WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), and 48 of their Senate colleagues reintroduced legislation to address the worst of the problems caused by the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The DISCLOSE Act of 2014 would crack down on so-called “dark money” by requiring organizations that spend money to influence elections to disclose their spending, as well as their major sources of funding, in a timely manner.
“The integrity and the fairness of our elections is at the very heart of American democracy,” Senator Coons said. “Since the Citizens United decision, the basic right of every American to free and fair elections has been compromised by an influx of hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy individuals, corporations, and shadowy national special interest groups. The Supreme Court opened the floodgates to unlimited secret campaign activities, threatening to overwhelm the fundamental trust of our constituents and the transparency so essential to our democracy. The DISCLOSE Act would make a little bit of progress in the right direction and restore some of the transparency that we’ve lost.”
The DISCLOSE Act requires any covered organization that spends $10,000 or more during an election cycle to file a report with the Federal Election Commission within 24 hours, detailing the amount and nature of each expenditure over $1,000 and the names of all of its donors who gave $10,000 or more. Transfer provisions in the bill prevent donors from using shell organizations to hide their activities.
To make sure that organizations and individuals take responsibility for their negative or misleading political advertising, the legislation also includes “stand-by-your-ad” disclaimer requirements that require any organization that puts a political ad on TV or radio to list its top funders in the ads. The head of the organization also must appear in the ad and state that he or she approves the message, just as candidates must do now.