identification and franked mail. They shouldn't get a taxpayer subsidy to drown out grassroots groups on the airwaves, too.

Draconian coordination restrictions

Citizens United freed independent groups to air ads independent of candidates. The proposed update to coordination restrictions between independent groups and candidates would sweep up protected issue advocacy and chill grassroots advocacy. The provision would cover speech that "Promotes, Supports, Attacks or Opposes" a candidate during a period beginning 90 days before a primary through the general election. Such a broad restriction would ensnare ads advocating for Supreme Court nominees and other issues not related to elections, similar to the circumstances of Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life (WRTL). Several liberal groups—not to mention conservative campaign finance lawyers and national GOP committees—argued at March FEC hearings that the agency should instead adopt a WRTL standard that only regulates speech advocating the election or defeat of a candidate in a limited pre-election window. Another provision to loosen the restrictions on coordination between candidates and parties "a bit" is a step in the right direction, but that restriction—which doesn't serve any anti-corruption interest and will put candidates at a disadvantage after Citizens United freed up incorporated groups—should simply be abolished. As Democratic National Committee General Counsel Marc Elias testified before the FEC, it was never meant to apply to parties, anyway.

RECENT STATEMENTS AND ANALYSIS OF THE DISCLOSE ACT BY THE CENTER FOR COMPETITIVE POLITICS

"Van Hollen-Schumer: McCain-Feingold rerun"
Center for Competitive Politics one-pager on the DISCLOSE Act.

"CCP's analysis of the DISCLOSE Act"
CCP provides a comprehensive overview of the constitutional and policy issues with the proposed legislation.
[April 23]

"Schumer-Van Hollen deserves filibuster"
Brad Smith's most recent contribution to Politico's Arena explains why the DISCLOSE Act is a partisan campaign push, not a legitimate attempt to update campaign finance laws after Citizens United.
[April 25]

"Money, money, money: Democrats push for campaign finance regulations"
CCP Vice President Steve Hoersting discusses the proposals with Rep. Van Hollen and local NPR host Patt Morrison. [mp3]
[April 21]

"How many Republicans does it take to screw over free speech?"
Although McCain-Feingold was a terrible set of political speech restrictions, it actually was bipartisan-unlike the faux bipartisanship of Van Hollen-Schumer.
[April 20]


http://www.campaignfreedom.org/newsroom ... inance-law

WE need to KICKTHEMALLOUT they know it they are trying to stop us....

Kathyet

Related information at:

http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1094450.html#1094450

I have brought things over on this issue before as well...this was the letter Harry Reid sent me regarding my opposition to the Disclosure Act he is trying to force through..


Kathyet

Larger TPP Logo
Harry Reid and the Democrats' New McCarthyism -
Voting on the DISCLOSE Act in ONE HOUR!
The Democrats are running scared, fearful of the impact grassroots activists will have in November. With the DISCLOSE Act, which will go into effect almost immediately, in time for the November elections, they will be able to effectively and legally shut us down. The effort to silence us before the elections is tantamount to a witch hunt. Read this email carefully for more information about this bill and then please make some phone calls NOW and tell them to VOTE NO!!


From our friends at Freedom Action about this speech violating bill:

Even if somehow the speech restrictions in this bill were constitutional, their uneven application would be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection under the law. Even the left-leaning Sierra Club has labeled the DISCLOSE Act a two-tiered system that is "unfair and undemocratic" and that smaller grass-roots organizations would be disadvantaged because they lack the resources to cope with "the additional disclosure burdens." The unions and the big non-profit groups get to keep their free speech given to them in the January Supreme Court decision, but the corporations and small non-profits lose theirs under DISCLOSE.

Also, President Obama and some Democrats are dishonestly stating that the Court's decision would "open the floodgates for special interest, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections." However, current federal law and Federal Election Commission regulations already ban foreign corporations from participating directly or indirectly in American elections. (see 2 U.S.C. § 441e and 2 U.S.C. 437g).

HOW THIS AFFECTS YOU

Exampleville, Ohio has two people running for U.S. Congress-Mr. A and Mr. B-in what promises to be a close race. Exampleville's local Tea Party believes in Mr. B. The Tea Party wants to run ads highlighting Mr. B's stance on cap and trade, federal spending, increased taxation, etc, but they don't have enough money to fulfill the new highly complex reporting requirements from DISCLOSE. And DISCLOSE would force them to list their top donors, even if they are not necessarily the specific donors to the ads, in their ads. Besides, the disclaimers required could take up to 14 of a 30 second ad. The Tea Party gives up trying to run ads to support Mr. Republican.

In contrast, Mr. A has some well-funded unions who want to see Exampleville's factories unionized, so the unions run ads against Mr. B and ads for Mr. A. Also, the Sierra Club and the ACLU (groups actually opposed to DISCLOSE) want Mr. A to support their issues, so they also run ads for Mr. A. None of these ads are subject to DISCLOSE's requirements.

Guess who wins?

(For those interested, here's a good link with information on the actual language and problems with the DISCLOSE bill, click here.)

The DISCLOSE Act exempts unions and very large special interest groups!! And the little guy is left without a voice.


Senators to call:



Scott Brown (R-MA)
http://scottbrown.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contactme
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-4543, (F) (202) 228-2646

Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cf ... nowe.Email


Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-5344, Toll free (800) 432-1599, (F) (202) 224-1946

Susan Collins (R-ME)
http://collins.senate.gov/public/contin ... N=39747274
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-2523, (F) (202) 224-2693

Ben Nelson (D-NE)
http://bennelson.senate.gov/email-issues.cfm

Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-6551, (F) (202) 228-0012

Evan Bayh (D-IN)
http://bayh.senate.gov/contact/email/

Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-5623, (F) (202) 228-1377

Kent Conrad (D-ND)
https://conrad.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm

Washintong DC: (T) (202) 224-2043, (F) (202) 224-7776
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Kathyet