Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) mocked comedian Stephen Colbert as part of her campaign against super-PACs.
The House minority leader released a Web video on Thursday that jokingly attacks Colbert for launching a super-PAC. It's part of the Dems' push to reintroduce the Disclose Act.
“Stephen Colbert used to be my friend,” Pelosi says in a voice-over. “But since the day he started his super-PAC, taking secret money from special interests, he’s been out of control. Even using his super-PAC to attack my friend Newt Gingrich," a reference to climate-change ad that featured her and Gingrich.
The images show her signing Colbert's cast and photos of the two of them together.
Pelosi deadpans into the camera that Colbert must be stopped.
“I’m Nancy Pelosi, and I support this ad, because Americans deserve a better tomorrow today,” she says, in a riff on the name of Colbert’s super-PAC. “Join me in stopping Colbert and creating a new politics free of special interest money. The first step is passing the Disclose Act.”
Pelosi, a cat lover, continues: “And if that weren’t enough, I hear he doesn’t even like kittens.”
The video advertises a Facebook page, Facebook.com/StopColbert, titled “Disclose, Reform, Amend,” which announces that House Democrats will introduce the Disclose Act on Thursday. The Disclose Act, which failed to pass in 2010, outlaws unlimited, secret contributions to political campaigns. Pelosi, along with Democratic Reps. Chris Van Hollen (Md.) and Keith Ellison (Minn.), presented the bill at a press conference on Thursday afternoon.
Her move comes the same week that President Obama’s reelection
campaign announced it would begin supporting Priorities USA, a top
Democratic super-PAC, a move Republicans criticized as hypocritical because of Obama's opposition to the lack of fundraising transparency by those groups.
Obama campaign aides have said Obama has to work with the rules that
exist though he believes they should be reformed. Democrats now
are pushing back in a fresh push for campaign finance reform.
And Pelosi’s use of Colbert’s name is a hook that ought to attract attention to the Democrats’ plan.
On his Comedy Central show, Colbert has often lambasted the landmark 2010 Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, which said independent spending for political purposes is protected under the First Amendment and paved the way for super-PACs to do unlimited fundraising.
Last year, Colbert sought to shed light on campaign finance law by filing to form his own super-PAC. The Federal Election Commission ruled in Colbert’s favor in June, allowing him to form a political action committee and use his show to promote it. He went on to spoof the process by using his super-PAC to fund a fake run to be “president of South Carolina.”
