Watchdogs are urging swift passage of a bill aimed at blunting the
Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision after a two-week delay of its
rollout.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the bill’s chief author in the House,
started circulating a summary of the measure Thursday afternoon and
hopes to unveil it formally next week, along with Sen. Chuck Schumer
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(D-N.Y.), the Senate co-sponsor. Schumer has been trying to convince
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) to sign on as a co-sponsor to make it a
bipartisan bill in both chambers. Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) so far is
the only Republican to lend his name to the bill.
"Sen. Snowe could have more leverage with the bill down the road if she doesn't agree to co-sponsor up front," said a source close to the negotiations.
With the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, other business groups and unions teeing up to take advantage of the high court’s ruling allowing unlimited spending in individual elections, the measure’s supporters say it’s critical that Congress move forward with or without a Senate Republican co-sponsor. They say the House needs to pass the bill by Memorial Day in order for the measure to get the momentum it needs for the Senate to pass it by July 4 so it can have an impact on this year’s elections.
“If this is really going to happen, at least one body needs to move on it before Memorial Day recess,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center. “My hope would be that we move fairly quickly and get it passed in the House by the recess. If it gets pushed until afterward, it just means it’s going be that much harder to have it affect the midterms.”
The long-awaited campaign finance bill would force strict disclosure requirements for ads, including a mandate that CEOs, top officials and donors appear on camera to “approve” messages. It also would require corporations, unions and outside groups who fund political advertisements to disclose to the Federal Election Commission who they are and how much they are spending.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other groups who heralded the high court’s ruling as a long overdue victory for free speech are ferociously attacking the bill.
They are particularly incensed about a provision aimed at curbing the appearance of corruption and possible misuse of taxpayer funds, by barring any entity with a government contract worth more than $50,000 from spending money in elections.
The Center for Competitive Politics (CCP), a free-market campaign finance group, called the language about government contractors “particularly troubling” because the Supreme Court ruled that independent speech cannot be corrupting.
“It’s difficult to imagine how it could possibly survive a court challenge,” the group wrote in an analysis of the bill released Friday. “To pass judicial muster, Congress must show a compelling interest for why contractors — and not others who receive government money, like doctors who receive Medicaid reimbursements or public employee unions who negotiate with government on behalf of their members — should be silenced.”
The bill’s backers, however, argue that the provision conforms to existing law that dates back to 1940, which bars anyone receiving a government contract from contributing to candidates or parties or making independent election expenditures. In order to participate politically, corporations must first form a political action committee.
The Democrats’ new disclosure bill would raise the threshold to $50,000 and make it very clear in election law that contractors that receive taxpayer money should not be using that money to try to win more government business.
“When you have a contract with the government, there is a very close nexus between a financial relationship and the intent to influence,” McGehee said.
