Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is taking matters into his own hands when it comes to rolling back elements of the Supreme Court’s landmark Citizen United campaign finance case and requiring disclosure of campaign donations. Van Hollen and a group of reform advocates filed suit Thursday in federal court, as well as a petition with the Federal Election Commission, that aims to force business associations and nonprofit groups to disclose secret contributions that fueled millions of dollars in attack ads against Democrats in the 2010 midterm campaign.
The legal steps come in the wake of news that the Obama administration is circulating a draft executive order requiring federal contractors to disclose contributions made to nonprofit groups and trade associations. Although uncoordinated, the leak of the executive order and the lawsuit pack a one-two punch and demonstrate just how determined Democrats are in overturning some elements of Citizens United before the 2012 election cycle shifts into high gear.
What, exactly, is the conservative position on this?
Reacting to news of the draft executive order, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) issued a statement accusing Obama of playing politics with contractors, arguing that the effort is an attempt “to silence or intimidate political adversaries’ speech through the government contracting system.”
But here’s what the court said:
“With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable,” the high court said in the opinion. “Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are “‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests.”
I just went here and looked up my own federal campaign contributions.
Anyone who does business with me here locally may also look up my campaign contributions.
I do not understand why individuals are subject to campaign contribution disclosure but certain entities are not. Some donors are more important than others? Some donors have more to lose than others, so need special protection, and Republicans intend to provide these super-special donors a custom-tailored cloak of secrecy?
How do conservatives defend this ridiculous position?
stuckinred
“How do conservatives defend this ridiculous position?”
Is this a trick question?
ruemara
Privacy is for Corporate
Mastersentities, you parasite.SATSQ
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Because its FAIR Kay.
We have all the young people, all the smart people, all the beautiful people and all the black and brown people on our side.
All they are have are the bankstahs, the libertarians, christians, racists and the intellectually challenged.
Don’t you believe in divided government?
That is why money has to have a voice too.
burnspbesq
You’re assuming a fact not in evidence, i.e., that any Republican would ever believe (or even comprehend) that a position he or she is taking is ridiculous.
kdaug
Corporations are people. All people are equal. Some people are more equal than others.
QED
IM
That is easy: They don’t like the disclosure rules for individuals either.
BGinCHI
What’s the GOP definition of “accountability”?
I’m afraid it’s the same as “the right to privacy.”
Except for lady parts.
MikeJ
I can answer this. It’s a stupid answer, but the right one.
Corporations still can not donate directly to a candidate’s campaign. Everyone who donates to a candidate is in that database.
Instead, corporations donate to front groups who have no obligation to disclose. Any money you donate to the Pave the Earth Society will go just as unreported as Exxon’s donation.
balconesfault
I suppose it’s still legal for you as an individual to make non-disclosed donations to the “Society For Ensuring that THOSE Kind Of People Never Get Any Political Power”, so it can use the money to run ads in the next election asking “If You Don’t Want His Kind To Marry Your Daughter … Do You Really Want Him As President?”
I mean, making sure your name is never associated with that kind of talk (even while you fund it) is just free speech, right?
ppcli
Ridiculously?
Sasha
Illogically.
kay
@IM: @IM:
So, all campaign finance reporting is out?
Because that’s a disclosure.
I don’t think “free speech” means what conservatives think it means. If I choose to not vote for someone based on his or her campaign contributors, or choose a boycott, or choose to picket outside their corporate offices, that’s speech.
How will I find them if I don’t know who they are? Essentially what they’re saying is “we’ll do all the talking, and you’ll do the listening”
Free speech never meant “no rebuttal allowed!”
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI:
Blaming the Democrats. SATSQ.
Bill Jones
You don’t honestly think that just because corporations have the rights of natural people they should have the obligations too, do you?
El Cid
It was not long ago that ‘conservatives’ argued that no campaign financing regulations were needed, just ‘full disclosure’.
But, just like the NRA assholes who always say that ‘we don’t need new laws, just enforce the ones we already have,’ when ever anyone tries to enforce existing gun laws or require corporate and super-rich campaign funding disclosures, right wingers go nutz in screaming how Stalin is killing us all.
kay
@<a href="#comment-2544395MikeJ:
So it’s like a jobs program for the people who work for entities like “Citizens United”?
It adds transaction costs, and another layer of people, so it’s worthwhile.
More and more I’m thinking the whole conservative movement is built on hiring more and more people to move the same pile of money around.
kay
@El Cid:
Right. My point exactly. I don’t know what they got now.
George Will needs to churn something out, here, and quickly.
Roger Moore
@El Cid:
This. You can also include things like defunding regulatory agencies in the same general plan.
Bob Loblaw
@El Cid:
Not all incrementalism is progressivism. Conservatives excel at the slow and steady erosion of liberty while declaring themselves its public champion.
jonas
Shut up! That’s how.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@stuckinred:
Two rules of thumb to live by:
(1) Never get in a pissing contest with a skunk
(2) I you absolutely must play Twister with an Octopus, don’t bet the rent money.
Both seem applicable here.
IM
@kay:
There was and is a big part of the conservative movement who did blame Bush for signing Cain-Feingold.
Gregory
They have a lot of practice defending ridiculous positions.
Herb
That’s a great link. You can even see that both Obama and Clinton contributed to the others campaign in 2008.
singfoom
Obviously, you’re preventing people from the freedom to donate as much money as possible to whatever cause/foundation/bullshit they want to.
If they have to disclose that they have given this money, other people who do business with them might think again about those business relationships.
In other words, IOKIYAR/IOKIYAC.
It’s all about the avoidance of any consequences for their actions.
Bruce S
“How do conservatives defend this ridiculous position?
It’s easy – they open their mouths and…
gwangung
@Bob Loblaw:
Oh. Is that why so many are against incrementalism for progressives? Because the right wing does it, too?
Tonal Crow
@singfoom: Anonymity helps insulate those with unpopular views from reprisals. This is really important when “those” means ordinary citizens with limited budgets and limited power (hence all the pseudonymous screen-names on the intertubes). It’s much less important when “those” means public figures with the money and power to get others to fight for them, plus — as the founders taught us — power must be counterbalanced, and to do that effectively, ordinary citizens have to know which powerful people and entities are doing what.
Suffern ACE
I wonder how many times they’re going to go back to the “playing politics” response to everything the Democrats do. I guess as long as it works and someone will type it. What other games are there for elected officials to play?
arcadesproject
Now if only the Democrats would stop shooting themselves in both feet by failing and refusing to act like Democrats, we may be able to win regardless of how much dough dump on their candidates. Good, effective policy will trump money but you gotta stop sucking up to, and imitating, the opposition.
Irony Abounds
John Cole: For the love of God, please tell me you didn’t contribute to Jim DeMint’s reelection campaign in 2004.