A resolution designating September 2012 as "National Spinal Cord Injury Awareness Month".

Mr. President, I am proud to join so many of my colleagues in speaking out tonight at this late hour to try to call attention to a very serious issue before the body; that is, whether political contributions of over $10,000 should be disclosed.

As Senator Begich eloquently stated, I think people are concerned and very troubled by the fact that we are even having this debate; it so defies common sense. I think people at home are saying to themselves: Why is this even an issue? Why are we debating this? Why didn't one Republican step up to join a group of Democrats to say: Obviously, if you are contributing to the political process $10,000 or more, you should make yourself known.

I think Senator Begich, the Senator from Alaska, listed many important points. I wish to underscore the point he made about transparency.

Our government is far from perfect. It is the oldest democracy, but it is the best we know of. What are the reasons our democracy is the best and it works most of the time pretty well? It is because it is, most of the time, transparent. The press can come here anytime and write about what we speak. Every word is written in a public record. All the records, vital records of the United States, are public. We publicize our real estate transactions in almost every jurisdiction I know of. There is so much public information available. It is one of the reasons our democracy works pretty well.

So this is a real step backward. And it is a dangerous step backward to have a democracy that prides itself on transparency and here we have half of this Chamber running out the door after they basically voted to keep contributions secret. What is it they are ashamed of? I mean, what is it they are trying to hide? If they are proud of who they are supporting, if they believe in the causes to which they are investing, why not let people know? As the Presiding Officer said, he is a member of the NRA. All of us are members of different organizations. I most certainly do not mind the organizations--I am chair of the Adoption Caucus. I love to see publicity about the members and what we do, and I am proud of what our organization does. It is nonpartisan, of course. But I believe in and we advocate for those principles.

I am alarmed at the stubbornness and the position our friends on the other side of the aisle have taken to not want to let their constituents know who is contributing and for what reason. So I believe that transparency clearly is in jeopardy tonight over this DISCLOSE Act, and I hope we can have

another vote and persuade more people to join us, to open up, let the sunshine in, let people see what is actually going on.

The other point I wish to make is that the middle class in this country is under assault. There was a very startling article in the New York Times last week that talked about in the last 2 years the income, the net worth of the average American has fallen by 40 percent because of secret deals on Wall Street, because of secret collusion of some of the largest financial institutions in the world, because of a lack of transparency in our financial system, and a number of other reasons; but that was primary--and the lack of enforcement, of having good regulations and the enforcement of good regulations. You would think people would be moving forward to open the process to make it more transparent. This is going in the opposite direction.

The middle class is under assault. Congressional rating is at an all- time low. So what do we do? We say it is OK to give tons of money to elections, and to cover it up, and to be secret about it, and to not tell anyone who is giving and for what purpose.

Our poll numbers for Congress are down. I think they were down to 3 percent or 13 percent or something. It is going to go negative. And I would not blame people. We will be a negative number in the polls. Because people are losing confidence in the system. This is an example of why they should lose confidence in the system.

I am disappointed it is just those of us on our side of the aisle who seem to be concerned about this. And the other Members, I am not sure what their points are in the debate because not one single person has come to the floor, at least in the last several hours. I know the minority leader made some weak attempts at explaining their position earlier in the night. If they felt so strongly about this being a pillar of our democracy, they most certainly should be on the floor talking about why, but they are not. They ran out of the Chamber, and they are not here.

And so with the middle class under assault, with people understanding and thinking and seeing special interests having their day in Washington, letting some sunshine in most certainly would not hurt.

The DISCLOSE Act is a necessary piece of legislation to respond to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United.

This legislation, as we said, does not limit the amount of money outside interest groups can spend on campaign expenditures. It simply requires disclosure. We are doing a better job of disclosing our income, our stock transactions. I think our records should be public, our tax returns. I have submitted many of my own in elections. I hope Mitt Romney steps forward to submit more than 1 year of his tax returns. I think it helps to build confidence when those of us who hold public office have full and complete disclosure.

But the money that is being spent in these campaigns is exorbitant. It is billions and billions of dollars. I think this campaign cycle is setting records--and to have this all done in secret. So you are being attacked on television or positions are being taken, and no one watching the ads has any idea who is behind them because there is no requirement for disclosure.

I want to thank Senator Whitehouse for his leadership. Senator Merkley has also been very active, other Senators. Senator Schumer has taken a leadership role as well. I appreciate the committee that has come together, and I am happy to be of assistance to them in this effort.

But again, this does not limit the amount of money anyone can give to a campaign. It just says, if you give over $10,000, you should disclose it. It does not limit free speech. It does not limit the amount of money that can be spent by an outside organization. It simply says that during this election cycle, you would have to report expenditures of over $10,000.

Of the more than $140 million that has already been spent during this election cycle, the first Presidential election cycle since Citizens United--more than $140 million has already been spent. Why would these groups be spending this much money if they were not going to ask for something? What is their motive? What are they expecting? These are wealthy individuals. These are not organizations of thousands and thousands and thousands of people. Many of these are individuals who are contributing and want to hide behind the recent ruling of the Supreme Court.

So I am proud to lend my voice to the DISCLOSE Act. I am proud to be a cosponsor and want to join my colleagues in asking our colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Do we not need more transparency in government? Do you not think the middle class is under enough assault? Do you not think this would build some confidence that our government would be more transparent, people could see what was actually happening and understand why some of those contributions are being made?

So we have some time. We have opportunities to cast another vote. I hope our colleagues will, and the public will, demand that we have additional votes until we get the required votes necessary to pass such a commonsense solution to a real problem.

I yield the floor.

Yes.

Absolutely. The Senator is correct. As I said, the recent polling I have seen has the opinion of Congress and the way Washington government is operating at an all-time low. People do not believe they are getting the whole story, the full picture. This is going to contribute in a very negative way to that opinion, which is detrimental to the foundation, the essence of this democracy. I think our Founding Fathers would be horrified to actually think a small group of individuals can, through campaigns, buy the outcome of the election or buy the attention of the candidate or the cause, and not even have to disclose their identity or why they might be interested.

Everyone is entitled to free speech. I do not think people are entitled to secret speech or secret attacks. If you are going to get into a fight, you would like to know with whom are you fighting. Identify yourself. This system obscures the truth, which I think people have a right to know. I think it does cut at the heart of some of the strongest principles of our democracy.

The Senator is perfect to point that out and is an excellent student of history. He has demonstrated his understanding. Before Senators were directly elected, they were elected by the legislators of their States, and oftentimes literally sent to Washington by special interests--for instance, the railroads.

Instead of the laws being written to help people, average citizens or homesteaders or people trying to get a hand up and a helping hand, some of these Senators came, basically bought, sold, delivered, and packaged to Washington, DC, to argue on behalf of one special interest.

It is tough to keep things in balance here right now without us going back to these times. That is what is so frightening. I see Senator Whitehouse on the floor. He has been studying this and has many documents he is referring to, but that is what is alarming. I do not think people realize--I mean this is really moving backwards in time.

When Washington operates in secrecy, there is no way to get the information. Why would we want to do this at a time when the middle class is under assault? They have lost 40 percent of their net worth. At a time when our popularity and trust with the people is at an all- time low, this does not make any sense to me. I do not understand any benefit that would come from it.

Absolutely. That is why I said the Senator is correct; why I am astonished that people on the other side of the aisle who talk about good government, government for the people--you know, that is what the tea party movement is supposed to be about. It is supposed to be about taking government back. This is not taking government back to the people; this is giving it away to people who have the most power and the most money, and you do not even know who you gave it to because you did not have disclosure.

I think this is going in the opposite direction of what the American people want us to do right now. If the middle class is not angry enough, they really should be angry about this because the consequences of secret, undisclosed, unlimited amounts of money puts the average person at risk. It disenfranchises them.

We have worked for over 230-something years to go through a process of perfecting our democracy to where every man, every woman, every person 18 and older has a right to vote and participate.

Now what do we do? Just wake up after 230 years and say: That is not working. Let's just give the government back to the rich, the few, and they do not even have to say who they are. They do not have to disclose anything about themselves.

This is absolutely going in the wrong direction at the wrong time. I hope people listen to this debate and not say, well, there they go again, but I hope they really understand the consequences of this kind of secret money in the system. It is corrupting. It is not right.

I will respond to that, if I may. The Senator hit the nail on the head. Some people--I am one of them--believe there is literally an effort to discourage people generally from believing that government can work at all by being so negative either to an individual or to the concept of government that it discourages people from voting and participating, and the end result of that is that a small group can manipulate the system.

If people think the system is rigged, which it seems like it is getting more and more because of laws and rules such as this that we cannot seem to get straight, what happens is people get despondent and turned off, and then the special interests can run the show if people don't vote and contribute. So it is a part of a whole strategy to kind of take the government away from the people and hand it over to a group of special interests with unlimited money, secret attacks to basically fashion and write the laws that benefit the few as opposed to the masses. It is completely against the concept of our democracy.

Again, I know there are people who have a lot more money than others, and they should be free to make decisions about what they do with it. I don't have a problem with that, although I have supported campaign limits. But it is the disclosure--the lack of disclosure, I should say, that is frightening here and the secret nature of this--to go on television night after night and tell people how this person is either wrong or the system is broken and people stay home and less and less people vote and the few people who have the power, access, and privilege write the rules even more in their own favor.

This is taking our democracy, in a dangerous way, in the wrong direction.

May I expand on the Citizens United? The Senator from Rhode Island and Senator McCain wrote a brief to the Supreme Court suggesting the detrimental impact of the decision the five Justices have made. Did they, in that decision--how did they treat corporations? Do they treat corporations as people? Is that what they did, on equal footing with Citizens United, or was it more of just there should not be limits on contributions? Did they say that corporations are like people and should be allowed to contribute unlimited amounts?

They don't have hearts, and they don't have minds.

It is actually giving more power to the people who control the corporation. Not only do they control their own vote and personal opinion, which is fine, but it gives them extra power because they have access to wealth and influence in the business structure.

It also occurs to me that if the tiny State of Delaware would take this one step further, they might be able to expand their congressional delegation in Washington because I think they have quite a few corporations that are evidently alive and well and walking around in Delaware. Since they have many corporations that are there, they should press this issue a little further and they might only be stuck with two Senators, but who knows how many House Members they could get--maybe equal to California.

This issue or decision the Court made is mind-numbing, doesn't make sense, and it flies in the face of what is good for our democracy and in the face of decisions that courts have made. That aside, which is troubling enough, then you take the next step, as the Senator from Oregon knows, and say that not only are corporations people and have access to their own vote and if you happen to run a corporation, you get a vote for that corporation as well and all the people who run it, then you can do it all in secret. It is very troubling.

It makes no sense. We can stay here all night, and I am not sure we can get anybody to understand it. We have to reverse this law and get transparency back into our electoral process.

Mr. President, first, let me commend Senator Whitehouse, Senator Shaheen, and all those who have worked so hard with them to bring this cause to the public forum.

The genius of our Founding Fathers was to establish a system of government in which the governed determine who represents them. It is easy for us, more than two centuries removed from their achievement, to lose sight of just how remarkable that achievement was. They overturned untold centuries of human history during which those with wealth and power made the decisions and everyone else had little or no chance to influence how they were governed.

The remarkable system the Founders created has endured through war, crisis, depression, and doubt. But we should not mistake that endurance for automatic permanence. Democracy requires that we maintain the vital connection between the people and their elected representatives. It must be the voters and not the influential few who choose our Nation's leaders. If the people begin to doubt their central role in our government, it will be corrosive to democracy.

In recent months, there has been reason for just such doubt. A Supreme Court ruling has opened our system to a flood of unlimited and secret special interest money. Inexplicably, a one-Justice majority of the Court decided in the Citizens United case that such unlimited, anonymous donations ``do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.''

Many of us believed from the moment that decision was handed down that the Court's majority was badly mistaken. But events since that day have left little doubt. We have, in recent months, seen the dangerous consequences of the Court's ruling: a deluge of unregulated funds that has threatened to upend the election campaign for our Nation's highest office, a flood whose organizers vow will upend congressional campaigns across the Nation this summer and fall.

Through super PACs and through supposedly regulated but, in fact, actually unregulated nonprofit organizations, the conduits through which this flood of secret money flows, millionaires and billionaires already have made massive donations to fund a barrage of attack ads, drenching and smothering the voices of those who are to make the decisions in our democracy--the people.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, an independent watchdog group, as of mid-July, these super PACs have raised more than $244 million to influence elections. Individuals and corporations can make unlimited donations to these super PACs whose donations are supposed to be disclosed. But the Court's decision opened the door not just to individuals and corporations seeking to influence elections with unlimited contributions, this ruling, combined with the IRS's failure to strictly enforce our laws on the operation of nonprofit groups organized as social welfare organizations under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, allows them to seek this influence with spending that is not only unlimited but is also secret because there is no requirement that donations to those 501(c)(4) organizations be disclosed to the public.

Donors can seek to influence an election with huge sums of money and can do so now without even having to disclose their involvement. They do so covered by the figleaf that the nonprofit groups to which they donate are dedicated to ``social welfare,'' rather than partisan politics. That fiction dissolves the moment one looks at these social welfare attack ads that the IRS is, so far, blind to.

According to an analysis of TV ad spending data by the Campaign Media Analysis Group, two-thirds of all ad spending by outside groups so far during this election cycle has come from nonprofits subject to no Federal public disclosure rules. Much more is on the way as election day approaches this fall.

The organizations now spending millions of dollars to influence elections were set up for that explicit purpose, to campaign for candidates they favored and against candidates they opposed. Yet they preserve their nonprofit status and their secrecy by relying on a contradictory regulation and guidance from the IRS.

This is how it works. In order to keep their tax-exempt status and keep donor names and donation amounts secret, organizations are set up as ``social welfare'' organizations under 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code.

For example, 501(C)(4), which is a very popular section of the Code for these organizations to claim, requires that an organization be operated ``exclusively''--I repeat--``exclusively for the promotion of social welfare''. Yet in the regulation implementing this statute, the IRS says: ``An organization is operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare if it is primarily engaged in promoting in some way the common good and general welfare.''

Under this regulation, according to the IRS, to qualify as ``exclusively'' dedicated to social welfare, you need only be ``primarily'' interested in social welfare. That does not fit any reasonable definition of ``exclusively'' that I know of.

I have expressed my concern to the IRS about this. I pointed out to the IRS that the IRS took a stand on this issue once before. In 1997, it denied nonprofit status to an organization called the National Policy Forum. The IRS position then was that ``partisan political activity does not promote social welfare.''

Yet the IRS's determination of a group's tax-exempt status can take 1 year. Therefore, even if the IRS determines that these organizations are not

legitimately ``social welfare'' organizations, it will likely be too late. The secret money will have already been donated and spent. The elections will be over.

The contradiction in the IRS regulation is reflected in IRS literature designed to guide the operation of nonprofits. IRS officials pointed me to information on the agency's Internet that states: ``The promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate.''

But in the very next sentence on that same Web site, the guidance says, ``A social welfare organization may engage in some political activities, so long as that is not its primary activity.'' So that contradicts the plain assertion in the previous sentence that ``social welfare advocacy does not include campaigning.''

It also then leaves open the question of the definition of ``primary'' activity. An IRS publication on nonprofit organizations contains the same contradiction. It says:

Promoting social welfare does not include direct or

indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns

on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public

office. However--

It goes on to say--

if you submit proof that your organization is organized

exclusively to promote social welfare, it can obtain an

exemption [from taxes] even if it participates legally in

some political activity on behalf of or in opposition to

candidates for public office.

That makes no sense. If partisan activity does not meet the IRS definition of ``promoting social welfare,'' how can an organization that participates in partisan activity possibly be ``organized exclusively to promote social welfare''? So rather than providing clarity, the IRS is perpetuating ambiguity. It should promptly end this ambiguity.

We also have a responsibility to act. The Senate and the Congress should act to prevent these organizations from continuing to benefit from their tax-exempt status and hide their donor information. They should be required to disclose the donor and contribution information and stop hiding behind their nonprofit status. The facade of these TV ads not being partisan politics needs to be swept away. It is that simple.

We have seen repeatedly the corrosive effects of secret money on the political process. We need to look to history, including modern history--the Watergate scandal, a single incident in U.S. modern history that most damaged public confidence in honest government involved burglaries----

I ask unanimous consent for an additional 2 minutes.

Mr. President, the Watergate scandal, which is the single incident in modern U.S. history that most damaged public confidence in honest government, involved burglaries and dirty tricks that were paid for using secret campaign donations. Even by the weak standards of the time, much of the secret money was illegal.

More than 20 corporations and organizations were fined and some executives went to jail because their secret payments to the Nixon campaign violated the law. Now a donor can make such secret donation dedicated to who knows what nefarious purpose and spend unlimited amounts in secret with what has, to this point, been the acquiescence of the IRS.

Post-Watergate history warns us as well. We are all familiar with the revelations about former Senator John Edwards. His personal failings got most of the media attention, but let's not forget the financial heart of his problem: While running for President, he sought and received secret amounts of cash from a major campaign donor in order to conceal embarrassing facts that might damage the campaign. Yet huge secret payments to campaigns at this moment in our history are rife.

We need to look no further than this capital city in which we work to see the dangers of secret money. The residents of Washington, DC, have learned in recent weeks that the current mayor benefited from what Federal prosecutors have called a ``shadow campaign'' of huge secret donations from a major city contractor. The chief Federal prosecutor has said: ``The 2010 mayoral election was corrupted by a massive infusion of cash that was illegally concealed from the voters of the District.'' If true, these charges mean that a campaign donor with a major financial interest in city government decisions sought to influence the election of the city's mayor using huge secret payments that concealed his involvement.

Do any of us doubt that individuals and corporations with a vested interest in Federal Government outcomes are spending huge sums of money to influence those outcomes without ever having to disclose their involvement to the public? People may go to jail for such spending in the Washington, DC, election. Yet secret spending is common practice in campaigns for the highest offices in our country.

This is not the democracy that men and women have fought to protect throughout our history. It's not the democracy the Founders adopted in our Constitution. As Adlai Stevenson once put it: ``Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal chords.'' Yet this torrent of unregulated money threatens to strangle the voice of the people.

Mistaken though it may have been, the Supreme Court's decision stands until it is reversed. We are committed to uphold the rule of law even when we disagree with the Supreme Court's interpretation of the law. But we must be equally committed to the fight for a vibrant, open, representative democracy, one in which elections are determined not by the secret spending of billionaires, but by the will of the people.

The bill we seek to vote on would take an important step toward mitigating the damage of the Citizens United decision. The DISCLOSE Act of 2012 would help shine the light of day on what has been, since the Court's ruling, an underground sewer flow of hundreds of millions of dollars. It would require nonprofits engaged in partisan political activities to disclose their major donors and their expenditures. It would not stop the flow of unlimited money, because we cannot under the Citizens United ruling, but it would at least ensure that the people know who is trying to influence elections.

The Supreme Court has consistently maintained that requiring disclosure is constitutional. Even in the Citizens United case, the Court's majority said, ``Disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in the proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.'' Indeed, the majority's reliance on disclosure is key to their argument that unlimited spending from corporations would not create corruption or its appearance. The same Supreme Court that has allowed this flood of money has said Congress can require it to be disclosed. We should do so, and so promptly.

It is difficult to understand why Members of the Senate could oppose these simple, straightforward disclosure requirements. It is difficult to imagine that we would be comfortable telling our constituents that we voted to uphold the veil of secrecy that now shields this flood of money from public view. And it is even more remarkable that some of us would vote, not just to maintain that secrecy, but to prevent the Senate even from debating it. The filibuster of this legislation, if successful, will signal shocking acquiescence to a system in which the wealthy, fortunate few can seek to shape the outcome of elections in secret, without the Senate even voting on whether to continue that secret system.

There are those in this body who defend the flood of secret cash in our politics. It is hard for this Senator to understand how those Senators explain to their constituents that they do not deserve to know who is spending millions to influence elections. But it is doubly difficult to accept the refusal of my colleagues to allow us to vote on this bill by filibustering the motion intended to let us proceed to that vote.

Mr. President, it is not a shareholder democracy when a $10 million corporate buy effectively drowns out the $5 to $10 to $20 donation that represents real people with real concerns. The DISCLOSE Act would make CEOs do what political candidates do--what we all do--when we pay for political advertising: face the camera and tell the voters we sponsored a commercial. Whether we are Democrat or Republican, surely, we wouldn't want to see our political system, our democratic system, become the puppet of a few large corporations with whatever interest they have--oil or big insurance or drug companies or companies that outsource jobs as their specialty.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I think Senator Menendez asked the right question in the absence of this Chamber doing the right thing, and that is staying consistent with what the Republican leader, Senator McConnell, said some years ago. He said that sunlight is the best disinfectant and that we should disclose everything. He wanted unlimited--mostly, I believe, if I recall, unlimited contributions but full disclosure. He has changed his position. I assume it is to protect the oil industry and perhaps the Chinese money that is coming in in these elections or the big Wall Street banks that have opposed my election, as well as the Presiding Officer because of his work on banking issues, and will come in against him in Oregon.

I stand behind this idea Senator Menendez suggested, which is that if the Senate won't move, voters will start asking the question, Who is giving this money, and why are they putting in this kind of money?

I rise--and I thank Senator Shaheen for her leadership--because big corporations and wealthy investors are flooding our elections with campaign money. They are looking for gain. We don't really know whom the money is from. We can guess. In my State, we think it is oil companies. We think it is Wall Street banks. We think it could be money from Chinese interests, whether it is money laundered from China through American corporations or directly from American corporations that specialize in outsourcing jobs to China and making more money. Look what happened with the Olympics just recently, if that doesn't sort of beg the question.

We know that these dollars in Ohio are drowning out the voices of working middle-class people in my State and

across the country. Consider this: The television market in Cleveland, OH, is the 18th largest media market in the country.

Lots of cities come to mind that are larger: Philadelphia, Houston, Detroit, New York, Chicago, L.A., San Francisco, Washington, DC, Boston. Many cities, many media markets are larger than Cleveland, the 18th largest television market in the country, which includes about 1.5 million viewers. Cleveland is now No. 2 ranked in the country in political spending--again, larger than New York and Chicago and Philadelphia and Houston and San Diego. Only Los Angeles has had more money spent in its TV market than has Cleveland.

The Columbus market--still significant but smaller than Cleveland's-- is not far behind in political spending.

Why is that? The Presidential race in Ohio; the Senate race in Ohio; a congressional race in Ohio with two incumbents, one a Democrat and one a Republican, facing off, with most of the money spent by special interest groups; undisclosed, secret money on Cleveland television and Columbus television, mostly against candidates, mostly against incumbents, mostly against people who have a history of standing for the middle class against oil company interests, who have a history of standing for jobs and against bad trade agreements where companies outsource to China--which they benefit from--standing for Wall Street banks that have done significant damage to our country and to our economy.

We do not know for sure where this money comes from. They will not disclose it. The people paying for these ads are simply unwilling to step out of the shadows. It is not hard to guess, but we simply cannot prove it.

At the same time, as to all these ads that have come into Cleveland and have come into Columbus and all over my State, nonpartisan fact- check organizations have discovered that many of these ads in my State are false. They have a rating--they have a ``true,'' ``mostly true,'' ``mostly false,'' ``false,'' and the worst rating is ``pants on fire.'' ``Pants on fire'' suggests that people running these ads or groups making these statements willfully disregard the truth or, to put it more succinctly, simply lie. We are seeing, in many of these ads that are run by these special interest groups, they are simply lying. They get a ``false'' or they get a ``pants on fire'' rating from PolitiFact, a national organization which won the Pulitzer Prize, is nonpartisan, and has no partisan leanings, no ideological leanings.

It is no surprise people paying for these ads do not want to be associated with them. If they are an oil company, they do not want the public to know how they are lying. If they are an American corporation that outsources to China, they do not want the American people to know they are the ones paying for these ads and lying.

That is why this legislation is so important. These wealthy, unnamed, out-of-State donors can get away with this--we know this by now-- because the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision sweeps aside decades' worth of established jurisprudence and allows corporations and very wealthy individuals to spend as much as they like to defeat politicians who do not do their bidding.

Big businesses and billionaires should not be able to buy elections and citizens should know who is behind the ads aimed at winning their votes.

In one of his fireside chats--in a very different political environment, with very different media available to them--President Franklin Roosevelt said the ``use of power by any group, however situated, to force its interest or to use its strategic position in order to receive more from the common fund than its contribution to the common fund justifies, is an attack against and not an aid to our national life.''

In a nutshell, President Roosevelt said--he could have been speaking to this issue today--that he called them the ``malefactors of great wealth.'' He called them ``economic royals.'' He called them a lot of things--very wealthy people who had disproportionate influence on their national government, even with a President who was fighting for the middle class, who was fighting for the common man against these interest groups.

That is why the Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act, the DISCLOSE Act, matters. We need to pass this bill.

The DISCLOSE Act would ensure greater accountability and transparency in corporate political spending by requiring the disclosure of campaign-related fundraising and spending by outside groups.

Over the course of the past 2 years, we have seen politics increasingly influenced by millionaires and billionaires who secretly give unlimited amounts of money to manipulate American politics. These multimillionaires are trying to secretly buy elections.

The DISCLOSE Act would prevent these corporations and wealthy individuals from using shell front groups to hide their donations from disclosure.

By giving millions of dollars in secret money, these megadonors are looking to cash in on policies that will benefit their business interests.

I do not want to make this about my State. I mentioned the huge money in Cleveland, the huge money in Columbus. We are seeing it in the Toledo market. We are seeing it in the Dayton market, the Cincinnati market, the Youngstown market, even those TV markets on the periphery of the State that serve other States: Wheeling, WV, Parkersburg, WV, Charleston, Huntington, WV, Fort Wayne, IN--States where you might buy the television time that Ohioans will see.

I do not want to make this about my campaign. In my campaign, we have seen already, in Ohio, $2.5 million in special interest money, laundered--and I use that term advisedly--laundered through groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, laundered through groups such as Crossroads--that is the group associated with George Bush's political director, whatever his title was--money coming through 60 Plus, money laundered through Concerned Women for America--who decidedly are not, I might add--money laundered through all kinds of organizations; undisclosed, secret money that comes in and does attack ads against elected officials.

I can stand on my own. I am not all that concerned about what it means to me. I am concerned that those groups, undisclosed, want to buy elections. Do you know why they want to buy elections? They want to buy elections so they can continue the subsidies they get and the tax break for the oil companies. They want to buy elections so they can continue to outsource jobs to China and write trade rules that make it easier and more profitable to do that. They want to buy elections because they want to stop our efforts to force the six largest banks in the country--the Wall Street banks--to divest some of their earnings. They are not just too big to fail, they are also too big to manage and too big to regulate.

They want to buy elections, these outside groups, because they want to continue the preferential treatment they get in this Congress when they are drug companies and to stop generic drugs and to stop negotiation directly with the drug companies to save money for seniors for their pharmaceutical drugs.

That is what they have at stake--always, frankly, against the public interest, always an attack on the middle class, always an assault on people who simply want an opportunity to get ahead in this country-- just an opportunity, not a gift, not a handout but an opportunity to go to college, an opportunity to go to the local--to go to Lorain County Community College, an opportunity to go to school and be able to pay back their loans, an opportunity to get a decent job and stay in the town they grew up in so they can raise children around their grandparents--all the kinds of things most Americans agree with.

The DISCLOSE Act would prevent these corporations from continuing to deceive the public and simply not informing the public of what is happening. Their priorities erode protections and safeguards for middle-class workers and their families. They seek to extend tax shelters for the top 1 percent. This is not just an attack on the integrity of our democracy. That is fundamentally what it is, but that is not why they do it. They do it because it is a direct assault on middle-class families and working Americans.

The 1 percent will do increasingly better because of Citizens United. The 1

percent is mostly behind these efforts and mostly behind the efforts to defeat the DISCLOSE Act.

Democracy demands openness in the public square, in our public conversations, and in that most sacred democratic tool: our elections. Under Citizens United, what we have is a sale--not a democracy--it is an auction going to the highest bidder. It is not an election.

Our Nation's highest Court took an issue that was not even presented to the Court and decided to overturn a century of legal precedent. Our largest companies straddle the globe. They wield enormous influence already. The top Fortune 500 companies reap billions in profits. The average Ohio household struggles to break even, as does the average household from Senator Whitehouse's Rhode Island and Senator Shaheen's New Hampshire.

The largest corporations leverage their enormous economic power into seemingly unchecked political clout.

In 2011, corporations spent $3.3 billion lobbying Congress to influence legislation--$3.3 billion to lobby Congress--exerting far more influence on our political process than they should.

We know they spent this $3.3 billion because they were required by law to disclose what they spent. My guess is, if that law did not exist that they had to disclose what they were spending on lobbying, some of my colleagues would vote against disclosure for them, what they are spending to influence elections. So they spend $3.3 billion to lobby. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars on elections. They work to repeal and roll back voter rights.

I will wrap up. Thank you. I ask unanimous consent for 1 more minute.

We have no idea, though, what these groups are spending as they try to undermine our electoral system. What we know is that corporations and roving--if I could use that word--front groups are already pouring hundreds of millions into campaigns.

The DISCLOSE Act can help clear these murky waters. The question ultimately is, if we cannot pass this, then our citizens need to ask us: Why are they spending all this money? Who are these people spending this money? Who is spending it? Why are they spending tens of millions in my State and other States around the country? What is it they want? When voters start asking that question, I think the answer will be pretty self-evident.

I thank Senator Whitehouse and Senator Shaheen for their work on this issue.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, perhaps the most important three words in our constitution are ``We the people.'' But the whole notion of ``We the people'' is threatened by oceans of dark secret cash, oceans of cash used as a threat on the front end and as an election hammer on the back end. It is simply destructive to our democracy.

Tonight is the night for some profiles in courage to stand for the American system, for democracy, and for the people.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Louisiana for her remarks. Would the Senator be able to engage in a question or two?

I think back to the period when our forefathers and foremothers came here and said: We are going to set up a new set of colonies, a new set of rules.

One of the things at the very heart of that was the notion that we the people, we the settlers, we are colonists. We are going to decide how things run rather than having kings and queens or other very strong folks handing down the laws from now on. That was a powerful concept that got integrated into the first three words of our Constitution, ``We the people.''

Does the Senator have any sense whether this flood of secret, this massive flood of secret money coming from powerful individuals, billionaires and companies, does damage to this concept of ``we the people''?

I was thinking back to a book that a friend gave me to read. It was called ``Treason of the Senate.'' When I first heard him speak about it over the phone, I think he was saying he had a book about the reason of the Senate. It turned out to be not the reason, but the treason. It was a series of articles, I believe about 20, that were written during the muckraker period.

It was each month taking a different Senator, how they had basically been put in office through a particular company in a different State-- different powerful interest. This set of articles apparently was one of the things that led to a constitutional amendment because it helped the public mobilize against the indirect election of Senators and pushed for the direct election.

So here was the public saying: You know, we the people have this system, and it has been violated. So we have to try to change the system so we can reclaim it.

I think that is maybe some evidence of the role of excessive power and money and its corrupting influence or its corrosive influence on the electoral process.

Just a moment ago our colleague from Louisiana was noting that we have important work to do to shore up the American family. Families have lost--the number is, on average, $100,000 of equity in their house per family. That is a phenomenal amount. If we look at the equity held by our Hispanic families, our African-American families, they have been virtually wiped out by a system of deregulation, predatory mortgage, leading to a housing bubble.

We have a desperate need for jobs. I think what I hear the Senator saying is that in the face of these needs, allowing unlimited spending by the most powerful interests in the country to pursue the interest of the most powerful is not going to help us create those living-wage jobs Americans so desperately need. It is not going to help us fund those health care clinics that are the front door for folks who do not have the big salaries and the big benefit packages. It is not going to help put food on the table for those out of work and hungry, and in that sense this process of us working by and for the people is being corrupted by these vast pools of secret spending?

I ask the Senator, when the company gets involved in that manner or a billionaire gets involved in that manner and their motive is largely to advance their financial interests, do they use that to fund ads that are an accurate representation of the facts?

While the Senator is on that topic, I have the Annenberg chart here, I believe.

It was 85 percent deceptive and 15 percent accurate. To the other point, this is taking one of the contests between Gingrich and Romney. You can see the red bar, the negative ads, benefiting Romney for attacks on Gingrich. Positive ads for Romney was zero. Over here, Gingrich didn't have very much super PAC money in this race and so it kind of was wiped out completely.

So what we see is not just a flood of money on behalf of the powerful special interests, but it is being spent to attack people--the negative side--and through lying. Can this in any possible way be healthy for a democracy?

To my colleague from Rhode Island, I ask this: How is it possible for 5 members of the Supreme Court to look at this issue of unlimited, secret spending and knowing that can be used to intimidate and corrupt the electoral process and corrupt the debate by the threat of future activities, future secret activities, secret negative, lying activity, and not see the corruptive or corrosive effect on the American democracy?

Even the corporation itself doesn't know what it is doing; that is, the corporation might have 10,000 shareholders and they are the cooperation. The corporation is a legal fiction, as our colleague says, that allows a board of directors to make decisions on behalf of those thousands of people who own stock. So they are not spending their own money, they are spending money that belongs to the stockholders. But those stockholders have no idea how that money is being spent under Citizens United. So it is not just corporations spending money that is secret from the rest of us, it is the officers spending it secretly from the corporation itself, and that is the stockholders.

To the Senator's point about the distinction between a corporate forum and an individual justice, John Paul Stevens addressed this in his dissent. He said:

In the context of elections to public office, the

distinction between corporate and human speakers is

significant. Although they make enormous contributions to our

society, corporations are not actually members of it. They

cannot vote or run for office because they may be managed or

controlled by nonresidents. Their interests may conflict in

fundamental respects with the interests of eligible voters.

The financial research, legal structure, and instrumental

orientation of corporations raise legitimate concerns about

their role in the electoral process.

Our lawmakers have a compelling constitutional basis, if

not also a democratic duty, to take measures designed to

guard against potentially deleterious effects of corporate

spending in local and national races.

So here is the esteemed Justice saying not only--not only is there a compelling constitutional basis but probably a democratic duty. And what is he talking about? He is talking about ``We the People,'' the first three words of our Constitution--the vision that we have a democracy, that we have a representative form of government, we have a republic, and that it is centered around, as President Lincoln so aptly described, ``a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.'' We have a duty to protect that.

Montana had a duty to protect that 100 years ago. Earlier this evening, Senator Tester was here on the floor, and he was speaking about the 100-year present the Supreme Court delivered. Montana said 100 years ago that companies, through a variety of means, have taken over our State, that it is no longer a government by the people, and so we are going to take it back. We are going to exclude corporations from the electoral process. And they have done that for 100 years with the direct purpose of people, not companies, controlling their State. That is the democratic duty Justice John Paul Stevens was speaking to.

So the people of Montana were very upset about Citizens United. Some folks said: Well, Citizens United is a case. Surely Montana can't continue to keep companies or corporations out of their electoral process, so we will challenge that. And that challenge went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court basically issued a summary judgment--a judgment in which they said: We are not going to look at the facts from Montana. We are not going to look at the 100-year history of why the people of Montana chose to fight for ``We the People.'' We are not going to consider any information at all. We are just going to summarily decide that this case will not stand, and we are going to throw out the Montana law.

Well, that was some gift to the people of Montana who are fighting for ``We the People.'' And this is why I thought I might summarize Citizens United in the following way:

In Citizens United, five Justices of the Supreme Court have taken the first three words of the Constitution and they have X'd out ``people'' and have written in ``powerful,'' so it is now ``We the Powerful.'' That is what Citizens United is all about.

Now, I am deeply disturbed that our Supreme Court made a finding of fact in Citizens United that unlimited secret money--not just dark pools of unregulated cash but vast oceans of unregulated, undisclosed secret money--can be utilized in the electoral process without the people having any right to know. That is what the Supreme Court said is just fine, and that is what attacks ``We the People'' in favor of ``We the Powerful.''

Now, not a single member of the Supreme Court has run for office, to my knowledge. Not a single member of the Supreme Court has served in elected office, to my knowledge. I am happy to stand corrected if any of my colleagues know otherwise. So perhaps they didn't have the personal experience to understand the types of things my colleague from Rhode Island was speaking about, that folks who can wield huge sums in elections not only can affect the outcome of elections, but they can use it as a lever to corrupt the very process we are in tonight--the debate and voting on bills. So one would think, at a minimum, the nine Justices, knowing they may not have the personal experience but who need to make a finding in order to proceed, would want to hear all the evidence. But instead what the five Justices did in summarily dismissing the case from Montana was to cover their ears, cover their eyes, and say that facts don't matter, corruption doesn't matter, the corrosive influence, the vast oceans of secret money--none of it matters. And that is simply wrong.

I must say, when I think about what we are doing here on this floor, fighting to have a Senate and a House that are all about what President Lincoln described as ``of the people, by the people, and for the people,'' and across the street we have a Supreme Court determined to tear down the fundamental heart of our Constitution, it is completely wrong, and yet they won't even listen to the facts in order to understand the issue they are addressing.

It is so important for Americans across this Nation on the right and on the left to understand that this is an attack on their power as citizens to chart the course of their community, their State, and our Nation.

I think I will conclude my remarks. I have a lot of facts and history here that I thought about presenting tonight, but I think the discussion we have been having is really at the heart of this; that is, as we wrestle with the fundamental challenges facing our Nation--a shrinking middle class because we are losing manufacturing jobs--and we need to understand why that is happening and how we can create living- wage jobs in this Nation, where health care is becoming more and more expensive and an enormous challenge for families, where for the first time in the history of our country we are becoming the first group of parents whose children are getting less education than we got--as parents, we are seeing our children get less education--those problems, as we tackle them, are not served

by vast oceans of secret money weighing in on elections because that money does not come from the point of view of fighting for the health and welfare of the citizens of our Nation.

Our forefathers and foremothers talked about, in order to create a more perfect union and enable citizens to pursue happiness and provide for the general defense, and none of these fundamental things were the point or the goal of these entities with vast pools of money. That in itself shows how corrosive and corrupting that money is.

So I say to my colleagues across the aisle, each of us came here and we swore an oath to this constitution. And at the heart of this Constitution is not ``We the Powerful.'' At the heart of our Constitution is ``We the People.'' So before we vote a second time on whether to proceed to this bill, I ask my colleagues to examine their hearts and their responsibility to their citizens, their responsibility to the Constitution, their responsibility to ``We the People,'' and to find that we do have a responsibility to debate this bill in this Chamber, and for that reason to vote yes when we again vote on whether to proceed.

I thank the Chair.

Madam President, the most astounding fact that has emerged since the Citizens United decision is that just 17 people have given over half the money to the Republican super PAC. There is very little disclosure, and there are huge amounts of money cascading in from a small few.

My colleagues, whether one is a Democrat or a Republican, we have to admit this is corrosive to our democracy. This gets further away from the idea that each of us has an equal say than anything that has been done in the last 100 years.

I hope my colleagues will join us in this modest measure, which doesn't even limit how much people can give but simply says they have to disclose; they have to tell they are giving. When ads are disclosed, they are less vicious and there is some semblance of truth that has to float around them.

I urge my colleagues, for the good of this country, the sake of our future, to support this modest, truly modest, piece of legislation.

Mr. President, first, I wish to thank all my colleagues who have been so diligent, hardworking, and prescient on this issue. Of course, Senator Whitehouse from Rhode Island, the leader of our task force, led us to this point. Senator Merkley has been very active and involved, as have you, Mr. President, as well as Senator Shaheen and Senator Bennet. There have been so many people on the task force who did a very good job, including Senator Udall and so many of our colleagues.

The fact that we have been on the Senate floor now for close to 5 hours and there hasn't been a moment's pause says something. It talks about the broad support that this modest but powerful act has on our side of the aisle. The fact that no one, unfortunately, on the other side of the aisle has come to debate this issue says something as well. The only debate, in fact, we heard was the Republican leader in a brief speech that was almost 1984ish. His reason we shouldn't disclose is that people who give would be harassed.

If we go by that, we should probably have everything be in secret because, of course, in an open democracy, when we do things in the political arena, we are subject to criticism. That is what freedom is about. To come up with this inside-out argument that we shouldn't disclose because people might be criticized for the contributions they make or the ads they fund is the most antidemocratic, anti-U.S. Constitution argument I have heard. It just doesn't even pass the laugh test. I am surprised. My colleague is one of the most brilliant political minds we have around here. Even when I disagree with him, I respect his mind. But this argument is--to say sophistry is kind. I don't think it is going to catch on with people.

Anyway, we have had very few comments, other than that made by colleagues on the other side of the aisle tonight, and that is truly unfortunate. We should have a debate on this issue, but I have a feeling most of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle realize by their previous statements, by the previous position of the Republican Party, and by knowing them, we are right.

Disclosing contributions is only fair and only right and American and in keeping with our democracy and our Constitution. I think the reason so few people have shown--or no people on the other side have shown is that the reason they are not supporting us is not out of conviction but out of short-term political advantage. Obviously, the super PACs, large multimillion dollar contributions are coming mostly from the other side and may indeed benefit them in the election. In the long run, it is bad for our democracy. In the long run, it is bad for the Republican Party to shy away from not only debating this issue but supporting this bill because the issue of disclosure is so simple, so easy, and so right. The issue of disclosure is one that is now wracking the Presidential campaign. You can run, but you can't hide. The argument of disclosure will, in a sense, chase you down and beat you so you may as well join in now and do the right thing.

I would like to make a point. The two top advertisers in this election cycle are predictably the two candidates' campaign. What is the third just after the Obama campaign and the Romney campaign? It is something called Crossroads GPS. In the last week alone, Crossroads GPS announced almost $25 million in advertising against the President and the Senators. The group, Crossroads GPS, has a name, and it doesn't mean much. They don't have to disclose a single one of their donors. In fact, reports indicate that Crossroads GPS raised $77 million in its first 2 years of existence, and 90 percent of that came from, at most, 24 donors. That is an average of $2.9 million per donor.

So far in this election cycle, as of May 31, super PACs have spent $135.6 million in an election year. Twenty percent comes from 501(c)(4) organizations, ``social welfare organizations'' that don't have to declare their donors at all thanks to the decision in Citizens United. Many of the donors behind the other 80 percent of super PACs could also be anonymous. That is because people can donate to the 501(c)(4)s that require no disclosure and then the 501(c)(4)s can donate to the 527s which requires some disclosure. The level of disclosure under our present law isn't just inadequate, it is laughable. The voters deserve to know the truth, ugly or not, of who is behind the super PACs. If the wealthy special interests want to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in our government, then they should pay their fair share of taxes rather than fund candidates who will give them special tax breaks paid for by middle-class Americans.

Yet because of the flawed Citizens United ruling, the corporations that can't vote in our elections are trying to buy the electoral outcomes that benefit them, and it is all in secret. Our solution is simple: The DISCLOSE Act simply restores transparency and accountability. There are many of us who would limit what people can give and how they can give it.

I believe, frankly, that Buckley v. Valeo is not as bad a decision as Citizens United, but it is a bad decision. I introduced legislation, a constitutional amendment, to undo it years ago. Two years ago, I joined my colleague from New Mexico who had spearheaded this drive in the House to support his legislation.

I believe there ought to be limits because the first amendment is not absolute. No amendment is absolute. A person can't scream ``fire'' falsely in a crowded theater. We have libel laws. We have antipornography laws. All of those are limits on the first amendment. What could be more important than the wellspring of our democracy? Certain limits on first amendment rights that if left unfettered, destroy the equality--any semblance of equality in our democracy of course would be allowed by the Constitution. The new theorists on the Supreme Court who don't believe that, I am not sure where their motivation comes from, but they are so wrong. They are so wrong.

I hope we are going to move to change this law. I hope we are going to pass first this DISCLOSE Act and then the broader bill that has been introduced, which also has disclaim. I hope eventually we will find a Supreme Court that allows reasonable limits on campaign contributions. That is so important for the future.

I have to tell the Chair I am an optimist, and I love this country. We had our DSCC retreat this weekend, and we heard stories about people who had risen from poverty to now run for the U.S. Senate after having careers of great accomplishment. I am not going to name specific individuals, but you heard them. They were moving. It is what America is all about, being there. It made me so proud to be an American. Most of our families are examples

of this. My father was an exterminator. He didn't go to college. I am here. What a place.

Despite my love for this country and my fervent belief in its future, the thing that worries me most is the effects of the Citizens United case. To have 17 people contribute half of the money to Republican super PACs and to have the vast majority of that money undisclosed is frightening.

I know maybe our Supreme Court Justices do think in absolute terms. After all, this is the first amendment. But I am sure of one thing: None of them have run for office. They have no idea of the power of these negative undisclosed ads, the corrosive effect it has on our democracy, and the influence that those who offer these ads have. It makes me worry about the future of this country if we continue along this path. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court seems to have very little doubt based on the Montana case where they even refused to hear it. We have to worry about the fundamental fairness of how our system functions.

We are not a pure democracy. We are a Republic, if we can keep it, and a Republic says there ought to be some intermediation. There is an understanding in a Republic that the Founding Fathers were very much aware of it. I guess Alexander Hamilton, my fellow New Yorker, leading this part of it, that those who have achieved success in America deserve some influence--maybe a little more influence than others--they believed that; that is how our Republic is set up.

The pendulum has swung so far that I truly, for the first time in my life, worry about the future of this democracy. If a small group of people can control the entire political process through the powerful vehicle of undisclosed ads shown on television time and time again. If when people run for office they are afraid to offend those who have great wealth or power because these ads may be run against them, it presents one of the greatest dangers to this democracy that we have had in over 200 years.

Maybe one of those nine--particularly one of those five--on the Supreme Court are watching so they have some understanding of the damage this decision is doing to our democracy. Do they understand that when they write: We are not against disclosure, and that as long as Citizens United continues to exist it is almost a catch-22--the way our political structure works, the heavy money that comes in on the other side--and then not a single Republican, even many of those who probably agree with us in their hearts are willing to vote even for disclosure-- means we will never get it and it is an empty promise. Do they understand the so-called independence of independent expenditures has become a joke, that the very underpinnings of their decision in Citizens United does not square at all with reality? Do they understand what every 1 of the 100 of us here and the 435 Members of the House on the other side and Presidential candidates are living with? Do they have any understanding of that?

So here we are. What else can we do? We are here late at night desperately trying to either persuade our colleagues whose self- interests mitigate against them joining us to persuade the people-- although the issue of campaign finance is often an abstract one at a time when people are so busy working hard paying the bills, raising their families, and experiencing the vicissitudes that life and that God gives and visits on each and every one of us. In fact, maybe one of the Justices on the Supreme Court is sort of living in a fantasy world as their decisions undo the very democracy they are supposed to preserve.

We are trying. That is all we can do. The one thing I want to assure my colleagues of on both sides of the aisle, the American people, and everybody else who is involved in this issue is we are not going to stop trying until we succeed.

Dr. King, one of the great men of America, said that ``the arc of history is long, but it bends in the direction of justice.'' He was talking about justice for people of color. There also has to be a justice for average folks who can't reach into their checkbooks and spend $1 million on an ad, undisclosed, that excoriates, often unfairly, someone they disagree with. They need justice too, those average folks. They are not going to get it until this simple measure, and others that are stronger than it, start succeeding.

We are going to keep at it. We are not going to stop until we succeed. Under the leadership of many who are here tonight sitting in this Chamber, we will keep working and working and working until our government is truly one of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let me, first of all, thank Senator Whitehouse for heading up this campaign finance task force. I think this has been a real solid effort by a number of Senators. Senator Whitehouse, whether it is at Netroots or on the Senate floor, has been participating this evening, and we appreciate all of his help. The Presiding Officer, Senator Merkley, has also been a key member of the task force. Senator Bennet, who is going to be speaking after I have finished, is another member of the task force. So we appreciate being allowed to get together.

What we need to be reminded of this evening is where we are. We just took

a vote to try to get onto the DISCLOSE Act, and 51 Democrats said let's get onto the bill, with 44 Republicans--not a single Republican--voting not to allow us to move to the bill.

Basically, as Senators Bennet, Whitehouse, and Merkley know, the Senate is now in the mode of a full filibuster. We are on a motion to proceed and have not been allowed to move to the bill. So people should recognize that is the posture we are in right now, so we are going to be down here talking about this issue.

I have joined my colleagues to talk about this serious problem of campaign finance reform, one that threatens the very nature of our democracy. That threat is the unprecedented flow of money into our elections. We need to look at this dangerous torrent of money and consider how to stop it. I believe a step in the right direction is the DISCLOSE Act.

In January 2010 the Supreme Court issued its disastrous opinion in Citizens United v. FEC. Two months later, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals decided the SpeechNow v. FEC, which the Supreme Court upheld. These two cases gave rise to super PACs. They opened the floodgates of secret cash. Super PACs have poured millions of dollars into negative and misleading campaign ads, and, as they often do, under the cover of darkness--quiet, stealthy, without disclosing the true source of the donations.

It is ironic. They make all this sound and fury on the airwaves, but they are silent on who is paying for it. Why? Why the silence? Why the cat and mouse? The American people are blessed with common sense. They know usually when someone will not admit to something it is because there is something to hide. They have seen where all that shadowy campaign money can take us--to corruption, to scandal, to places like Watergate, dark days where we have been before. And believe me, I don't think the American people want to go back to the era when we had big suitcases of cash, with the President keeping cash in his White House safe. The American people don't want to return to that time.

The Citizens United and SpeechNow decision sparked a renewed focus on the need for campaign finance reform. But let's be clear, the Court laid the groundwork for this broken system many years ago. In 1976 the Court held in Buckley v. Valeo that restricting independent campaign expenditures violates the first amendment right to free speech. That ruling established the flawed precedent that money and speech are the same thing--another nail in the coffin of common sense. The result: elections based too much on the ability to raise money and too little on the quality of ideas, too much on a dedication to fundraising and too little on the public good.

Money and free speech are not the same, and it is a tortured logic to say they are. They may seem comparable in the rarified hallways of the Supreme Court but not in the rough and tumble streets of political campaigns. We know this. The super PACs writing these huge checks know it too, and they must be chuckling all the way to the bank. But the American people do not find this funny--infuriating perhaps but definitely not funny.

I don't think we can truly fix this broken system until we undo the false premise that spending money on elections is the same thing as the constitutional right of free speech. That can only be achieved if the Court overturns Buckley or we amend the Constitution. Until then, we will fall short of the real reform that is needed. But we still should do all we can in the meantime to make a bad situation better, and that is what we have been trying to do with the DISCLOSE Act. That is what we must do with the DISCLOSE Act. It is not the comprehensive reform I would like to see, but the perfect should not be the enemy of the good, and the DISCLOSE Act is the good we can do now. It is a step forward, a vital step forward, even with the flawed Supreme Court precedents that constrain us.

The DISCLOSE Act is a step out of the shadows, and that is exactly where we need to be headed. The DISCLOSE Act of 2012 asks a simple question--an important and eminently fair question: Where does the money come from and where is it going?

If we don't start asking that question, we may soon be asking another one, one we heard when scandal shook this country in years passed: What did he know and when did he know it? It is a simple question that follows the money because the American people have a right to know who is writing the checks.

Under the bill any covered organization, including corporations, labor unions, nonprofit organizations, and super PACs that spend $10,000 or more on campaign-related disbursements during an election cycle, would have to file a report with the Federal Election Commission that discloses all donations above $10,000.

It also requires the disclosure of any transfer made to a third party for the purposes of campaign-related expenditures. This addresses the growing problem of using so-called social welfare organizations to funnel anonymous money to super PACs.

This is a practical, sensible measure. It doesn't get money out of our elections, but it does shine a light into the dark corners of the campaign finance system. A similar bill in the last Congress had broad bipartisan support, with 59 votes in the Senate and passing the House. Since then we have all watched a flood of money raining down during this election year. We are seeing the real impact of the Citizens United and SpeechNow decisions on our elections. The need for this legislation has become even more apparent.

I serve on the Senate Rules Committee, and in March Chairman Schumer held a hearing on the DISCLOSE Act. We heard several concerns about the bill, both from our Republican colleagues on the committee and their witness. At the hearing, the minority witness claimed there were many provisions in the bill he disliked. He said:

I think perhaps the most radical is the government-mandated

disclaimer.

While I disagree with his assertion that standing by your ad is a radical idea, that is no longer an issue in this bill. We have taken the disclaimer provision out. I still believe it is an important provision, but we listened to the minority's concerns and revised the bill.

Another concern raised at the hearing was the effective date of the legislation. Senator Alexander is our ranking member on the committee, and I think a great deal of him and appreciate the work he and Chairman Schumer have done on this and many other issues. At the hearing on DISCLOSE, Senator Alexander said the following:

This hearing is as predictable as the spring flowers in the

middle of an election. My friends on the other side of the

aisle are trying to change the campaign finance laws to

discourage contributions from people with whom they disagree,

all to take effect on July 1, 2012.

Well, guess what, Senator Alexander. We have also addressed this concern. The bill has been changed so that the disclosure requirements go into effect at the beginning of next year. So the shadow groups can still do everything in their power to buy this election. They can still hide their faces from the voters, but they will have to step to the plate the next time around. They can still write the checks, they can still try to buy future elections, but they will finally have to say who they are at the checkout stand.

The bill we are considering is as simple and straightforward as it gets: If you are making large donations to influence an election, the voters in that election should know who you are. That is not a radical concept.

What is disappointing is that this type of disclosure, and campaign finance reform more generally, used to have broad bipartisan support. Now that conservative super PACs are raising huge sums of cash and hiding many of their donors, disclosure has suddenly become another partisan issue.

If we look at past reform efforts, they have always been bipartisan. In 1972, the Federal Election Campaign Act passed with strong bipartisan support from both parties. After Watergate, Democrats and Republicans came together, again to strengthen the act and set limits on independent expenditures. More recently, in 2002, we passed the bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, also known as McCain-Feingold. That bill passed in the Senate with broad support. Five of our current Republican colleagues voted for it.

The constitutional amendment that Senator Bennet and I introduced this Congress also used to be bipartisan.

Senator Fritz Hollings was the lead sponsor for many years, but the amendment was always bipartisan. It had the support of respected Republican Senators such as Ted Stevens, Arlen Specter, John Danforth, Thad Cochran, and John McCain.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed an additional 2 minutes.

So we can see why I am disappointed with the partisanship that has taken over this important issue. It is not like the problem of money influencing our elections has been solved. The recent Supreme Court decision struck down laws my Republican colleagues voted for. I hope they will be willing to work with us now to pass disclosure laws that will withstand judicial scrutiny.

And unless we take action, I fear things will only get worse. Earlier this year, my friend Senator John McCain said the following at a panel discussion on campaign finance reform:

What the Supreme Court did [in Citizens United] is a

combination of arrogance, naivete and stupidity the likes of

which I have never seen. I promise you, there will be huge

scandals because there's too much money washing around, too

much of it we don't know who's behind it and too much

corruption associated with that kind of money.

I think Senator McCain is right. I recall the debate when we considered the DISCLOSE Act in the last Congress. Many of our concerns then were still hypothetical. We could only guess how bad it might get. Well, now we know. Unfortunately, our worst fears have come true.

The toxic effect of the Citizens United and SpeechNow decisions has become brutally clear. The floodgates of campaign spending are open and gushing and threaten to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens.

Look at what we have seen already. Huge sums of unregulated, unaccountable money are flooding the airwaves. An endless wave of attack ads, paid for by billionaires, is poisoning our political discourse 501c4 social welfare organizations are abusing their non- profit status. They shield their donors and then funnel the money into Super PACs.

The American public, rightly so, looks on in disgust.

A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that nearly 70% of registered voters would like Super PACs to be illegal. Among independent voters, that figure rose to 78%. Supporters of Super PACs and unlimited campaign spending claim they are promoting the democratic process. But the public knows better--wealthy individuals and special interests are buying our elections.

Our nation cannot afford a system that says, ``come on in'' to the rich and powerful, but then says ``don't bother'' to everyone else.

The faith of the American people in their electoral system is shaken by big money. It is time to restore that faith. It is time for Congress to take back control.

There is a great deal to be done to fix our campaign finance system. I will continue to push for a constitutional amendment that will allow comprehensive reform. But, in the interim, let's at least shine a light on the money. The American people deserve to know where this money is coming from. And they deserve to know before, not after, they head to the polls. That is what the DISCLOSE Act will achieve.

With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to join my colleagues in supporting the DISCLOSE Act.

I commend Senator Blumenthal for his extraordinarily insightful and articulate words with respect to this critical issue. I particularly wish to commend the Senator from Rhode Island, Mr. Whitehouse. He has been the driving force to bring this issue to the floor, to educate all of us in the Senate and the American people about what is at stake, and in many respects, it is our democracy. It is the presumption that every American has their vote count just as much as anybody else's vote, that elections are decided based upon issues and ideas and not by the sheer volume and the sheer magnitude of 30-second advertisements that are designed more to divert than to inform, designed more to excite than to inform. Most people believe in a system that is based on thoughtful consideration of ideas and issues and in a system in which everyone's vote counts.

Senator Whitehouse is an extraordinarily gifted attorney. He understands these issues perhaps as well as anyone in this body. He was a Federal attorney and our state's attorney general, and he has brought not just knowledge of the Constitution but this passion for justice and fairness and decency and democracy to the forefront of our debate today, and this will not be the last day we will be debating this issue. So let me begin by commending his efforts.

A fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution is the right to vote. Each citizens gets one vote, and this right represents a critical pillar of our democracy because we treat everyone equally, allowing each citizen to have this crucial and critical say in who governs, on the issues, and ultimately what is the course of this great country.

But because of the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, I worry that our political and civic conversations now advantage those who flood our airwaves, papers, and Web sites by talking--if not shouting-- louder simply because they have more money and resources to do so.

The New York Times recently included the following in an article, giving us one indication of how much money is awash in our political system, and it reflects what my colleague from Connecticut said.

During the 2010 midterm elections, tax-exempt groups

outspent PACs by a 3-2 margin, according to a recent study by

the Center for Responsive Politics and the Center for Public

Integrity, with most of that money devoted to attacking

Democrats or defending Republicans. And such groups have

accounted for two-thirds of the political advertising bought

by the biggest outside spenders so far in the 2012 election

cycle, according to Kantar Media's Campaign Media Analysis

Group, with close to $100 million in issue ads.

And the clock is still ticking and the amount is accumulating.

That electioneering in the shadows is not what most Americans want. They want robust debate. They want candidates to engage as candidates, not the witting or unwitting beneficiaries or victims of anonymous advertisements in their race.

This is not, I believe, what the creators of the Constitution thought would happen or hoped would happen. They envisioned a country in which the best ideas and the best arguments prevailed regardless of how loudly one spoke; that it was the quality of the argument, not the volume of the speaker, that mattered.

What should be important is this quality of speech, not the quantity, and, frankly, there is a direct correlation between the amount of money you have today and the quantity of your speech in the media. That is just the reality of paid advertisement, which dominates political campaigns.

But I think this vision, because of Citizens United, has been turned on its head. Now those with the greatest resources, the most money, have been given a disproportionate advantage.

By allowing corporations and unions to unleash the full power of their treasury funds and explicitly advocate for the election or defeat of candidates in Federal or State elections in the name of protecting and promoting free speech, I think the Supreme Court missed the mark. It missed the mark about the centrality of an individual's vote and the substance of a campaign being about ideas, not about derogatory advertising, not about anything else except the issues. That is the ideal. That is what our Founding Fathers were hoping for and, indeed, I think expecting, and I think that has been terribly distorted by this opinion.

There is an interesting situation going on here. In the attempt to create, under Citizens United, what the Supreme Court, I expect, was hoping to do--create an atmosphere in which speech is free--they created a situation in which speech is no longer free. Effective speech is no longer free; it actually comes with a very high cost and goes to the person who is the highest bidder. That is not free speech, not effective free speech; it is purchased speech. And if our elections are going to be decided not by free speech but by purchased speech, they will be won always by the highest bidder, by the person with the biggest wallet, the person who is willing to spend as much as necessary to prevail. And it will raise and it does raise the specter of, is this about the future of the country or is this about the narrow self- interest of someone who is willing to invest a great deal of money into a particular race? And I think most people would conclude that it is probably about the narrow self-interests of someone who invests a great deal of money in a race.

Simply put, I think Citizens United is deeply flawed, and more than one expert has voiced their frustration and disappointment with this decision.

Shortly after the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Citizens United in 2010, Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute, which is a center-right--more right than center, perhaps--organization, wrote, in a column in Roll Call called ``Court Way Oversteps its Authority With the Citizens United Case,'' these words:

I hoped Citizens United would be decided narrowly but

feared that the court would take a meat ax to a century of

settled law and policy. My worst fears were realized.

This decision equates corporations, which have one goal, to

make money, with individual citizens, who have many goals and

motives in their lives, including making a better society,

protecting their children and grandchildren and future

generations, and so on . . .

This was a case never raised by the plaintiffs and never

formally brought before the Roberts Court. We do not have an

instance where an actual for-profit corporation has

complained that it has been barred from its ability to get

its message across in the political process. The cases

overturned and the laws struck down were considered carefully

by judges and Congresses past, including in the McConnell

decision barely six years ago. Only one thing has changed

since--the political and ideological complexion of the

Supreme Court brought on in particular by the retirement of

Sandra Day O'Connor.

Additionally, Richard Posner, a respected Conservative Judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, who was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan, recently stated the following on his blog:

[T]he Court, rather naively as it seems to most observers,

reasoned in the Citizens United case that the risk of

corruption would be slight if the donor was not contributing

to a candidate or a political party, but merely expressing

his political preferences through an independent organization

such as a super PAC--an organization neither controlled by

nor even coordinating with a candidate or political party. .

. .

It thus is difficult to see what practical difference there

is between super PAC donations and direct campaign donations,

from a corruption standpoint. A super PAC is a valuable

weapon for a campaign, as the heavy expenditures of Restore

Our Future, the large super PAC that supports Romney and has

attacked his opponents, proves; the donors to it are known;

and it is unclear why they should expect less quid pro quo

from their favored candidate if he's successful than a direct

donor to the candidate's campaign would be.

Judge Posner, I think, is making the case very effectively. If there are limits on direct individual donors' contributions because you do not even want to create the appearance of a quid pro quo, the idea a super PAC, whose

donors are known, has less of an ability to influence a candidate and more--I think, significantly, not only a candidate but perhaps an elected official--that does not follow. I think Judge Posner's comments are very on point in that this also invites the perception and perhaps the reality of inappropriate influence on candidates and on elected officials. That was a great deal at the heart of why we passed campaign reform legislation decades ago.

Even these points of view by Norm Ornstein and by Judge Posner have not, unfortunately, convinced my Republican colleagues to join us in effect in trying to correct a deficiency which my able colleague from Connecticut pointed out was the fact that the case of Citizens United presumes disclosure. We have tried to debate this legislation and variations many times before. I think we have taken even much stronger action in previous versions, but today we are here in a good-faith effort to meet our colleagues more than halfway.

There are those who opposed previous versions of the DISCLOSE Act on the grounds that there were provisions unrelated to disclosure. But these concerns are addressed head on in this legislation crafted by my colleague because it focuses solely on disclosure, and it is effective after this fall's elections. So I ask my colleagues, especially those who have said they are all for disclosure, to join us. Join us to pass this legislation because it is all about disclosure.

Let me go back to the language of the Supreme Court opinion quoted by Senator Blumenthal because they presume in the decision there would be full disclosure, and that is what we are asking for tonight on this floor: Give the Court what it thought it had, a system by which the American public can know immediately who is putting all this money into the elections.

In the words of the Court in Citizens United:

[P]rompt disclosure of expenditures can provide

shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold

corporations and elected officials accountable for their

positions and supporters. Shareholders can determine whether

their corporation's political speech advances the

corporation's interest in making profits, and citizens can

see whether elected officials are ``in the pocket'' of so-

called moneyed interests.

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.

That is what the court said. Yet, if we do not pass this legislation, there will not be enough disclosure; because corporate shareholders cannot make judgments about what their corporate directors and managers are investing in, in terms of political activities. Individuals cannot make judgments about the commercials they are seeing because they don't know who is behind them, really.

If we want to create the context which presumably undergirded the Supreme Court's decision, we have to pass this legislation. If you do not want to ignore, indeed, what the Court has said, do not want to ignore what our constituents have said, and do not want to allow this anonymous money to flood our elections, to not raise doubt about the process, to not undercut what people traditionally think is the American way--one person, one vote;--then let's start by passing this legislation.

I urge my colleagues to support the DISCLOSE Act.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I am about to make a major announcement that I think is very significant and, hopefully, would give us more time to attend to some of the problem areas we are trying to attend to, such as the Defense authorization bill, sequestration, expiring tax cuts, and all the spending bills. The announcement I would make is that we now have a letter containing 34 signatures of those who say: If you bring up the ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty this year, we would oppose it. So we actually have 35 such signatures.

I want to make a couple of comments. I was going to talk for a little longer, but I know there are a lot of Senators wanting to get the floor. So I will try to do this in a shorter period of time.

First of all, I have been involved in this treaty for a long period of time. Way back during the Reagan administration this treaty that was actually first negotiated back in the 1970s was defeated for a variety of reasons. A lot of people are saying the reasons Reagan opposed it at that time have been answered. That is just flat not true. Ambassador James Malone, who renegotiated the lost treaty during the Reagan administration, stated:

All the provisions from the past that make such a [new

world order] outcome possible, indeed likely, still stand. It

is not true, as argued by some, and frequently mentioned,

that the U.S. rejected the Convention in 1982 solely because

of technical difficulties with part XI.

That is the seabed mining portion of it.

The Collectivist and redistributionist provisions of the

treaty were at the core. . . .

They are still in there today.

I think it is important to recall what happened in 2004. In 2004, when Republicans were the majority, I chaired the Committee on Environment and Public Works and was also one of the senior members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. At that time the Law of the Sea Treaty passed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee without--I believe it was without a dissenting vote. I think it was 16 to 0. So we started having hearings before the two committees that were my committees, the Environment and Public Works Committee, talking about how this would subject us to other countries imposing their will on us, as well as ramifications that would affect the Senate Armed Services Committee. As a result, of course, we recall it was defeated.

We have this happening again. I do appreciate Senator Kerry and his efforts to get this through. We have had several hearings. They have been pretty lopsided. I believe the count today is there have been 16 witnesses supporting it and some 4 witnesses opposing it. That is not really important because I think it is worth mentioning a couple of things about it but then actually going into the detail as to why, if it is brought up, it could not be ratified during this year or during a lameduck session.

First of all, when I talk to someone about the problems with this I tell them this would cede authority to the

United Nations over 70 percent of the surface of the Earth, along with the air above it. I remember one time a witness came--this was back during the Bush administration which was supporting the treaty, but I asked the question, I said: If you have 70 percent of the surface area, does that mean you also have 70 percent of the air above it? They could not answer that question. Now I think it is pretty well understood that would be the case.

I tell people three things: First of all, we would be submitting our sovereignty, surrendering it to the United Nations, over 70 percent. That really is enough. But when we talk about the fact that for the first time in the history of this country it authorized the United Nations to have taxing authority over the United States of America, people go ballistic. That is something that is not conceivable we would even be considering.

Then when we are talking about the lawsuits, how we have lawsuits we could be facing--let me be a little more specific.

The area that is in controversy in terms of its ability to tax or otherwise get royalties from the United States, would otherwise go to the United States and put those into the United Nations, is an area called the Extended Continental Shelf. That would be in excess of 200 nautical miles offshore. Nothing within this treaty is going to affect this within the 200 miles, but outside it would be.

As it is right now, it is important to understand how the royalties are paid at the present time. The royalties the United States usually collects from the Extended Continental Shelf is an amount between 12.5 percent and 18.75 percent. The reason there is a disparity between those is because the royalties go along with how much money can be made out there if things go well and how deep it is, how far out it is, how expensive it is to drill, and all of that. So the range the United States currently collects is between 12.5 percent and 18.75 percent from the Extended Continental Shelf.

Under article 82, if we pass the Law of the Sea Treaty, at the end of the 12th year, 7 percent of the royalties would be taken away from the United States--that is roughly half the royalties we would have--and given to the International Seabed Authority to redistribute those in accordance with whatever they want to do. It is not specific. This all would take place in Kingston, Jamaica, of all places, where they would make this redistribution of wealth. I have often said that is something the United Nations has always desired; that is, to have the ability to redistribute the wealth.

It is hard to say what amount would fall into the royalties within the Extended Continental Shelf. There is a group that was appointed to try to approximate these things, and they have said it would be in the hundreds of billions or maybe even in the trillions.

For each trillion that would be in production, that would equal about $70 billion that would be taken out of the U.S. Treasury and put into the United Nations, sent to the Seabed Authority in Kingston, Jamaica, to be redistributed around the world in accordance with whatever criteria they would have. That is a huge amount, and it is very significant, and it is specific that the figure would be up to 7 percent after the 12th year. That is a very significant amount.

When we stop and think about it, we have been talking about how we can come up with $1 trillion in the next 10 years. Now all of a sudden we have an amount that could come close to equaling that just from losing our royalties that would otherwise come to the United States of America. Of course, there is the lawsuits. I think this is significant. Under the Law of the Sea Treaty, any country could sue the United States in an international tribunal and not in the U.S. courts.

In other words, we could be subjected to lawsuits from other countries. There are already a number of Pacific Island nations that intend to sue the United States for environmental damage to their seas and air if the United States joins the Law of the Sea Treaty. In other words, we would be voluntarily allowing people to sue the United States on what they would allege to be environmental damages.

The members of the convention and regulations to prevent pollution in maritime is very specific. Article 212 of the Law of the Sea Treaty states to ``adopt laws and regulations to prevent, reduce, and control pollution of the marine environment from or through the atmosphere, applicable to the air space under their sovereignty''--we are talking about the United Nations--``and to vessels flying their flag or vessels or aircraft of their registry, taking into account internationally agreed rules, standards and recommended practices.''

If the EPA--as we found out in their endangerment finding--is able to declare an endangerment, just imagine what they could do under this case. In fact, article 235 states that countries ``are responsible for the fulfillment of their international obligations concerning the protection and preservation of the marine environment. They shall be liable in accordance with international law.''

That is why we have so many of the far-left environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Defense Fund, and all of them fervently supporting this treaty because they want to use it admittedly to bring the United States and all other countries into conformity with their environmental agenda.

I am going to submit this for the Record. It is interesting because we have, for example, Andrew Strauss, who is a law professor and is very well known, who states that the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto Protocol ``makes the United States the most logical first country target of a global warming lawsuit in international forum.''

I commend to the attention of my colleagues the various legal entities that are rejoicing about the fact that they might be able to sue this country.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter signed by 31 Members of the Senate stating that they will object to and vote against any ratification effort that would take place this year. It doesn't restrict it to this year. There are 31 Members.

I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a separate letter that is signed by Senators Portman and Ayotte stating essentially the same thing.

I also have a statement from the Web site of Senator Isakson, and I was given permission to speak on behalf of Lamar Alexander, that while he hasn't taken a position on the Law of the Sea Treaty, he does object to having it brought up this year. So we have 35 Members of the Senate who have stated they would object if it is brought up before the Senate this year.

So with these items I referenced included as a part of the Record, I would like to say that something isn't going to happen this year. It could be they want to bring it up, and that is up to the leader. If he desires to do so, of course, he could do it. If it does come up, it will take a lot of time from other business that this body should address.

With that, I would only say there are some 35 Members--and many more I might suggest--who would vote against it should it come up.

I have used my time, and I yield the floor.