Senate Republicans Block Consideration of DISCLOSE Act

Senate Republicans last week blocked consideration of the DISCLOSE Act, which would require Super PACs and 501(c)(4) nonprofit political groups to disclose donors of $10,000 or more during an election cycle.

In a procedural vote last Thursday, the Senate failed to advance the bill on a 49-49 vote. Congressional Democrats have long sought to shine a light on who contributes to so-called dark money groups that can spend unlimited amounts of money to promote or attack candidates since the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC.

Before the vote last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Citizens United prevents greater transparency in campaign financing.

“By giving massive corporations the same rights as individual citizens … and by casting aside decades of campaign finance law and by paving the way for powerful elites to pump nearly endless cash, Citizens United has disfigured our democracy almost beyond recognition,” Schumer said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) called the bill an “insult to the First Amendment” and encouraged Republican senators to vote against it.

“Today’s liberal pet priority is a piece of legislation designed to give unelected federal bureaucrats vastly more power over private citizens’ First Amendment rights and political activism, and to strip privacy away from Americans who speak out about politics in their private lives,” McConnell said.