For the second time this summer, President Obama used his weekly radio and video address to push for passage of legislation to require public disclosure of who funds political advertising. On Saturday, September 18, he said that Congress has a responsibility to act, even if it’s too late to have an impact this election season.
The DISCLOSE Act (Congressional Digest, September 2010) has been stalled in the Senate since July, when supporters failed to muster enough votes to prevent a Republican filibuster. In his weekly address the President said that special interest influence on elections through advertising is “not just a theory.”
“We can see for ourselves how destructive to our democracy this can become,” the President said. We see it in the flood of deceptive attack ads sponsored by special interests using front groups with misleading names. We don’t know who’s behind these ads or who’s paying for them. Even foreign-controlled corporations seeking to influence our democracy are able to spend freely in order to swing an election toward a candidate they prefer.”
He warned about “damage that has already been done” during this election season as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court’s January 2010 campaign finance ruling (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission), and urged Americans, when they see an attack ad, to ask themselves “who is paying for this ad? Is it the health insurance lobby? The oil industry? The credit card companies?”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell again countered the President’s remarks, saying, “In the middle of the worst recession in memory, Americans want us to focus on jobs. But for the second time in four weeks, the President used his weekly address to promote a partisan campaign bill. … By focusing on that partisan effort to rig the fall elections rather than the stagnant economy, Democrats are proving once again that the jobs they care about most are their own. The President says this bill is about transparency. It’s about transparency, alright: It’s a transparent effort to rig the fall elections.”
