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By Adam Skaggs – 05/22/12
Crossposted at Huffington Post.
Next month marks the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in. But the burglary was the tip of the iceberg: the bigger scandal involved President Nixon's 1972 re-election campaign brazenly peddling government favors for millions of dollars of political donations.
In Watergate's aftermath and the decades since, Congress strengthened our campaign finance laws. But the Supreme Court has chipped away at those reforms, making it harder to fight the corruption that flows from money in politics. Supreme Court missteps, compounded by lower court decisions, have produced the current anything-goes campaign environment.
The Court now has an opportunity to undo some of the damage. It is considering a request to take up a case out of Montana that could clarify how much leeway the government has to regulate corrupting political money. Understanding why the Court should do so requires looking at where we are — and how we got here.
Nearly a half-year ahead of the November election, so-called super PACs have already dumped more than $110 million into this election. Nonprofit groups that refuse to disclose their donors have spent millions more. Most disturbingly, million dollar donations from actors interested in specific government actions — gifts that would raise obvious corruption concerns if directly handed to candidates — are now routinely handed to super PACs whose exclusive purpose is to elect those candidates.
Functioning as shadow campaigns, these groups exist solely to elect a specific candidate. They are operated by the candidate's close friends and most trusted political advisors. Candidates and their super PACs share vendors, consultants, messages, and advertising footage. They closely coordinate their efforts: during the Republican presidential primaries, when candidates' own funds started to dry up, their super PACs repeatedly stepped up to air a barrage of attack ads. Most egregiously, candidates and their senior campaign staff appear at the super PACs' fundraising events and solicit funds for them. As Mitt Romney candidly stated: "We raise money for super PACs. We encourage super PACs. Each candidate has done that."
Perhaps most significantly, the super PAC campaign arms have rendered contribution limits to candidates essentially meaningless. Corporations and unions, prohibited under federal law from donating directly to candidates, have skirted the ban by giving to their super PACs — sometimes in million-dollar amounts. Individuals, too, have flouted the individual contribution limit, donating the maximum $2,500 to a candidate's campaign, and then turning around and writing another check to his super PAC. Last year, for example, 84 percent of donors to Mitt Romney's super PAC had given the maximum donation to Romney's primary campaign — including five contributors who each gave the super PAC $1 million or more.
Some have blamed the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision for these groups that solicit — and spend — unlimited sums to elect candidates. But Citizens United expressly declined to address the constitutionality of campaign contribution limits. While the decision gave corporations and unions the right to spend unlimited sums on electioneering, it said nothing about whether they could contribute without limit to groups working as de facto arms of the candidate's campaigns.
That said, Citizens United did play a part in permitting the emergence of super PACs. In the decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that "independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption." Some lower courts read this statement as saying that election spending by non-candidate groups cannot corrupt, regardless of the groups' ties to candidates. If the Supreme Court had dictated that there could be no corruption concerns, these courts reasoned, then there could be no limits on the size of contributions to them. Thus was born the super PAC.
The problem is that these lower courts, in striking down contribution limits to groups that are anything but genuinely independent, extended Citizens United beyond the breaking point. The Montana case gives the Supreme Court a chance to put campaign finance law back on the right track. It's vitally important that it does so: public confidence in our country's elections and government has been severely undermined by legal developments after Citizens United.
Last week, Montana's Attorney General filed a brief calling on the Court to let stand his state's century-old ban on corporate electioneering. The law was adopted by Montana voters who'd watched out-of-state copper interests capture the state's government and buy off its judges. In a friend-of-the-court brief, the Brennan Center for Justice and leading constitutional law scholars argued that, contrary to Justice Kennedy's statement in Citizens United, recent developments establish clearly that fundraising and spending by groups like super PACs can, and does, give rise to corruption and widespread perceptions of corruption.
The Supreme Court should right this disastrous mess — not (just) for the sake of its own legitimacy, but for the sake of American democracy. Broad segments of the public believe the officials we elect in November will ignore the public interest to serve the few donors whose million-dollar contributions fueled the shadow campaigns that elected them. Now it's up to the Supreme Court.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms, Disclosure
By Molly Alarcon – 05/22/12
What We're Reading: a daily round-up of quick hits, clips, and opinion pieces touching on key issues of democracy, justice, liberty and national security.
Jesse Jackson cites the Brennan Center’s research in a plea not to let “the attacks on voting rights succeed” (Chicago Sun-Times).
Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to a Bush-era law allowing the government to intercept international phone calls and emails originating from people suspected of having ties to terrorist networks.
California State Senator Mark Leno of Marin County and San Francisco has introduced a bill to classify simple drug possession as a misdemeanor instead of a felony, a policy change that would reduce California’s prison population, help low-level offenders find jobs and remain employed, and bring California in line with 13 other states that have made this important change (AP).
Jeffrey Toobin blogs at the New Yorker about the continued need for the Voting Rights Act.
Corporations are increasingly facing pressure to divulge political spending to shareholders, The Washington Post reports.
Tags: What We're Reading Today
By Erik Opsal – 05/22/12
Welcome to the Brennan Center's voting newsletter, the most comprehensive summary of all the latest developments affecting voting. Sign up for all Brennan Center newsletters here.
Latest Developments
Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) (pictured right) and House Democratic leaders introduced the Voter Empowerment Act Thursday, a bill to help ensure all eligible Americans have the opportunity to vote. It is the first federal bill to include modernized voter registration, a proposal first crafted by the Brennan Center in 2008.
“No matter your political party, we can all agree that every eligible American should have the opportunity to vote,” said Wendy Weiser, Democracy Program Director at the Brennan Center. “Modernizing voter registration is something everyone can get behind. It is an innovative reform that could add more than 50 million eligible citizens to the rolls, permanently.”
In the states, voter registration modernization has won wide bipartisan support. It requires the government to take responsibility to ensure that every eligible voter who wants to be registered is accurately on the rolls, using existing computerized lists. It would cost less (because computerized records are far easier to keep than today’s chaotic piles of paper). And it would also curb errors and the potential for fraud.
The Voter Empowerment Act included other key reforms. It would prevent voter disenfranchisement as a result of “voter caging,” remedy deceptive practices designed to confuse voters on Election Day, restore the right to vote in federal elections to non-incarcerated individuals with past criminal convictions, and require voter verified audit trails and post-election audits to ensure the accuracy of election results.
Voting Rights Act Upheld in Alabama Case
A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit court upheld Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, a landmark civil rights law that combats widespread voter discrimination.
Under Section 5, certain jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination must receive federal approval before implementing election law changes. Shelby County, Alabama challenged this provision as unconstitutional, but the judges, voting 2-1, disagreed, saying the requirement is still necessary because “overt racial discrimination persists.”
“The recent efforts to suppress minority voters make it crystal clear that we still need this core voter protection,” said Debo P. Adegbile of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “Section 5 promotes political inclusion against persisting attempts to practice exclusion.”
The case, Shelby County v. Holder, may end up before the U.S. Supreme Court in the coming months. In other pending cases, Florida and Texas are also challenging the Voting Rights Act.
A Florida election official last week claims to have found 182,000 voters who may not be citizens, but the state used a “flawed process” to identify these voters “by relying on an outdated driver’s license database,” The New York Times reported. As a result, many eligible citizens may be incorrectly purged from the rolls.
Manoly Castro-Williamson, “a U.S. citizen and a registered Republican who has voted in every election in Florida since 2004,” was one of those on the list, reported the Tampa Bay Times. Hispanics were the most likely to be identified as potential noncitizens, comprising 58 percent of the list despite accounting for only 13 percent of population.
Election officials should take all steps necessary to make voter rolls accurate, the Brennan Center’s Myrna Pérez told the Huffington Post. “But that work must be done with great care, after a detailed look at the records and well in advance of elections.”
Florida has a history of abusive voter purges. In 2000 and 2004, state officials removed thousands “from the rolls if the person’s name and birth date were found to be an ‘80 percent match’ with that of an ineligible voter.” Pérez explained that this “method is not only imprecise, but statistically likely to capture both eligible and ineligible voters.”
Read more of the Brennan Center’s work on voter purges, and about similar efforts in New Mexico and Colorado.
State Updates
Florida – More commentary on the recent attempted voter purge: The Miami Herald columnist Myriam Marquez called it “another attack on immigrants in the name of fighting voter fraud.” Robyn Blumner at the Tampa Bay Times said it is an “odd time to purge voter rolls.” Also see this column in El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language version of The Herald. The Palm Beach Post spoke to the Brennan Center’s Lawrence Norden about the simple steps election officials can take to prevent errors with voting machines.
Georgia – The state will have online voter registration after the 2012 election.
Hawaii – An online voter registration law is awaiting signature by Gov. Neil Abercrombie (D).
Kansas – Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s plan to require proof of citizenship for first-time voters in the 2012 election died in the state Senate. The citizenship requirement will begin in 2013.
Michigan – An audit found "evidence suggesting dead people and prisoners may have voted” in state elections in the past three years. The Secretary of State’s office attributed most of the instances to clerical error or individuals who “may have legally cast an absentee ballot and died before the election.”
Mississippi – GOP Gov. Phil Bryant signed a voter ID law, but it still needs approval by the Department of Justice. The law promises the state will provide free photo ID cards to those who need one, but there is no funding to do so, the Associated Press reported. Read more here and here.
Missouri – A voter ID referendum will not be on the ballot in November. A state judge struck down the wording of the ID measure in March, asking the legislature for a revision because it was “insufficient and unfair.” Because there was no movement on the ballot measure before the end of the legislative session, the amendment is “effectively killed.”
New Hampshire – A voter ID bill passed the House 226 to 115. It would require one of four types of photo ID, but voters who do not have an ID can “sign a voter affidavit and have their photo taken.” Election officials have opposed the measure because it would take effect this year, which they say does not give them sufficient time to implement the law. Read more here and here.
New York – An overheated voting machine caused more than 30 percent of votes in a South Bronx precinct to go uncounted in 2010. Recent tests found the machine misread ballots and cast “phantom votes” when it malfunctioned. The Brennan Center filed suit warning of the possible errors before the election. But the election went ahead without any modifications. The recent revelations came about during discovery in the ongoing litigation. Read our report on lost votes in New York.
North Carolina – A local group compiled a list of 553 voters who they say could be non-citizens. A TV station conducted a similar analysis and debunked the claim, saying, “every potentially voter identified was a U.S. citizen,” WRAL reported.
Ohio – Gov. John Kasich (R) signed a repeal of a controversial election law, which included restrictions on early voting and voter registration. Opponents say the move was not a full repeal because it did not restore early voting for the three days before the election. The law was set to be on the ballot as a referendum this fall, and the repeal sets the stage for possible litigation. Read more here.
Pennsylvania – Voter ID supporters asked to intervene in a suit challenging the state’s new law. One state resident wrote a letter to the editor explaining how difficult it was to help an 86-year-old woman obtain an ID to vote. A Republican State Senator introduced an online voter registration bill, a measure supported by The Scranton Times-Tribune.
Texas – State Sen. Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) wrote to the Secretary of State asking her “to make sure Texans understand the state’s voter photo ID law does not apply for the May 29 primary election.”
Virginia – Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) signed a voter ID bill into law late Friday. He issued an executive order directing “the State Board of Elections to send out new voter ID cards statewide at a cost of about $1.3 million.” Read more here and here.
Wisconsin – A report by two experts for plaintiffs challenging the state’s voter ID law has found minorities less likely to have acceptable voter ID than whites. “Eligible African-American and Latino voters are, respectively, 182 percent and 206 percent more likely to lack accepted photo ID than their white counterparts,” the report states. A UW-Oshkosh professor wrote in an op-ed that the “voter ID law is unfair to college students.”
Don't forget our up-to-date online summary of all pending and passed voting laws.
New Data and Research
Media Round-Up
- A number of outlets covered the introduction of the Voter Empowerment Act. See stories by CNN, CBS News, The Hill, and Roll Call.
- The New York Times applauded Judge David Tatel for his thorough opinion upholding Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Read more from The Washington Post’s Robert Barnes.
- Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) introduced an amendment to defund Section 5, a key provision of the historic civil rights measure. Former 1960’s civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) objected furiously. “People died for the right to vote – friends of mine, colleagues of mine,” he said.
- The New York Times editorialized on the confrontation between the two congressman, saying that even though Rep. Broun withdrew the amendment and apologized, the issue is “far bigger than hurt feelings. Mr. Broun owes an apology to history.”
- The Obama campaign launched GottaVote.org, to help voters navigate many states’ new restrictive voter ID laws, TPM reported.
- The Washington Post reported that Latino voter registration is below some projections. There were 12 million Latinos registered to vote in 2008, and some experts believed that number would grow to 13 million in 2010 and 14 million in 2012. Instead, registered Latinos fell to 11 million in 2010 — below the 2008 total. A blogger for The Nation questions the Post’s methodology but says that restrictive voter registration laws will make it harder to add minorities to the rolls.
- The NAACP “launched a nationwide drive to register thousands of mostly minority, student and elderly voters” before November, reported The Washington Post.
- The Fair Elections Legal Network posted a new interactive map showing restrictive voting laws across the country.
Stay Connnected
- Stop getting forwarded! Get your own copy of the Voting Newsletter here.
- For daily voting rights news and the latest commentary from our experts, be sure to visit the Brennan Center’s website.
- To keep up with all of the Brennan Center’s work, subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter.
- And don’t forget our newsletters on legal services and fair courts.
- Follow the Brennan Center:
Tags: Newsletter, Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections
By Molly Alarcon – 05/21/12
What We're Reading: a daily round-up of quick hits, clips, and opinion pieces touching on key issues of democracy, justice, liberty and national security.
The Washington Post highlights the Brennan Center’s amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court regarding the potential review of a Montana Supreme Court decision upholding a cap on corporate political spending.
Tampa Bay Times columnist Robyn Blumner asks if the Florida Secretary of State’s sudden interest in purging the state’s voter rolls of 180,000 alleged non-citizens “is a pure effort to clean up the voter rolls or is there an element of suppressing minority votes?” Read the Brennan Center’s Myrna Pérez on the matter (“Florida Should Avoid Misdeeds of the Past”).
LA Times: “The Supreme Court, after a four-year break from terrorism issues, is set to decide as soon as Monday whether to again take up constitutional challenges to George W. Bush-era anti-terrorism laws involving wiretapping and the Guantanamo prisoners.”
Conservatives and civil rights advocates are coming together to oppose exorbitant phone fees for prisoners.
Over 2,000 people who were wrongly convicted of major crimes were exonerated in the past two and a half decades, according to a new database compiled by a team of academics. "We know there are many more that we haven't found," the editor of the new registry told the AP.
The New York Times editorial board praises DC Circuit Judge Tatel for his opinion affirming the constitutionality of an important provision of the Voting Rights Act. The Brennan Center released a statement applauding the ruling as well.
Tags: What We're Reading Today
By Meghna Philip – 05/21/12
A new documentary by University of Pennsylvania law students chronicles the story of Philadelphia’s aggressive criminal justice debt collections over the past two years. As the Brennan Center has previously written, these efforts have targeted one in five Philadelphians for a total $1.5 billion in alleged fines, fees and court costs dating back to the 1970s.
The filmmakers questioned a number of men and women impacted by the collections. The interviews highlight the fundamental injustice of fees and fines that force people to pay over and over for their crimes, long after having served their sentences.
In Philadelphia, and in many jurisdictions around the country, outstanding criminal justice debt can prevent people from accessing public benefits for themselves and their families. It can also bar people from accessing pardons or expungements of their criminal records, which is a huge barrier to employment.
“This is another example of just kicking the poor down,” Pennsylvania State Senator Shirley M. Kitchen says in the film. “The budget is being balanced on the backs of the poor, the working class, and the middle class. And all of this is just not fair.”
Criminal justice debt policies all over the country demand reform. But the collections process in Philadelphia is particularly egregious. The courts in the city lack crucial documentation to substantiate many of these debts. Thousands of formerly incarcerated people – overwhelmingly poor and from communities of color – are locked in battles over debts that they should not owe, and that they cannot pay. Seventy percent of those who allegedly owe money to the courts are elderly, disabled, impoverished or unemployed.
The ACLU and Community Legal Services of Philadelphia serve many clients trapped in cycles of criminal justice debt. The groups have asked that the Philadelphia courts waive all debts owed prior to 2005. This is the best way to ensure that the city is not wrongfully pursuing people for debts they do not owe. It is beyond time for the city to take this important step to encourage the reentry of hard-working people trying to lead productive lives after incarceration.
Said Malissa Gamble, a formerly incarcerated community organizer who was interviewed in the film: “I take full responsibility for what I have done, but I would like to move on with my life. I don’t want to continuously be beat over the head, and beat down, so when I think that I’m doing something good, the city comes again and they try to tear me down. There’s something strange about that.”
Watch a trailer for “Pay Up! Criminal Justice Debt in Philadelphia:”
The full-length film is available here.
Tags: Justice, Racial Justice, Civil Justice, Criminal Justice, Fees & Fines
By Myrna Pérez – 05/21/12
Florida does not have a good track record with voter purges. In 2000, Florida’s efforts to purge persons with criminal convictions from the rolls led to, by conservative estimates, close to 12,000 eligible voters being removed because the state’s process was so imprecise that an eligible voter named John Michaels could be confused with an ineligible person named John Michaelson. In 2004, Florida’s purge had a blatant racial disparity. Now, in 2012, Florida’s Secretary of State recently announced new efforts to purge Florida’s voter rolls. The initiative purports to be targeting non-citizens and deceased persons for removal from the voter rolls, but because Florida’s past efforts purged eligible voters from the rolls, careful scrutiny is warranted to ensure eligible Americans will not be blocked from voting.
Clean voter rolls are very important. We all benefit when states undertake responsible list maintenance procedures. Because the fundamental right to vote is at stake when voter list cleansing efforts are undertaken, the process must be transparent, accurate, and under reasonable time frames, especially when the list maintenance effort is of the scale Florida is proposing.
Part of the problem with voter purges is that they happen inside someone’s office and outside the public eye. For example, Florida’s Secretary of State Ken Detzner issued a public release announcing the purge effort earlier this month, but the initiative started in early 2011. So far he has only revealed that election officials are working with the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to cross-reference voters’ information contained in various databases. But the press report does not explain anything more to the public. How can we know the process is being undertaken carefully? How can a voter incorrectly removed be put back on the rolls?
This lack of transparency illustrates another problem: purges are not always undertaken with the accuracy and care that is required. For example, to identify deceased persons on the rolls, Florida officials compare voter information with federal Social Security files. But a simple comparison offers insufficient protection for voters. The Social Security Administration admits there are errors in its database — 14,000 people are improperly recorded as deceased each year — and typos, bad handwriting, similar names, and basic statistical principles can lead to mix-ups between eligible and ineligible voters.
Finally, the timing of purges is often a concern, as it is here because Florida will hold elections in just a few months. The risks of error and enormity of consequences make it critical that purges happen well before elections so that mistakes can be caught and corrected and voters reinstated with ample time to cast ballots that will count. There are reports that local election supervisors share the Brennan Center’s concern about the timing of these purges, which are heightened if it is true that supervisors received instructions to begin purging voters from the rolls with only a few months before the elections when state-level officials compiled initial lists more than a year before.
If there are bloated rolls in Florida or any other state, the solution is easy: modernize. Paper-based registration systems, in Florida and elsewhere, are inefficient, costly, and prone to inaccuracy. The Brennan Center has proposed model legislation for voter registration modernization that would increase the number of eligible voters and restrict ineligible voters with a much higher degree of accuracy. The proposed system electronically transfers registration information, enables secure online registration, ensures that a voter’s registration record travels with her when she moves within a state, and creates an opportunity at the polls to correct any glitches in the process. Numerous states have already adopted components of voter registration modernization, and Florida should follow suit.
What Florida should NOT do is undertake a hasty and ill-planned purge of its voter rolls.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Purges
By Molly Alarcon – 05/18/12
What We're Reading: a daily round-up of quick hits, clips, and opinion pieces touching on key issues of democracy, justice, liberty and national security.
Yesterday, House Democrats introduced the Voter Empowerment Act (HR 5799), which includes the Brennan Center’s proposals for Voter Registration Modernization and provisions based on the Democracy Restoration Act, which would restore the right to vote in federal elections for individuals with criminal convictions. Read coverage of the press conference and bill introduction at: The Hill, CBS News, CNN, Roll Call, and The Grio.
The Brennan Center’s Adam Skaggs in Politico on the Montana campaign spending case reaching the Supreme Court: “Montana’s history demonstrates the corruption that blooms when corporations can spend without limit to capture government. The state’s history demonstrates again and again why the anti-corruption law should stand. Indeed, a close review of the case shows that the court would be well-served to revisit — and substantially narrow — Citizens United.”
Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, describes a number of ways governments squeeze the poor, citing Brennan Center research to describe the punitive court fees and fines increasingly used against the poorest among us (Huffington Post).
Senator Leahy (Chairman of the Judiciary Committee) takes on controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio: “A U.S. senator has asked federal authorities to consider seeking repayment of federal aid to Maricopa County if they determine that Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office used tax dollars from Washington to detain people whose civil rights the sheriff's office is accused of violating” (AP).
Echoing findings by the Brennan Center about the importance of legal counsel in foreclosure proceedings, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has released two reports stressing the benefit of having HUD-approved housing counselors help struggling homeowners.
The economic argument for equal rights: “A draft paper by four U.S. economists makes the strong empirical case that [social and legal equality for women and minorities] made the economy more productive. Chang-Tai Hsieh, Erik Hurst, Charles Jones and Peter Klenow argue that as much as 20 percent of the growth in productivity in the United States over the past 50 years can be attributed to expanded opportunities for women and blacks” (New York Times).
Tags: What We're Reading Today
By David Earley – 05/18/12
According to a new study by the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, four nonprofit organizations have spent $3.4 million in the state on “a steady barrage of campaign-style ads criticizing the Obama administration” since the start of the year all without disclosing their donors. Because these organizations — Americans for Prosperity, American Future Fund, American Energy Alliance, and the 60 Plus Association — are nonprofit “501(c)(4)” organizations and were careful to run their advertisements just outside the 30 day federal reporting window, they will never have to reveal information about their underlying donors.
All of this is completely legal. That federal disclosure requirements are so easily evaded — by entities spending millions of dollars to influence elections — underscores the need to reform federal disclosure laws.
Under federal campaign finance disclosure law, organizations that run “electioneering communications” must disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission, which in turn releases the list of donors to the public. Electioneering communications are broadcast advertisements (TV or radio) that refer to a specific candidate for federal office and air within 30 days of a primary election or 60 days of a general election. Before disclosure of electioneering communications was required, only ads that expressly said things like “vote for” or “vote against” candidates had to be reported. Groups easily evaded disclosure under that regime by running “sham issue ads,” advertisements that are often highly critical of a candidate but stop short of telling voters to vote against the candidate. Instead they say things like “call Senator Smith and tell her not to tamper with Social Security.” Voters understood these as appeals to vote for or against candidates, but because they avoided the “magic words” they didn’t have to be reported. By requiring electioneering communications to be disclosed, Congress ensured voters would know who paid for sham issue ads run just before an election.
The groups in Michigan avoided disclosure by running their ads outside the 30-day window before the state’s primary. They also avoided disclosure by being registered as 501(c)(4) organizations, or “social welfare” organizations under the tax code. Consequently, these organizations are prohibited from having political activity be their “primary” focus, but can still engage in significant political spending. Had these nonprofits instead registered as so-called “527 organizations” — the intended designation for political organizations under the tax code — their donors would have to be disclosed. By exploiting the dual weaknesses of the current electioneering communication definition and the tax code, the people behind these kitschy organizational names will never be known.
Activity like this is why members of Congress recently introduced the DISCLOSE Act of 2012 to address the weaknesses of federal disclosure requirements. Under the proposed legislation, the reporting window would be greatly expanded. Donors behind electioneering communications would have to be disclosed if the advertisement runs within 120 days of the first presidential primary, and continuing until the general election. Ads mentioning congressional candidates would require disclosure if they ran on or after January 1 of an election year. By expanding the disclosure period, the law would ensure voters have both greater knowledge going to the ballot box and the ability to better scrutinize the dealings between independent organizations and the candidates they support.
Because the Michigan groups didn’t report their spending, the magnitude of the campaigns would have gone unnoticed. But the Michigan Campaign Finance Network carefully combed through public files of Michigan broadcasters and cable companies, meticulously analyzing their contracts to air the groups’ political commercials. The effort should certainly be applauded, as it brought to light spending that would otherwise have remained secret. But such effort shouldn’t be necessary — the public has a right to know who is trying to influence the voters and elected officials and how much they are spending in the process. Our federal disclosure laws should reflect that by making this information easily accessible so that everybody can know who is behind the money. Expanding the electioneering communication reporting window, as the DISCLOSE Act would accomplish, is an important first step.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Disclosure
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