rssWill a last-ditch vote on the DISCLOSE Act make it onto the lame-duck calendar?
Friday, November 05, 2010 at 3:02 pm
- 11 Comments
Momentum is building for Democrats to try one last time to pass a version of the DISCLOSE Act once Congress resumes, this time without the extraneous (and some say, onerous) prohibitions on campaign spending by federal contractors or companies with partial foreign-ownership. The New York Times and Politico are both buzzing about the fact that Senator-elect Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who will be seated when Congress resumes, has had some positive things to say about donor disclosure while on the campaign trail, and they also make the obvious point that a change in the House and Senate seat math makes the possibility of doing anything next year that much more difficult.
But will a vote on a new, leaner bill make it onto the Senate’s packed lame-duck schedule? Democrats following the issue assure me that they’re fighting to include it in the mix, but they’re up against a lot of competing demands that Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) must juggle, from the Start Treaty to an omnibus appropriations bill to food safety to the looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts. They also note that a stripped-down version of the bill couldn’t be called up at a moment’s notice — like Reid was able to do the last time he called a vote on DISCLOSE — but would instead have to be introduced the old fashioned way and would probably eat up between two and three days of precious Senate floor time as a result.
The biggest issue weighing on the Democrats’ decision, by far, is whether a disclosure-only bill would actually convince any GOP senators to change their mind on the issue. Both Democrats and campaign finance advocates make it clear that they’ve been reaching out the offices of Republicans like Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe (R) and Susan Collins (R) since the spring, asking for their views on what they’d like to see (or not see) in the bill. In recent months, however, that line of communication has basically gone dead.
So would a disclosure-only bill represent the right show of good faith to win back their support? Or would it simply lead to a symbolic floor vote in which Democrats force Republicans to take a stand on the issue of disclosure? I’m waiting to hear back from Snowe and Collins’ offices to get their version of events and whether they think there’s any hope of reviving the conversation, and I’ll write about it if and when I hear back.
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[...] Will a last-ditch vote on the DISCLOSE Act make it onto the lame-duck calendar? “Momentum is building for Democrats to try one last time to pass a version of the DISCLOSE Act once Congress resumes, this time without the extraneous (and some say, onerous) prohibitions on campaign spending by federal contractors or companies with partial foreign-ownership. The New York Times and Politico are both buzzing about the fact that Senator-elect Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), who will be seated when Congress resumes, has had some positive things to say about donor disclosure while on the campaign trail, and they also make the obvious point that a change in the House and Senate seat math makes the possibility of doing anything next year that much more difficult.” [...]
Comment posted November 8, 2010 @ 1:15 am
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Rove Groups, U.S. Chamber Build Winning Record in Elections
November 04, 2010,
‘Shadow Parties’ Share Leaders, Republican Roots in Campaigns
By Jonathan D. Salant and Traci McMillan
(For news on November’s midterm elections:
Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) — Republican-leaning political organizations, including Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, spent $167 million on the U.S. midterm elections and came out on the winning side of almost twice as many races as they lost.
Rove’s American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS backed the victor in 23 of the 36 House and Senate races where a winner was declared. American Action Network, which shared space with the Crossroads groups, won 14 races and lost 10. The nation’s biggest business lobby, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, supported the winning candidate in 38 of 59 contests in a year dominated by voter concerns about the economy and joblessness. The groups also spent money in races that have yet to be decided.
“The record amount of secret money spent by right-wing outside groups turned this political storm into a Category 3 political hurricane,” said Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The election was the first since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed decades of precedent and said corporations could spend unlimited sums on federal races. Companies and wealthy individuals funneled millions into outside groups, many of which didn’t disclose their donors.
Republican-leaning groups spent $167 million between Sept. 1 and Oct. 31 in support of their party’s nominees, compared with $68 million by Democratic-leaning organizations, Federal Election Commission reports show.
‘Caught Up’
“We finally caught up with the Democrats,” said former Representative James Walsh, a New York Republican who works for the law and lobbying firm K&L Gates LLP. “They’ve been doing this for years.”
Republicans won at least 60 Democratic House seats in the Nov. 2 midterms, giving them control of the chamber in January and prompting President Barack Obama to say yesterday that voters had given him a “shellacking.” Republicans narrowed the Democrats’ majority in the Senate, picking up at least six seats.
In the 10 races that the Republican groups spent the most money on, the party entered the winner’s circle six times, with the U.S. Senate race in Washington still too close to call. Among the winners, all Republicans: Senate candidates Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania and Mark Kirk in Illinois, and former Nevada state Senator Joe Heck in a Las Vegas-area congressional district.
Public Citizen, a Washington-based advocacy group that supports stronger campaign finance laws, found that 58 of 74 winners benefited from more outside spending than their opponents.
Defining the Message
“When you had a mid-cycle race where the message was absolutely key, the outside groups played a huge role in defining that message,” said Meredith McGehee, policy director at the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington group that favors limits on campaign giving.
The outside groups spent $18 million in September and October on the Colorado Senate race between incumbent Democrat Michael Bennet and Republican challenger Ken Buck. That’s more than the $14 million both candidates spent through Oct. 13. Bennet, who claimed victory yesterday, spent almost $8 million more than Buck; Republican groups spent $4 million more than Democratic organizations.
American Crossroads discloses its donors and Crossroads GPS doesn’t. The two groups, advised by Rove, who was President George W. Bush’s chief political strategist, spent $38 million, more than any other organization — and all of it went to help elect Republican candidates. Crossroads officials regularly met with representatives of allied groups, such as American Action Network, to plan strategy.
Team Effort
“This was a great team effort between the conservative independent groups, the party committees and candidates to overcome the dramatic advantages Democrats held with entrenched power,” said Jonathan Collegio, a Crossroads spokesman.
The Chamber of Commerce spent almost $30 million, including $2 million in support of Democratic incumbents. The chamber, which doesn’t disclose its donors, fought efforts in Congress to require outside groups funding political ads to identify the sources of their money; Senate Republicans blocked the legislation in September.
Chamber President Tom Donohue attributed the election results to voters “who clearly stated that a strong and vibrant private sector is critical to reviving our economy, creating jobs and putting us on a path to long-term growth.”
Secrecy Criticized
Elisabeth MacNamara, president of the League of Women Voters, based in Washington, criticized the secrecy behind the donations.
“Voters will be hard-pressed to know if their elected officials are in Washington to serve the public interest or the special interests,” she said.
Craig Holman, who handles campaign finance issues for Public Citizen, said that the 2010 spending was just a taste of what to expect in the presidential election two years from now.
“The 2010 election provided a preview of the outside spending expected during the 2012 presidential race,” Holman said. “Sadly, 2010 was just a practice run for these guys.”
–With assistance from Kristin Jensen in Washington. Editors: Robin Meszoly, Leslie Hoffecker.
To contact the reporters on this story: Jonathan D. Salant in Washington at jsalant-AT-bloomberg.net; Traci McMillan in Washington at tmcmillan1-AT-bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34-AT-bloomberg.net.
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