Campaign finance reformer McCain votes against DISCLOSE bill because it favors labor

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) stood by his word and didn’t support the DISCLOSE Act Monday because he said it unfairly favored unions, despite Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s (D-R.I.) efforts to get him on board.

“In its current form, the DISCLOSE Act is closer to a clever attempt at political gamesmanship, than actual reform,” McCain said. “By conveniently setting high thresholds for reporting requirements, the DISCLOSE Act forces some entities to inform the public about the origins of their financial support, while allowing others — most notably those affiliated with organized labor — to fly below the Federal Election Commission’s regulatory radar.”

Whitehouse, the bill’s lead sponsor, thought he could get McCain to sign onto S. 3369 because McCain has been a standard-bearer for campaign finance reform — most notably with the McCain-Feingold Act.

Last week McCain told the Hill that it would take a major scandal before there is enough political will on Capitol Hill to pass another campaign finance reform bill.

“What I really think is that it’s going to take a scandal and there’s going to be one. There’s just too much money washing around,” McCain said. “Every time in history there have been these reforms it’s been following a scandal. It’s what it’s going to take, I think.”

That didn’t stop Democrats from questioning why the DISCLOSE Act did not have more bipartisan support, as McCain-Feingold did.

“This should be a bipartisan issue,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said Monday night. “Sens. McCain and Feingold championed campaign finance reform for years and this is a much less drastic change.”

The DISCLOSE Act bill would have required companies, unions and other entities to report campaign spending of more than $10,000.

“I do know that campaign finance, which was a bipartisan issue in this chamber in 2003, where Sen. Feingold and Sen. McCain, a Democrat and Republican, lead a strong bipartisan coalition to reign in the negative influence of special interest money,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said. “That has changed to, today sadly, a starkly partisan issue.”

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