Thursday, November 18, 2010

An alliance of six national good government groups are pushing the lame-duck Congress to pass a stripped down version of the DISCLOSE Act. The original bill went beyond just requiring disclosure of the major donors to electioneering committees; it would have banned election spending by subsidiaries of foreign corporations, large government contractors, and businesses owing TARP money to the government.  The bill stalled in the US Senate when not a single Republican would help break a filibuster against it, although several said they supported the disclosure provisions but not the bans. Now the good government groups are trapping these critics by calling for a vote on a version of the DISCLOSE Act focused just on disclosure. To bolster their case, Public Citizen released a new report today detailing the scope of secret money in the 2010 elections – over $135 million, twice the total spent by all outside groups four years ago. Who can be against sunshine?