Despite the Senate’s failure to pass the DISCLOSE Act last July (Congressional Digest, September 2010), the bill’s supporters aren’t giving up on the campaign finance measure. In fact, the bill was the subject of President Obama’s weekly radio address to the Nation on August 21, in which he vowed to “continue to fight for reform and transparency.”
In his remarks, the President referred to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling that sparked the current debate as “a decision that now allows big corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections.”
The President continued …
“They can buy millions of dollars worth of TV ads – and worst of all, they don’t even have to reveal who is actually paying for them. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation. You don’t know if it’s BP. You don’t know if it’s a big insurance company or a Wall Street Bank. A group can hide behind a phony name like ‘Citizens for a Better Future,’ even if a more accurate name would be “Corporations for Weaker Oversight.”
Invoking Teddy Roosevelt
President Obama also challenged all elected officials “to defend this practice or join us in stopping it,” and quoted a speech by one of his predecessors, Teddy Roosevelt, who said, “Every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office.”
That speech, titled “The New Nationalism,” was delivered 100 years ago on August 31, 1910, right after President Roosevelt was defeated for re-election by William Howard Taft. In his remarks, which became the basis for his ultimately unsuccessful effort to retake the presidency, Roosevelt called for greater corporate responsibility and an expanded Federal regulatory role.
The Minority Response
Reacting to the President’s address, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY-R) said: “Americans want us to focus on jobs, but by focusing on an election bill, Democrats are sending a clear message to the American people that their jobs aren’t as important as the jobs of embattled Democrat politicians.”
