Pelosi: Amendment needed to end 'secret' corporate money in campaigns

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday asserted that legislation is needed to ensure companies disclose the "unlimited, secret, endless flow of corporate dollars into campaigns."

Pelosi urged the House to support an amendment that would prevent the government from entering into contracts with companies that do not disclose their political contributions. As part of her reasoning, Pelosi raised last year's Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, which she again said "opened the floodgates" of corporate money into political campaigns.

"They could be using taxpayer dollars to weigh in, in a secret, unlimited way, in campaigns," Pelosi said of corporations.

Republicans have rejected this interpretation of Citizens United, and said the decision rightly ended the government's authority to limit both corporate and union political speech.

House Budget Committee ranking member Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) added that the change would only require companies to say how they have weighed in on campaigns, and is not an attempt to override the Citizens United decision.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) introduced the amendment to the fiscal 2011 spending bill that would set this prohibition. But it was shot down through a Republican point of order because the amendment would legislate on a spending bill.

Eshoo's amendment is just one of several funding limitation amendments to the bill that were being considered on Thursday, which is when House Republicans hope to finish work on the bill.