Campaign Spending
Already in the new, 113th Congress, in the wake of record spending during the 2012 elections, Members are introducing legislation to address the problem of money in politics. On January 3, Representative Chris Van Hollen (MD-D) reintroduced the DISCLOSE Act, to require that all corporations, unions, and super PACS (political action committees) report campaign expenditures of $10,000 or more and that top contributors to independent campaign ads be disclosed to the public. Representative Van Hollen originally introduced the bill in response to the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling that such entities should be allowed unlimited expenditures….