Disclose Act fails in Senate for second time

The Senate failed to advance a campaign spending transparency bill for the second time in two days on Tuesday, drawing warnings from Democrats that billionaires will now control the country's elections.

The 53-45 vote Tuesday came after Democrats pulled an all-nighter in hopes of convincing Republicans to join them in voting for the Disclose Act, which would have required companies, unions and other groups to report campaign spending of more than $10,000 to the government.

“Make no mistake — there is nothing free about an election purchased by a handful of billionaires for their own self-interest,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “It is obvious Republicans’ priority is to protect a handful of anonymous billionaires — billionaires willing to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to change the outcome of a close presidential contest.”

The same bill, S. 3369, failed to advance Monday by a 51-44 vote.

The effort was aimed at the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and called attention to the massive spending by outside groups this election year. While President Obama and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney have both welcomed the help of super-PACs that can take unlimited and anonymous political donations, their efforts are expected to give Romney a funding advantage.

Republicans argued the vote was political posturing by Democrats and said it favored unions over corporations.

“This bill falls short, the American people will see it for what it is: political opportunism at it’s best and political demagoguery at it’s worst,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said. “The union’s ground up, pyramid structure leads me to believe it will be exempt from Disclose Act.”

McCain said he hopes that next time Democrats take on campaign finance reform — something he’s worked on throughout his political career — they get a Republican on board before “wasting Senate time."