I have written many articles since 2008 about Chicago politics coming to Washington. It’s getting old to keep writing about it, but all of us need to be aware when an attack is made on our rights as citizens. The latest attack on our rights as citizens comes masquerading as campaign finance reform and is called the “Disclosure Act.” It is the political left’s response to the fact that corporations can spend money on elections just as unions have done for years. Just as an aside, there probably is too much money in American elections, but there is no even-handed way to change that. Free speech is free speech (even when it is very expensive), and it is a mistake to begin to limit it. Once you have the camel’s nose under the side of the tent, it is only a matter of time before you have the entire camel in the tent!
Michelle Malkin’s website posted an article today about the Disclosure Act.
The article reports:
At a Rose Garden press conference on Monday, President Obama decried the influence of “shadow groups” on elections and urged the Senate to pass the “reform” sponsored by N.Y. Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer. But the loophole-ridden package exempts large nonprofits with 500,000 or more members. Behemoth labor unions get preferential treatment. Bradley Smith, former Federal Elections Commission chairman, noted that the law places radical speech-squelching restrictions on companies’ ability to run independent political ads: “(I)f you’re a company with a government contract of over $10 million (like more than half of the top 50 U.S. companies) or if you’re a company with more than 20 percent foreign shareholders, you can’t even mention a candidate in an ad for up to a full year before the election. … There are no similar prohibitions for unions representing government contractors or unions with foreign membership.”
This is the same Senate that can’t seem to get around to passing a federal budget.
The article concludes:
Related from former FEC chairman Bradley Smith: A proposed campaign-finance law attempts to scare and regulate opponents into silence.
More: McConnell vows a filibuster today. He talked to Mark Levin about disclosure theater here.
America needs to elect a Congress and President who will respect the Constitution. Remember this when you vote in November.