THIS IS IMPORTANT.
From the Washington Post:
Senate Democrats are pushing ahead this week with campaign disclosure legislation, hoping that changes to the bill might attract support from one or more wavering moderate Republicans before the August recess.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday unveiled a revised version of the Disclose Act, which would require corporations, unions and nonprofit groups to provide more details about their political spending and fundraising. The legislation, approved by the House last month, is aimed at countering a Supreme Court ruling in January allowing unlimited political spending by corporations and other groups.
The bill introduced by Schumer removes a special exemption for unions from the House bill that had attracted sharp criticism from Republicans and conservative groups, a Senate aide said. The legislation also nixes a House exception for some transfers of political money between separate organizations, but retains a controversial carve-out for the powerful National Rifle Association and other large-membership groups, the aide said.
The changes are aimed at shifting the political balance in favor of the bill in the fractious Senate, where a modicum of GOP support is needed to overcome the threat of a filibuster. Freshman Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) recently came out against the legislation, leaving Maine Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe as the focus of a lobbying blitz this week by liberal groups.
But the revised legislation may also spark opposition from the AFL-CIO and other labor organizations, which had pushed hard for language in the House bill that would effectively exempt disclosure of transfers between unions and their affiliates.
The AFL-CIO said in a statement that it was still reviewing Schumer's bill, which the union said "could hamper working families' ability to have a voice in the political process."
The House passed the Disclose Act on June 24 by a vote of 219 to 206, with three dozen Democrats joining all but two Republicans in voting no.
The National Right to Life Committee has expressed its strong opposition to the Disclose Act.
Enactment of the DISCLOSE Act would not be a curb on corruption, but itself a type of corruption – a corruption of the lawmaking power, by which incumbent lawmakers employ the threat of criminal sanctions, among other deterrents, to reduce the amount of private speech regarding the actions of the lawmakers themselves.
NRLC believes there can be "no constitutional justification for the carve-out distinction."
Apparently, the Democrats don't care.
The NRLC concludes:
This legislation has been carefully crafted to maximize short-term political benefits for the dominant faction of one political party, while running roughshod over the First Amendment protections for political speech that have been clearly and forcefully articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of landmark First Amendment rulings, culminating in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, 551 U.S. 449 (2007) and Citizens United. And, the authors of the bill know this full well. Yet, they hope to ram this legislation into law – including a specific provision making it effective 30 days after enactment, without any interpretative regulations from the FEC – in order to set up legal minefields that they hope will, for at least a year or more, deter disfavored organizations from effectively communicating with the public about the public policy agenda of the current Administration and of the dominant faction of the majority party of the current Congress.
We strongly urge you to oppose this pernicious, unprincipled, and unconstitutional legislation. In our scorecard and advocacy materials, the legislation will be accurately characterized as a blatant political attack on the First Amendment rights of NRLC, our state affiliates, and our members and donors.
When our freedoms are at risk, we have to pay attention. This is serious, serious stuff.
Is Russ Feingold on board with this assault on free speech?
Take note Wisconsin voters.
No comments:
Post a Comment