The Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United has allowed unprecedented corporate takeover of our democracy; the 39 Republican Senators who voted against the DISCLOSE Act yesterday are allowing it to happen.
Yesterday, I challenged my opponent Congressman Rob Portman to come out in support of the DISCLOSE Act, a bill which would go a long way towards arresting the catastrophic effects of the decision.
Of course he ignored my challenge, because Congressman Rob Portman has become a poster boy of the Citizens United ruling.
Perhaps more than any Republican in the country, Congressman Portman has benefitted from corporations who think their role should be buying seats in the U.S. Senate to protect their interests.
-The shadowy Karl Rove group American Crossroads has received 6 contributions of over a million dollars from corporations and corporate billionaires and has turned around and spent nearly a million of those dollars to blanket Ohio airwaves with attack ads. One of their million dollar donors was Harold Simmons, who might sound familiar from his record of funding two controversial groups: Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and the American Issues Project, which ran ads tying President Obama to William Ayers in 2008.
-The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who filed an amicus brief in the Citizens case and has strongly supported the Supreme Court's decision and condemned President Obama's criticism of it, has spent more money in support of Congressman Portman than in any other Senate race in the country.
With Congressman Portman ranking as the #1 GOP recipient of lobbyist cash, the #2 recipient of Wall Street campaign funds, and the #1 recipient of insurance industry contributions, it's clear that big business of all shapes and sizes knows he'll be their champion in Washington, and they're putting their corporate dollars where their agendas are.
My race is just one of the many being manipulated by corporate spending this cycle, which is why I've been talking about the DISCLOSE Act everywhere I go, and was discouraged by the Republican obstructionism we saw, yet again, during the Senate vote on DISCLOSE yesterday.
The DISCLOSE Act would require corporations to stand by their political advertising just like a candidate for office does. CEOs would need to identify themselves in their advertisements, and corporations would be required to disclose their political expenditures. It would stop Wall Street, Big Oil, and U.S. corporations controlled by foreign – or even hostile – governments from manipulating elections by funneling money to front groups that run anonymous election advertisements.
The bill also prohibits entities that receive taxpayer money – such as large government contractors and corporations receiving TARP funds – from turning around and spending that money to influence elections.
There is nothing controversial about transparency. But every single Republican Senator found the proposal so objectionable they voted to block it from even coming to a vote yesterday.
What makes the bill's failure even worse are the potential policy ramifications of continuing to govern under the broken system created by Citizens United.
Without the DISCLOSE Act, we'll see a new generation of Republican politicians, bought and paid for by lobbies who will expect them to use the filibuster to stall progress on any number of issues they don't like -- opposing programs like the public option, blocking equality as we saw this week with NDAA, and fighting tooth and nail to water down legislation like the wall street reform bill.
This is an election, not an auction. Our democracy is about one person one vote, not one corporation, one vote, and must not be subverted by corporate spending without transparency. I strongly support passage of the DISCLOSE Act, but also know it's not enough. When I'm elected I'll fight for a Constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United and give Congress the ability to ban corporate financing of elections. I hope you'll become a part of our campaign by signing up for email updates, following our campaign on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook, and contributing to help us get our message out.
I'll be in the comments at 11:30 talking about the significance of the DISCLOSE Act and what our next steps should be. I hope you'll post questions, and I look forward to answering them.