News Release

Statement of WISPIRG’s Johanna Lathrop on today’s cloture vote on the DISCLOSE Act (S. 3628) legislation that responds to the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizen’s United vs. FEC earlier this year,  which allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of campaign money to support or oppose candidates.

“The misguided Supreme Court decision left voters facing the prospect of hundreds of millions of dollars being spent to influence the 2010 congressional races.  Adding insult to injury, unless the Senate acts, voters will enter the election season effectively wearing blindfolds as they will be denied any meaningful disclosure of the funders behind the spending.

The principle goal of the DISCLOSE Act is to take off the blinders, and to ensure that voters know who is financing the campaign ads that will flood these elections.

The Court's decision has left no choice but to enact new disclosure laws. This bill is necessary to protect the integrity of our elections.
The House has already acted.  The Senate should follow their lead and act quickly to ensure disclosure of campaign spending in time for this fall’s election season.

We urge all of our Senators to support cloture on the DISCLOSE Act.”