Majority Leader Reid's decision to have the Senate pass the House version of the STOCK Act is disappointing and snatches away a critical opportunity to strengthen ethics laws for public officials and bring some oversight to those who mine the halls of Congress for “political intelligence” investors.

Of course, the insider trading provisions in the STOCK Act are important reforms aimed at ensuring that Members and staff are not permitted to use inside information gained from the position of public trust to enrich themselves.  But the Senate-passed version of the STOCK Act was so much stronger than the watered down version pushed by the House leadership.

Dropped from the Senate bill were the provisions to ensure better transparency for the growing "political intelligence" industry that is making millions from arranging face-time with Members and key staff.  And even more egregiously, also stripped from the House-passed version of the STOCK Act were the anti-corruptions provisions that were aimed at Members of Congress.  Without these changes, public officials intent on enhancing their lifestyle by accepting gifts, money and services from interested parties will continue to have no fear of criminal prosecution.

Insider trading by Members of Congress is clearly insidious, but refusing to ensure that our elected officials are subject to criminal penalties for defrauding the public and enriching themselves demonstrates why Congress is held in record low esteem by the public it is supposed to serve.  Sadly once again, Congress has done little more than the bare minimum to address the public anger unleashed by a scathing “60 Minutes” piece on congressional insider trading.

Nine government watchdog organizations today asked Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich, as well as President Barack Obama, to reveal more details about fundraisers for their presidential campaigns who "bundle" contributions in amounts greatly exceeding what they're permitted to contribute on their own.

The request for more transparency comes during Sunshine Week, and in the midst of an election season during which the candidates, party committees and outside groups are expected to spend more than ever before.

Bundlers, who are often corporate leaders, lobbyists or Wall Street executives, can funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars, potentially even millions, to a campaign, despite the fact that individually they can give only $2,500 to a candidate for the primary season and the same for the general election. Despite the tremendous influence these individuals can have in a campaign -- and in an administration after the election -- the law requires only that campaigns disclose the names of bundlers who are registered lobbyists. While the Obama campaign has voluntarily disclosed the names of its bundlers and a general range of how much each has raised, it would be far more meaningful if all candidates identified precise, cumulative amounts for all their bundlers, the groups wrote in letters to each candidate.

The letters were signed by the Campaign Finance Institute, Campaign Legal Center, Center for Responsive Politics, Common Cause, Democracy 21, League of Women Voters of the United States, Public Citizen, Sunlight Foundation and U.S. PIRG.

The nine groups ask the candidates to divulge not only the names of their bundlers -- which Obama and Sen. John McCain, the Democratic and Republican nominees, did in 2008, and which Obama is doing again in the 2012 campaign -- but to disclose the exact amount that each bundler raises for their official campaign committees as well as joint fundraising committees that benefit the campaigns. The groups also urge the candidates to release bundlers’ locations by city and state, and their occupations and employers -- disclosure no more burdensome than what the Federal Election Commission requires for any donor contributing more than $200.

"We recognize that our organizations are asking you to share more information than the law requires of presidential candidates," the letters say. "But it's not more than the American public deserves to know."

You can read the letters to the candidates here:

Letter to Gingrich

Letter to Obama

Letter to Paul

Letter to Romney

Letter to Santorum

In a letter sent to the IRS today, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 called on the agency to ignore any “pushback” against IRS investigations that are necessary to determine whether groups are attempting to improperly claim tax exempt status as 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organizations.

According to the letter, an article in The New York Times on March 6, 2012 stated:

In recent weeks, the I.R.S has sent dozens of detailed questionnaires to Tea Party organizations applying for nonprofit tax status, demanding to know their political leanings and activities. The agency plans this year to press existing nonprofits like American Crossroads, on the Republican side, and Priorities USA, on the Democratic side, to justify their tax-protected status as “social welfare” organizations, a status that many tax professionals believe is being badly abused.

The letter said that the Times article further stated that resistance to any such investigations is likely to be “fierce,” and quoted one lawyer as saying, the IRS is engaged in “‘McCarthyism’ tactics” and its investigation is “a coordinated effort by the I.R.S. . . . to stifle free speech activities.”

The letter sent by the watchdog groups to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman and Lois Lerner, Director of the IRS Exempt Organizations Division stated:

We strongly urge the IRS not to succumb to such arguments, or to any public or political pressure to back away from carrying out the agency’s statutory responsibilities to enforce the tax laws.

The IRS must enforce the law fairly and without partisan bias.  The agency also must not shrink from enforcing the law against violations of the tax code by political groups.  The stakes here – namely the integrity of our elections and of our tax laws – are much too high for the IRS to walk away from its responsibility to ensure that the tax laws are not being abused for political purposes.

According to J. Gerald Hebert, Executive Director of the Campaign Legal Center:

It is imperative that the IRS enforce the laws on the books and not shrink from political pressure or baseless criticisms leveled at the agency for doing nothing more than verifying that groups applying for special tax status are in fact eligible. Special interest groups and political players have been forming 501(c)(4) organizations so they can impact federal elections and conceal their donors from the public. Many of these organizations are not eligible for the special tax status. If the IRS does not act now to curb these abuses, then the latest vehicle for unlimited and undisclosed political spending will become even more widespread.

According to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer:

We have submitted compelling evidence to the IRS that political groups, including Crossroads GPS, Priorities USA, American Action Network and Americans Elect, are primarily involved in campaign-related activities and are improperly claiming 501(c)(4) tax exempt status in order to keep secret the donors financing their campaign-related expenditures. We have called on the IRS to investigate these groups and the IRS has an obligation to ensure that groups claiming to be 501(c)(4) “social welfare” organizations are actually eligible for this tax exempt status. It is essential that the IRS not back down in the face of political pressure and that the agency properly enforce the tax laws. The integrity of our tax laws and our elections is at stake here.

To read today’s letter to the IRS, click here.

On September 28, 2011, the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 called on the IRS to conduct an investigation into whether four groups claiming tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code are ineligible for exemption under that provision because they are substantially engaged in campaign activities, not social welfare activities.  The groups discussed in our letter are Crossroads GPS, Priorities USA, American Action Network and Americans Elect.

To read the September 28 letter click here.

On December 14, 2011, the Legal Center and Democracy 21 supplemented their earlier request by providing additional information about the campaign activities conducted by three of the organizations.

To read the December 14 letter click here.

The letters emphasize that the law provides that section 501(c)(4) organizations are required to primarily engage in the promotion of social welfare in order to obtain tax-exempt status under section 501(c)(4).  Court decisions have established that in order to meet this requirement, section 501(c)(4) organizations cannot engage in more than an insubstantial amount of any non-social welfare activity, including direct or indirect participation or intervention in elections

Today, the Campaign Legal Center and other reform groups urged Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to insist on a STOCK Act conference to restore key anti-corruption provisions to the legislation that were stripped out of the House version.

“Claims by House Leaders that they had passed a stronger bill than the Senate fly in the face of reality,” said Meredith McGehee, Campaign Legal Center Policy Director.  “There are no two ways around the fact that they gutted the bill of multiple provisions that would have held Congress and other government officials accountable by restoring vital anti-corruption statutes.  A failure to include the anti-corruption provisions will only hammer home the public perception that Congress believes itself above the law and drive public approval ratings still lower.”

The anti-corruption provisions are the result of longstanding efforts in both houses of Congress to restore the ability of prosecutors to hold government officials accountable after a series of controversial court rulings have defanged anti-corruption statutes.  Both the House and the Senate Judiciary Committees have passed freestanding versions of this legislation during this Congress.  The anti-corruption provisions focus on honest services and illegal gratuities statutes and are the result of the partnership of Senators Leahy (D-VT) and Cornyn (R-TX) and Representatives Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Quigley (D-IL) who have sponsored the legislation.

The organizations signing the letter with the Legal Center include, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Democracy 21, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG.

The full text of the letter follows below.

March 6, 2012
 
The Honorable Harry Reid
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
 
Dear Majority Leader Reid:

We strongly urge the Senate to restore critical anti-corruption provisions to the STOCK Act that  were stripped from the legislation before passed by the House of Representatives. While the bill as whole contains many laudable provisions, among the most significant was the Leahy-Cornyn amendment, which strengthened prosecutors’ ability to target public corruption.  These provisions, which also were approved by a unanimous House Judiciary Committee, amended the honest services fraud, illegal gratuities and bribery statutes.

The Supreme Court decision in Skilling v. United States, 130 S. Ct. 2896 (2010), eliminated an entire category of deceptive, fraudulent and corrupt conduct from the scope of what was known as the honest services fraud statute (18 U.S.C. § 1346).  For decades, §1346 was available to prosecute public officials who engage in malfeasance, such as undisclosed self-dealing.  Unfortunately, theSkilling decision effectively struck down as unconstitutionally vague the honest services language.  Consequently, there remains a gaping hole in the ability of federal prosecutors to address a vast swath of public corruption.

The language in the Senate-passed STOCK Act repairs the problem, It also heeds the Supreme Court’s directive for more clarity and specificity by borrowing existing language from 18 U.S.C. § 208, a well-established federal conflict-of-interest statute that already applies to the executive branch and has been upheld as constitutionally sound.[1] Notably, under the proposed statute, no public official could be prosecuted unless he or she knowingly conceals, covers up, or fails to disclose material information – which the official already is already required by law or regulation to disclose – with the specific intent to defraud.  Thus as crafted, it removes the risk that a public official can be convicted for unwitting conflicts of interest or mistakes.

The Leahy-Cornyn amendment also revises the illegal gratuities statute -- eviscerated by the Supreme Court in United States v. Sun-Diamond Growers, 526 U.S. 398 (1999) -- to make clear public officials may not accept gifts given because of their governmental positions.  In addition, responding to United States v. Valdes, 475 F.3d 1319 (D.C. Cir. 2007), the provision makes clear government officials who accept private compensation for using the powers their jobs afford them may be subject to criminal prosecution.

Given the wide bipartisan support of these measures in both the House and Senate, it is difficult to understand why House Majority Leader Eric Cantor chose to delete them before bringing them before bringing the STOCK Act to the floor.

In light of the recent congressional scandals, it is no wonder Americans have lost faith in their elected leaders. While the STOCK Act is not a panacea, enacting the strong anti-corruption sections included in the Senate bill would be a step in the right direction.  We strongly urge you to use your leadership to restore these provisions before final passage.

Sincerely,

Campaign Legal Center
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Common Cause
Democracy 21
Public Citizen
U.S. PIRG

[1] United States v. Richard J. Nevers, 7 F.3d 59 (5th Cir. 1993).

More than 25,000 Americans have now joined the Legal Center and other reform groups in calling on President Barack Obama to nominate new Commissioners to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) through the White House petition process.  In a letter sent to the White House Today, the Campaign Legal Center and 11 other groups called on the President act on the petition and meet his own 2008 campaign commitment to appoint FEC Commissioners committed to enforcing U.S. election laws.

The letter emphasizes that five of the six Commissioners are continuing to serve even though their terms have expired.  The FEC is widely recognized as the most dysfunctional agency in the federal government, largely because three of the current Commissioners refuse to enforce the campaign finance laws because of their ideological opposition to the laws.  The FEC has long been an example of a “captive agency” – more responsive to those whom it is supposed to oversee – but the last few years have gotten even worse.

The letter notes that more than 25,000 individuals have now signed the “We the People” petition filed with WhiteHouse.gov and, according to the rules of the website, the President is supposed to respond to the petition.   While running for office, President Obama expressed his support for a stronger, more functional FEC and promised to put forward proposed Commissioners who would uphold the law.  To date, he has not done so.

The full text of the letter follows below.

February 28, 2012

The President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

We write to follow up on our WhiteHouse.gov “We the People” petition, signed by over 25,000 individuals from around the country, calling on you to nominate new commissioners to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) prior to the 2012 elections who will faithfully enforce existing campaign finance laws and close existing loopholes.

The FEC is widely recognized as a dysfunctional agency that consistently refuses to enforce federal campaign finance laws enacted to prevent the corruption of federal officeholders and government decisions.  Five of the six current commissioners are serving despite expired terms, and three openly flaunt their routine refusal to enforce existing campaign finance laws, even where the FEC’s professional staff has called for an investigation.  This is an unacceptable situation.

During the 2008 presidential campaign you recognized the problems at the FEC and unequivocally called for new commissioners. In response to questions raised in September 2007, by the Midwest Democracy Alliance, you responded:

I believe that the FEC needs to be strengthened and that individuals named to
the Commission should have a demonstrated record of fair administration of the law and an ability to overcome partisan biases. My initial goal as president will be to determine whether we can make the FEC more effective through appointments. What the FEC needs most is strong, impartial leadership that will promote integrity in our election system.

You also promised to appoint commissioners committed to enforcing our nation’s election laws.  With the exception of one unsuccessful attempt in 2009, however, you have failed to nominate anyone to replace any of the five lame duck commissioners.

You have the opportunity and responsibility to address the dysfunction at the FEC; the agency will not change until you exercise your executive branch responsibility to nominate five new commissioners.  It is essential for these nominations to be based on merit, skills, qualifications, experience, background and professional reputation.  It is also essential for any nominee to have a basic commitment to enforcing the campaign finance laws as written by Congress and interpreted by the courts.  Individuals ideologically opposed to campaign finance laws must no longer be given the responsibility to enforce these laws.

Nominating commissioners based on merit and qualifications may well create a conflict with congressional leaders accustomed to choosing the commissioners themselves.  Given the completely dysfunctional state of the FEC and the enormous damage that has been done to our campaign finance laws, however, we believe this is a fight worth having.

Once appropriate nominations are made, the responsibility will pass to the Senate to address the FEC scandal.  Senators will face a clear choice: vote to confirm new FEC commissioners selected on the basis of merit and qualifications, or vote to perpetuate a system undermining enforcement of the nation’s campaign finance law at a time when there is growing public anger over the money pouring into federal elections.

The effort to remake the FEC and restore the integrity of our campaign finance laws cannot begin until you nominate five new commissioners.  We look forward to the White House official statement in response to our successful “We the People” petition. 

Thank you for your consideration.

Americans for Campaign Reform
Campaign Legal Center
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
Common Cause
CREDO Action Network
Democracy 21
League of Women Voters of the U.S.
MapLight
Public Campaign
Public Citizen
United Republic
U.S. PIRG

Today, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over apparent illegal in-kind contributions made by Restore Our Future, Inc. to presidential candidate Mitt Romney.  According to multiple press reports, the Romney-linked Super PAC is paying to air television advertisements originally produced and aired by Romney’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign.  Such an action would constitute a violation of the law.

Late last week, Restore our Future reportedly made an extensive ad buy to air a Romney campaign television ad.  Under FEC regulations, financing the republication of any campaign materials prepared by a candidate, or an agent of the candidate, “shall be considered a contribution for the purposes of contribution limitations” of the person or group making the expenditure.  Super PACs like Restore Our Future, however, are prohibited from contributing to candidates.

“Restore Our Future’s expenditure to republish a Romney campaign ad is considered a contribution from the Super PAC to the Romney campaign under FEC regulations, but Super PACs are prohibited from contributing to candidates,” explained Campaign Legal Center counsel Paul S. Ryan.  “The airing of these ads constitutes a clear violation of federal law by the shadow campaign committee Restore Our Future.”

To read the full complaint, click here.

Super PACs supporting presidential candidates continue to take in six- and seven-figure contributions from individuals who also have given the legal maximum to the candidate's campaign committee.

During 2011, the super PAC supporting GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney pulled in contributions from 172 individuals who also gave the legal maximum to Romney's campaign -- 84 percent of Restore Our Future's 205 donors.

The double-givers included five individuals who gave $1 million to the super PAC: hedge fund titans Paul Singer, John Paulson and Julian Robertson, homebuilder Bob Perry and former Bain executive Edward Conard, according to a new analysis by the Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21 and the Center for Responsive Politics.

On the other side of the aisle, the figures were less dramatic: 15 of the 55 individuals who donated to Priorities USA, the pro-Barack Obama super PAC formed by two of his former aides, maxed out to Obama’s campaign committee. Those 15 include Jeffrey Katzenberg, co-founder of DreamWorks Studios, who gave $2 million to Priorities USA.  The number of people giving to both committees could increase now that Obama has given his blessing to the super PAC's efforts, reversing his earlier stance.

Individuals are permitted to give $2,500 to a candidate for the primary season, and another $2,500 for the general election. For the purpose of this report, a donor is considered to have given the legal maximum if he or she has donated at least $2,500 to a presidential hopeful.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, followed by an appellate court decision in the case SpeechNow v. FEC, led to the formation of super PACs, which are allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money from practically any source – individual, corporate or union. They can spend the money on ads and other activities that support or oppose candidates, as long as they don’t coordinate their expenditures with a candidate’s campaign or give the money directly to someone running for office.

“Recent announcements by the Obama and Romney campaigns that high-level campaign staff will be appearing at super PAC fundraising events make clear that these super PACs are simply shadow candidate committees set up to evade the $2,500 candidate contribution limit,” said Paul S. Ryan, FEC Program Director at the Campaign Legal Center. “Million-dollar contributions to the super PACs pose just as big a threat of corruption as would million-dollar contributions directly to candidates.”

"For most of these donors, $2,500 seems to be an almost insignificant amount compared to what they're contributing to the super PACs associated with the candidates," said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. "Giving to the candidate is almost a perfunctory act on the way to giving a really substantial amount to a super PAC" that then will spend the money to help the candidate.

“Presidential candidate-specific super PACs are simply vehicles for circumventing the candidate contribution limits which were enacted to prevent the corruption of federal officeholders and government decisions,” according to Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer. “The findings of this study, showing that 84 percent of itemized donors to the pro-Mitt Romney super PAC also gave the maximum legal contribution to the Romney presidential campaign, bear that out," Wertheimer said.

Americans for Rick Perry received donations from 11 individuals who had also given the legal maximum to the Texas governor, out of 22 contributors to the super PAC. However, 32 of the 42 contributors to the larger super PAC that was in Perry's corner, Make Us Great Again, came from the universe of donors who had maxed out to Perry in 2011. Perry dropped out of the race in January.

And five of the 18 individual donors to Winning Our Future, the largest super PAC that is backing Newt Gingrich, had topped out their giving to Gingrich for the primary season, including two who gave the maximum to the former House speaker for the general election as well as the primaries. These numbers don't include casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife, who reportedly gave $10 million to the pro-Gingrich super PAC in January so were not captured in the year-end report. Adelson and his wife maxed out to Gingrich's primary campaign last August.

Nine of Red, White & Blue PAC's 14 individual donors last year maxed out to the campaign committee of the group's favored candidate, Rick Santorum. Endorse Liberty, the super PAC supporting Ron Paul, received just one contribution from someone who had hit the limit on donations to the Paul campaign. Of course, the group had only four individual donors. For another super PAC backing the Texas congressman, Santa Rita Super PAC, the figure was four out of seven.

To read the full analysis, click here.

Today, the Campaign Legal Center, and a coalition of reform groups, called on House Members to cosponsor the DISCLOSE 2012 Act (H.R. 4010), a measure that seeks to ensure that voters know where the funding originates for hundreds of millions of dollars in secret political spending. The legislation, introduced by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), is a stripped-down version of DISCLOSE Act focused solely on disclosure provisions.

“This bill is a well-crafted and substantive response to the changed landscape resulting from Citizens United and other court decisions, and it merits bipartisan support,” said Meredith McGehee, Campaign Legal Center Policy Director.  “The bill addresses the concerns raised by critics of the DISCLOSE Act in 2010 and deals purely with disclosure of political spending which Americans overwhelmingly support and which the Supreme Court has repeated endorsed. While addressing criticisms does not always mean legislation gets passed in Washington, we remain hopeful that this new bill rises above the partisan bickering that has engulfed the 112^th Congress.  Citizens deserve to know who is spending millions of dollars to buy influence in Washington.”

The DISCLOSE Act of 2010 introduced in the last Congress contained a number of non-disclosure items which proved controversial enough that the legislation which passed in the House fell one vote shy of the 60 required to break a filibuster in the Senate.

The groups signing onto the letter with the Campaign Legal Center include: Americans for Campaign Finance Reform, the Brennan Center for Justice, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Common Cause, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters, People For the American Way, Public Campaign, Public Citizen and the Sunlight Foundation.

The full text of the letter follows below.

February 15, 2012

Dear Representative,

Our organizations strongly support the DISCLOSE 2012 Act introduced last week by Representative Chris Van Hollen. 

This legislation provides essential new disclosure requirements to cover the hundreds of millions of dollars in secret contributions being injected into federal elections by non-profit groups and other entities. The legislation also ensures that there will be timely disclosure by Super PACs.

We strongly urge you to co-sponsor and support this legislation.

The organizations include:

It is a cardinal rule of campaign finance laws that citizens are entitled to know the identity of, and amounts given by, the donors who are funding campaign expenditures to influence their votes.

This fundamental right to know has been long recognized in disclosure laws passed by Congress and in decisions by the Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of these laws.

Polls show the public overwhelming supports disclosure for candidate campaigns and outside spending groups. According to a New York Times article on a New York Times/CBS News poll released on October 28, 2010, Americans overwhelmingly, "favor full disclosure of spending by both campaigns and outside groups."

The 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United combined with ineffective FEC disclosure regulations opened gaping loopholes in the campaign finance disclosure laws.

The Van Hollen bill closes these loopholes. It also provides effective disclosure for the recently created Super PACs which are playing a dangerous new role in our elections as a result of the Citizens United decision and a subsequent decision by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in the SpeechNow case.

Unlike the DISCLOSE Act of 2010, the new DISCLOSE 2012 Act focuses solely on disclosure requirements. It does not contain any of the nondisclosure provisions that were in the 2010 legislation, such as the restrictions on expenditures by government contractors. And unlike the 2010 legislation, the bill does not contain any special exceptions for any group.

With the new Van Hollen bill, the choice for members of Congress is clear and straight forward: do you support disclosure to provide citizens with basic information they have a right to know or do you support secret money being spent to influence our elections? 

The new legislation would ensure that citizens know on a timely basis the identities of the large donors who are funding campaign expenditures by tax-exempt organizations. The legislation would also fix the problem of untimely disclosure of the donors to Super PACs supporting presidential candidates. This problem arose in the 2012 Republican presidential nominating process when the disclosure of most of the Super PAC donors did not occur until after the critical Iowa caucus and New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida primaries were over.

The new legislation also requires Super PACs and other “independent” spending entities that run broadcast ads to identify, and disclose the amounts being given by, their top five donors in each TV ad, either by listing the information in the ad or by running a crawl with the information. The bill also requires the top official of the group to appear in each TV ad and take responsibility for it.

The Citizens United decision striking down the ban on corporate expenditures in federal campaigns has done enormous damage to our political system. But even in this decision, the Supreme Court by an 8 to 1 vote made clear that laws requiring outside groups to disclose their campaign expenditures and the donors financing them are constitutional and necessary.

The Court stated:

The First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way.  This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.

Citing the landmark Supreme Court decision in Buckley v. Valeo, the Court stated that disclosure is justified based on “a governmental interest in ‘provid[ing] the electorate with information’  about the sources of election-related spending.”  The Court noted the problem of independent spending groups running campaign-related ads “while hiding behind dubious and misleading names.”

There is no legitimate policy basis or constitutional basis for a member of the House to oppose the DISCLOSE 2012 Act. Opposition to this legislation in the face of overwhelming public support for campaign finance disclosure can mean only that an opponent believes large donors seeking to influence federal elections should be kept hidden from the American people.

We strongly urge you to co-sponsor the Van Hollen bill and to take all steps necessary to help ensure that it is considered on the House floor and passed in 2012.

Americans for Campaign Reform          Democracy 21
Brennan Center for Justice                    League of Women Voters,
Campaign Legal Center                         People For the American Way
Citizens for Responsibility                      Public Campaign        
and Ethics in Washington                      Public Citizen             
Common Cause                                     Sunlight Foundation