Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that for the duration of today's session, Varun Jain, a fellow in my office, be granted floor privileges.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that for the next half hour, myself, Senator Mikulski, Senator Blumenthal, Senator Coons, and Senator Blunt, and also, should they come, Senator Graham and Senator Kyl be allowed to engage in a colloquy.

Our topic is the urgency of the need to protect our privately held critical infrastructure--the power grid, the machines that process our financial transactions, and the communications networks that connect our BlackBerrys and our phones.

In this area, no one is more expert than Senator Mikulski, who is a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, helped draft the Senate intelligence report on cyber, and has the pen as the cardinal for the budgets of most of the agencies that are relevant to this discussion. So let me lead immediately to Senator Mikulski, who has been enormously helpful in this arrangement.

Let me welcome Senator Blunt to the discussion and invite him to chime in now. He has been a very important voice in the bipartisan discussions on how we can find a proper way to protect American privately owned critical infrastructure. He is a consummately experienced legislator from the House and has been a great addition to the Senate, and we welcome him to the discussion.

I agree with Senator Coons, and more important than me agreeing with him, the Secretary of Defense of the United States of America agrees with him. He has said, ``The next Pearl Harbor we confront could very well be a cyberattack,'' and that is an exact quote.

I wish to turn back to Senator Mikulski for a moment, as the person who is in charge of the appropriations for these key agencies, because there is a sense in some quarters that if you leave the private sector on its own to do this, they will be fine. I think the evidence we have heard in a series of hearings that Senator Mikulski, Senator Blunt, myself, and Senator Kyl cochaired, bipartisan hearings--Senator Coons came to virtually all of them, and to their great credit Senator Lieberman and Senator Collins came to virtually all of them--the testimony we heard was that was not the case.

Some of the public commentary, our Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter says:

There is a market failure at work here . . . companies are

not willing to admit vulnerabilities to themselves, or

publicly to shareholders, in such a way as to support the

necessary investments or lead their peers down a certain path

of investment and all that would follow.

That is a bipartisan sentiment. Mike Chertoff, who is the former head of DHS, said:

The marketplace is likely to fail in allocating the correct

amount of investment to manage risk across the breadth of the

networks on which our society relies.

Senator Coons pointed out 9 out of 10 of the companies contacted by the NCI JTF, when they became aware they were attacked, had no idea they had been attacked.

I will turn to Senator Mikulski to make her comment on this. It is a public-private partnership here.

Senator Blunt.

I thank the Senator from Missouri. I will wrap up by making three points and I will make them briefly. I have given remarks at greater length in these areas before so I think my position on this is pretty clear.

One is, protecting our critical infrastructure, the privately owned systems our way of life depends on, is the weak point we need to address. We do well with dot-mil, we do well with dot-gov. The government has the authority to provide all of its resources to protect those. We don't particularly care about ordinary Web sites, about chat rooms--we do not want to interfere with those anyway. It is just the critical infrastructure that is important, the privately held infrastructure. We really need to work on that. The warnings from our national security leaders are across the board: Secretary of Defense Panetta, NSA Cyber Command and Director Keith Alexander, Director of National Intelligence Clapper, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Holder, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Dempsey have all clearly expressed the danger of this threat.

The second point, it is bipartisan. The former Director of National Intelligence and NSA Director Mike McConnell has said:

The United States is fighting a cyber-war today, and we are

losing. It's that simple. As the most wired nation on Earth,

we offer the most targets of significance, yet our cyber-

defenses are woefully lacking. . . . [W]ith cybersecurity,

the time to start was yesterday.

Former Assistant Secretary for Policy at the Department of Homeland Security Baker said:

We must begin now to protect our critical infrastructure

from attack.

A great number of national security officials, bipartisan, wrote a letter to us in the Senate and said:

The threat is only going to get worse. Inaction is not an

acceptable option.

Protection of our critical infrastructure is essential in

order to effectively protect our national and economic

security from the growing cyber threat.

As I said earlier in introducing Senator Mikulski, there is indeed a market failure that has been identified in a bipartisan fashion. The facts prove it because so often when public or private sector folks respond to an intrusion, they find 90 percent of the time the company had no idea it was hacked.

Even the Chamber of Commerce was hacked and had Chinese infiltrators with access to all of their computers for months. When the Aurora bug hit Google and others, only 3 out of 30 companies were aware of it. So the private sector does need a supportive government. We, in turn, from the government side have to make sure the burden is not unreasonable and make sure we are doing this in as light, as sensible, and voluntary as is possible and consistent with the mission of actually protecting our cybersecurity.

In the Bush administration, the Assistant Attorney General was Jack Goldsmith, who is now at the Harvard Law School. He has written about this very issue. He wrote:

[T]he government is the only institution with the resources

and the incentives to ensure that the [critical

infrastructure] on which we all depend is secure, and we must

find a way for it to meet its responsibilities.

I thank Senator Mikulski, Senator Blunt, Senator Blumenthal, and Senator Coons for participating in this colloquy today. I thank our group and the group I just mentioned. In addition I would like to thank Senator Kyl, Senator Graham, and Senator Coats for the bipartisan work that has been done to try to find a way forward to protect critical infrastructure.

Again, I thank Senator Blunt, Senator Kyl, and Senator Mikulski for the series of private briefs and classified briefings that have helped build the momentum toward this effort.

I think we can get this done. It is essential we do. I appreciate the work of my colleagues in making this happen.

I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I come to the floor most every week to discuss the issue that I think is the one that Members of Congress in this era are most likely to be judged on in the future; that is, the relentless carbon pollution of our atmosphere that we are engaged in and the changes in our climate and in our oceans that are very visibly happening as a result.

I know there are many interests in Washington that would prefer us to ignore this issue, but just because they ignore it and just because they want us to ignore it doesn't mean it is going anywhere. The country, as we have heard in the last few weeks, has baked in record heat. I think it was Bloomberg News that described the Midwest farmers as farming in hell. It has been scorched by drought, driven by unprecedented wildfires, and that has resulted in an increasing amount of chatter in the news and even some conversation on the Senate floor about climate change.

Some have tried to say there is no relation, but I want to talk a little bit about the science of what we see happening around our country and around the world.

There is an interesting report that I would mention. I am not going to put it in the Record because it is too large. It is called ``The State of the Climate in 2011,'' a special supplement to the bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

What we see is that 2012 is shaping up to look a lot like 2011, which Deputy NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan called ``a year of extreme events, both in the United States and around the world.'' The report I just showed is a peer-reviewed report. It was compiled by 37 scientists from 48 countries.

As explained by Dr. Sullivan, and I quote her:

Every weather event that happens now takes place in the

context of a changing global environment. This annual report

provides scientists and citizens alike with an analysis of

what has happened so we can all prepare for what is to come.

Here are some of the highlights from the American Meteorological Society report. The first generally is that

warm temperature trends are continuing. Four independent datasets show 2011 was one of the 15 warmest years since recordkeeping began in the late 19th century, and yet one of the coolest since 2008. The average temperature for 2011 was higher than the 30-year annual average temperature. The Arctic continued to warm at about twice the rate compared with lower latitudes.

On the opposite pole, the South Pole Station recorded its all-time highest temperature of 9.9 degrees Fahrenheit on December 25, Christmas Day, breaking the previous record for warm weather around the South Pole by more than 2 degrees.

So the warm temperature trends continue. The other major finding of the report is that greenhouse gases continue to climb. Major greenhouse gas concentrations like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide continued to rise. Carbon dioxide steadily increased in 2011, and the yearly global average exceeded 390 parts per million for the first time since instrumental records began. This represents an increase of 2.10 parts per million over the previous year.

I would note that the Arctic sampling stations have for the first time in history recorded concentrations over 400 parts per million. That is an ominous number because the Arctic tends to be the leading edge for these indicators. There is no evidence that natural emissions of methane in the Arctic have increased significantly during the last decade, so they have not yet contributed to this steady increase. But there could be significant increases of methane in the future as the tundra thaws and as methane captured under the permafrost is released.

Arctic sea ice is decreasing. Arctic sea ice extent was below average for all of 2011 and has been since June of 2001. It is a span of 127 consecutive months through December of 2011. Both the maximum ice extent, which was 5.67 million square miles on March 7, and the minimum extent, 1.67 square miles on September 9, were the second smallest measurements for maximum and for minimum of the satellite era.

A fourth finding is that sea surface temperature and ocean heat content continue to rise. Even with La Nina conditions occurring during most of the year, the 2011 global sea surface temperature was among the 12 highest years on record. Ocean heat content measured from the surface down to 2,300 feet deep continued to rise since records again being taken in 1993, and ocean heat content was at a record high.

In addition to putting 2011 into the context of these longer trends and timelines, the researchers from NOAA and the U.K. Meteorological Office also examined the link between climate change and extreme weather events that occurred in 2011. Here is what they say:

In the past it was often stated that it simply was not

possible to make an attribution statement about an individual

weather or climate event. However, scientific thinking on

this issue has moved on and now it is widely accepted--

Widely accepted--

that attribution statements about individual weather or

climate events are possible, provided proper account is taken

of the probabilistic nature of attribution.

So let me be clear. It is still not correct to say that any weather event specifically is or is not directly caused by climate change. However, what these researchers have done is evaluate methods to see if the probability of this event occurring has changed by a particular percentage given the changing climate. Have we, in effect, loaded the dice in our atmosphere to make extreme weather events more likely? And not only have we loaded the dice, but how loaded are the dice? How are the odds changing?

This paper evaluated six events from last year, and here are some of those findings:

La Nina-related heat waves such as that experienced in Texas in 2011 are now 20 times more likely to occur during La Nina today than during La Nina years 50 years ago. So we have loaded the dice for these events to happen during the La Nina years by a factor of 20. That is a pretty heavy increase.

Researchers evaluated a very warm November that the United Kingdom experienced in 2011. They found that warm Novembers are now 62 times more likely for the region. Again, not only are the dice loaded for unusual weather events, they are loaded with big numbers.

The next month, December 2011, was very cold. Researchers found that cold Decembers were 50 percent less likely to occur now versus 50 years ago.

Moving on to 2012, I wish to mention another event that happened this week. On Monday, researchers at the University of Delaware and the Canadian Ice Service reported that a 46-square-mile chunk of ice broke off from the Petermann Glacier on the northwest coast of Greenland. This piece of ice is two times the size of Manhattan. In August 2010, a piece four times the size of Manhattan separated from the glacier. This most recent breakoff of the Petermann Glacier puts the glacier's end point where it has not been for 150 years.

Andreas Muenchow, a researcher at the University of Delaware, said:

The Greenland ice sheet as a whole is shrinking, melting

and reducing in size as a result of globally changing air and

ocean temperatures and associated changes in circulation

patterns in both the ocean and the atmosphere.

When we change the temperature, we change the circulation patterns. Those go hand in hand.

Relatedly, an article published in Science magazine examined data from not the Arctic areas but the tropic areas from coral reefs around the world. The researchers concluded that sea levels during the last warming period, which is most similar to today's climate, were roughly 18 to 30 feet higher than today. That is about 6 to 10 feet higher than previous estimates had projected. The likely culprit: more melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets than was previously assumed.

All of this evidence, these changing trends and emerging science evaluating increased probability of extreme weather events, ought to be enough for us to consider limiting our greenhouse gas emissions. It ought to be enough of a warning for us to stop what is presently an uncontrolled experiment that we are conducting on our planet. We should do this while we still can.

Yet, unfortunately, there are special interests in Washington who deny that carbon pollution causes global temperatures to rise; deny that melting icecaps destabilize our climate so that regions face extreme drought or outsized precipitation events; deny that they have any responsibility to do anything about this. These special interests have a strong grip on Washington and on Congress. They pretend to us and to the American public that the jury is actually still out on climate change caused by carbon pollution, that we should wait, we should let them continue with business as usual and wait for the verdict to come in. Well, they are wrong. The jury is not still out. The verdict is, indeed, in, and their claims to the contrary are, frankly, outright false.

This is a pattern, actually, that has manifested itself with other industries in the past. The lead paint industry, the tobacco industry, and others have all had legions of scientists who have been willing to manufacture enough doubt about the danger of the product--tobacco is safe to smoke, lead paint won't hurt children, that sort of thing--so as to delay public safety action that would protect the public from their product. They obviously have a motive in doing that because they want to keep selling their product and keep making profits, but the cost has been terribly high to the public when we have listened to that kind of science. Unfortunately, we are listening to that now again. We should not be fooled. The vast overwhelming bulk of scientists agree that climate change is happening and that human activities are the driving cause of this change.

When I give these talks, I often refer to a paragraph from a letter we received in Congress in October of 2009. The letter was very powerfully stated, particularly when we consider the cautious way in which scientists ordinarily couch their findings. Here is what the letter said:

Observations throughout the world make it clear--

Clear is the word they use--

that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific

research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by

human activities are the primary driver. These conclusions

are based on multiple independent lines of evidence--

And they close with this--

and contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective

assessment of the vast body of peer-reviewed science.

In other words, if we look at the peer-reviewed science, the body of science, objectively, one cannot reach those conclusions. Those contrary assertions are inconsistent with an objective assessment. Clearly, subjective assessments are different, but subjective assessments we should discount because of the motives that lie behind them.

The letter I just quoted was signed by an enormous number of very prestigious scientific organizations, from the American Association of the Advancement of Science, to the American Chemical Society, the Geophysical Union, Institute of Biological Science, Meteorological Society, Society of Agronomy, American Plant Biologists, the Ecological Society of America, the Organization of Biological Field Stations, Soil Science Society of America, and an immense group of very respectable organizations not gathered together for the purposes of argument about climate change but who have a responsibility to their scientific communities to be accurate. These are highly esteemed scientific organizations. They know the jury is not still out. They know that the verdict is, in fact, in and that it is time we did something about it. It is really irresponsible and nonsensical for us not to.

The science on this goes back to the Civil War. It was a scientist named John Tyndall, an Irish scientist practicing in England, who determined that carbon dioxide and water, when they were trapped in the atmosphere, had a blanketing effect and would trap heat in the atmosphere--the basic principle of global warming.

In 1955, the year I was born, a textbook called ``Our Astonishing Atmosphere'' said the following:

Nearly a century ago, scientist John Tyndall suggested that

a fall in the atmospheric carbon dioxide could allow the

Earth to cool, whereas a rise in carbon dioxide would make it

warmer.

If that was century-old information the year I was born, then I think it is entitled to some credence around here.

Of course, we are observing these changes. Let me put one into context, and then I will yield the floor. That one is that 390-parts- per-million figure I alluded to earlier. For the last 8,000 centuries-- 800,000 years--we have been able to measure what the range was of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere, and for all that period, 800,000 years, it has been between 170 parts per million and 300 parts per million. So 170 to 300 is the range. So when we are out of that not by a little bit but by a lot--we are already to 390, and in the Arctic we have hit 400--this is measurement, by the way, not theory--that is something to be worried about because when we look back at history, before 800,000 years ago, back into previous geological events, we find that these high carbon concentrations are associated with really dramatic die-offs, very hostile environments for human occupation.

Of course, we have never had that experience because we have really only been around on this planet for probably less than 200,000 years. We only started scratching the soil, planting things and developing agriculture, 10,000 years ago. So 800,000 years ago is a long time, and the safe bandwidths our species has developed within during that 800,000 years is something that we should not be so frivolous about flying outside of to the tune of now hitting 390 parts per million. There will be consequences that will be grave.

We are already seeing consequences that are grave. Our ocean is acidifying in unprecedented ways. If we are looking for a first catastrophe to ensue, it is as likely to be through the acidification of our oceans as it is through climate and through the damage that an acidic ocean can do to small creatures, particularly those at the very bottom of the food chain, the ones all the others eat. Let me put it this way: It is a hard thing for an animal to succeed and survive in a physical environment in which it is soluble.

So I see a colleague on the floor, and I will yield to him. I appreciate the attention of the Senate to this issue, and I hope the day will come soon when we can wrench ourselves free of the grip of the special interests and do something serious about this looming threat.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am proud to rise today to honor the Leadership Alliance, which was founded 20 years ago in 1992 at Rhode Island's Brown University. It has grown to become a consortium of 32 of our country's leading higher education research and minority serving institutions, working together to bring students from underrepresented groups into competitive graduate programs and professional research careers. Through training and mentorship, the Leadership Alliance opens doors for our best and brightest young people to become the innovators of tomorrow.

During its 20 years, the Leadership Alliance has mentored more than 2,600 undergraduates, including 43 Rhode Islanders. These students are offered the unique and exciting opportunity, through the Summer Research-Early Identification Program, to participate in a 9-week paid summer internship where they work side by side with faculty in the academic discipline of their choice at some of our leading research institutions. They then present their research to the annual Leadership Alliance National Symposium. This summer experience gives the students the opportunity to expand their intellectual horizons, as well as network with academics and their peers. The program has produced nearly 200 PhDs, the Leadership Alliance Doctoral Scholars, along with professionals in private research and academia.

It is vital for our country's continued competitiveness in the world that we seek to inspire our young people to innovate and experiment, to push the boundaries of our current knowledge. The Leadership Alliance has recognized that mentoring is key in order to ensure that students from all backgrounds feel that they have access to graduate education and know that they have peers in research. The innovative programs the Leadership Alliance has created over 20 years have not only allowed these students to increase their own opportunities academically and professionally, but allowed past students to become role models themselves.

I congratulate the Leadership Alliance, Brown University, and the other participating colleges and universities, as well as academics and students, past and present, who through 20 years have shown their commitment to American education, leadership, and innovation.

Mr. President, I thank the distinguished Senator from Colorado for his impassioned and eloquent support. I think we recognize that through the course of our country's history, men and women have shed their blood, have laid down their lives in order to protect this experiment in liberty that is the ongoing gift of our country to the rest of the world. When we take that experiment of liberty and turn it over to the special interests, it is a grave occasion.

I yield the floor.

THE PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader is recognized.

Mr. President, I believe Chairman Leahy will shortly be joining us to discuss the DISCLOSE Act.

I ask unanimous consent that an op-ed piece authored by former Senator Warren Rudman and former Senator Chuck Hagel--two former Republican Senators who distinguished themselves in this body and have gotten together to write an article about the DISCLOSE Act--be printed in the Record.

I think what I would like to do is actually share some of the thoughts from it.

Here is what Senator Rudman and Senator Hagel, two former Republican Senators, say:

Since the beginning of the current election cycle,

extremely wealthy individuals, corporations and trade

unions--all of them determined to influence who is in the

White House next year--have spent more than $160 million.

Excluding party expenditures.

That's an incredible amount of money.

To put it in perspective, at this point in 2008, about $36

million had been spent on independent expenditures.

Independent meaning independent of a candidate's campaign.

In all of 2008, in fact, only $156 million was spent this

way. In other words, we've already surpassed 2008, and it's

July.

In the near term, there's nothing we can do to reverse this

dramatic increase in independent expenditures.

These two distinguished former Republican Senators wrote:

Yet what really alarms us about this situation is that we

can't find out who was behind these blatant attempts to

control the outcome of our elections. We are inundated with

extraordinarily negative advertising on television every

evening and have no way to know who is paying for it and what

their agenda might be. In fact, it's conceivable that we have

created such a glaring loophole in our election process that

foreign interests could directly influence the outcome of our

elections and we might not even know it had happened until

after the election, if at all.

This is because unions, corporations, ``super PACs'' and

other organizations are able to make unlimited independent

expenditures on our elections without readily and openly

disclosing where the money they are spending is coming from.

As a result, we are unable to get the information we need to

decide who should represent us and take on our country's

challenges.

Unlike the unlimited amount of campaign spending, the lack of transparency in campaign spending is something we can fix and fix right now--without opening the door to more scrutiny by the Supreme Court.

A bill being debated this week in the Senate called the DISCLOSE Act of 2012 is a well-researched, well-conceived solution to this insufferable situation. Unfortunately, on Monday the Senate voted, mostly along party lines, to block the bill from going forward. But the DISCLOSE Act is not dead. As of now, it is 9 short of the 60 votes it needs.

They then describe the bill and continue:

We believe that every senator should embrace the DISCLOSE

Act of 2012. This legislation treats trade unions and

corporations equally and gives neither party an advantage. It

is good for Republicans and it is good for Democrats. Most

important, it is good for the American people.

What's more, every Senator considering re-election faces

the possibility of being blindsided by a well-funded,

anonymous campaign, challenging his or her record, integrity,

or both. The act under consideration would prevent this from

happening to anyone running for Congress.

Without the transparency offered by the DISCLOSE Act of

2012, we fear long-term consequences that will hurt our

democracy profoundly. We are already seeing too many of our

former colleagues leaving public office because the

partisanship has become stifling and toxic. If campaigning

for office continues to be so heavily affected by anonymous,

out-of-district influences running negative advertising, we

fear even more incumbents will decline to run and many of our

most capable potential leaders will shy away from elective

office.

No thinking person can deny that the current situation is

unacceptable and intolerable. We urge all senators to engage

in a bipartisan effort to enact this critically needed

legislation. The DISCLOSE Act of 2012 is a prudent and

important first step in restoring some sanity to our

Democratic process.

Then the article closes by identifying the authors: Former Senator Warren Rudman, Republican of New Hampshire, is a chairman of Americans for Campaign Reform, and former Senator Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, introduced disclosure legislation in 2001.

While we await my colleagues who are scheduled to come to the floor, let me add that it is not unique or unusual that Senators Rudman and Hagel, former Republican Senators, should be supportive of the DISCLOSE Act and of disclosure of who is making these massive, now secret, contributions to buy influence in our elections. First of all, it is not surprising because it is so darned obvious. It should be obvious to any thinking person, as Senators Rudman and Hagel said, that when somebody is spending the kind of money that is being spent--a single donor making, for instance, a $4 million anonymous contribution--they are not doing that out of the goodness of their heart. They are not doing that just for the sheer fun of it. They are doing that because they have a motive. One doesn't spend $4 million in politics if one doesn't have a motive. If one thinks otherwise, one really needs to wake up and have a cup of coffee.

If we add to that the insistence on the funding being secret, there is only one reasonable conclusion that a thinking person can draw about why somebody who is spending that kind of money with a motive would want their spending and their identity to be secret, and that is because the motive is a crummy motive. It is a lousy motive for the American people. If the American people were excited about the motive, they wouldn't want to keep it secret. It is only because they want to do bad deeds in the dark.

When time permits again, I will go through some of the Republican Senators who have spoken out in favor of disclosure and transparency in the past. We all know from the debate last night that the minority leader has--and I will yield to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee as soon as he is prepared--Senator Alexander has been on record, as well as Senator Chambliss, Senator Sessions, Senator Cornyn, Senator Murkowski, Senator Collins, Senator Brown of Massachusetts, Senator Coburn, and, of course, most prominently and most courageously over a long period of time and with great distinction, Senator John McCain.

So at this moment, I will yield to my distinguished chairman and friend, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I appreciate him giving his voice to this debate.

Mr. President, I thank Chairman Leahy.

I ask unanimous consent, in terms of scheduling floor time, that Senator Manchin of West Virginia be recognized now for up to 5 minutes; that Senator McCain, if he is on the floor, be recognized at the conclusion of Senator Manchin's 5-minute period; and if Senator McCain is not present on the floor, that I be recognized in his stead.

Mr. President, before I yield the floor to Senator Sanders, I wanted to take 1 minute and thank Senator McCain for his many years of principled advocacy in this area. People have written entire books about the work he has done. I think it was Elizabeth Drew who wrote one of the best books about the courage Senator McCain has shown over the years. So I come to this debate with enormous respect for him.

I will say the bill is not bipartisan, but that is not for lack of trying. We have reached out over and over again. In the face of an absolute stonewall on this subject, we have changed the bill ourselves in order to accommodate concerns. The stand-by-your-ad provision was criticized by the Republican witness in the Rules Committee, so we removed it. The National Rifle Association was livid about the $600 threshold because it would require them to disclose their members, so we raised it to $10,000. Over and over, where there have been substantive objections to the bill, we have met them.

At this point, not one Republican--for all of our contacts across the aisle--has expressed anyplace in this bill where an amendment could be made. We have never been given any language, we have never been shown the area that, in theory, is better for the unions. It is, as Senator McCain himself admitted, facially applied to corporations and unions and other organizations alike.

I would refer back to the op-ed in today's New York Times by Republican former Senators Rudman and Hagel agreeing this is, in fact, a fair bill. It is balanced among all parties, and all Senators should support it.

With that, I yield the floor to my colleague, Senator Sanders, with appreciation for allowing me that moment of his time.

Mr. President, I want to follow up a bit on what I said I would do earlier, because this has been in some respects half a debate. Other than my friend Senator McCain who has courageously fought on this issue for some years, we have not heard much from the other side of the aisle here, so in some respects it is only half of a debate. In another respect, of course, it is no debate at all, because we are in a filibuster situation with the Republicans blocking us actually going to the Senate debate on this bill. So while it is debate in the lay sense of the word--it is a discussion--it is not Senate debate on the floor, because we stand here being filibustered with a majority of Senators who demonstrably support going to this bill.

I said I would describe some of the things my Republican colleagues have said in the past about disclosure, so let me begin doing that.

Senator McConnell, of course, has very publicly been in favor of it. That may relate to the fact that a report by the Corporate Reform Coalition went State by State, and the Republican leader's home State of Kentucky has a ban on independent expenditures by corporations in its State constitution. Its State constitution bans the conduct that is at issue here. Kentucky has disclosure provisions that require disclosure when independent expenditures of over $500 are made in any one election. He is here objecting to a $10,000 limit, and Kentucky disclosure provisions ``require disclosure when independent expenditures of over $500 are made in any one election.'' It further requires under Kentucky statute 121.190, subpart 1, that the name of the advertising sponsor must be put on any communication. So consistent with the laws of his home State, our Republican leader has for many years stood out in favor of disclosure. Around 2000 he said, ``Republicans are in favor of disclosure.'' And he said:

Public disclosure of campaign contributions and spending

should be expedited so voters can judge for themselves what

is appropriate.

Other leaders on the Republican side, such as Senator Alexander, have said:

I support campaign finance reform, but to me that means

individual contributions, free speech and full disclosure. In

other words, any individual can give whatever they want as

long as it is disclosed every day on the Internet.

That is exactly what this bill does, but only for donations $10,000 and more. I don't believe there was a floor in Senator Alexander's remarks.

I see the distinguished Senator from Iowa has arrived. In the spirit of going back and forth, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I believe we have a number of speakers who are coming over from the caucus lunch to discuss the upcoming vote on the DISCLOSE Act. I wanted to take the time that is available until a speaker shows up to continue to report the previous support for disclosure from our colleagues and from other Republican officeholders and officials.

I think where I left off in my previous listing was Senator Lisa Murkowski, who wants Citizens United reversed and has said:

Super PACs have expanded their role in financing the 2012

campaigns, in large part due to the Citizens United decision

that allowed unlimited contributions to the political

advocacy organizations.

She said:

However, it is only appropriate that Alaskans and Americans

know where the money comes from.

My friend Senator Jeff Sessions, a ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, at one point said:

I don't like it when a large source of money is out there

funding ads and is unaccountable. . . . To the extent we can,

I tend to favor disclosure.

Senator Cornyn said:

I think the system needs more transparency, so people can

more easily reach their own conclusions.

Senator Collins has been quoted:

Sen. Collins . . . believes that it is important that any

future campaign finance laws include strong transparency

provisions so the American public knows who is contributing

to a candidate's campaign, as well as who is funding

communications in support of or in opposition to a political

candidate or issue.

That is from the Hill.

Senator Scott Brown has said:

A genuine campaign finance reform effort would include

increased transparency, accountability and would provide a

level playing field to everyone.

Senator Tom Coburn has said:

So I would not disagree there ought to be transparency in

who contributes to the super PACs and it ought to be public

knowledge. . . . We ought to have transparency. . . . If

legislators were required to disclose all contributions to

their campaigns, the public knowledge would naturally

restrain legislators from acting out of the current quid pro

quo mindset. If you have transparency, you will have

accountability.

As I reported earlier today, the Republican Senate support goes to people who have left the Senate as well. I would remark again on the extraordinary editorial written in the New York Times by Senators Hagel and Rudman.

House Speaker Representative Boehner has said:

I think what we ought to do is we ought to have full

disclosure, full disclosure of all the money we raised and

how it is spent. And I think sunlight is the best

disinfectant.

Representative Eric Cantor, the majority whip, I believe, has said:

Anything that moves us back towards that notion of

transparency and real-time reporting of donations and

contributions I think would be a helpful move towards

restoring the confidence of voters.

Newt Gingrich has called for reporting every single night on the Internet when people make political donations.

Mitt Romney has said that it is ``an enormous, gaping loophole . . . if you form a 527 or 501(c)(4) you don't have to disclose who the donors are.''

Well, this is a chance for our colleagues to close that enormous, gaping loophole their Presidential nominee has pointed out.

One of my favorite comments is by Mike Huckabee. Mike Huckabee said:

I wish that every person who gives any money [to fund an

ad] that mentions any candidate by name would have to put

their name on it and be held responsible and accountable for

it. And it's killing any sense of civility in politics

because of the cheap shots that can be made from the trees by

snipers that you never can identify.

The cheap shots that can be made from the trees by snipers that you never can identify. Let me give an example of that.

I am going to read parts of an article from this morning's New York Times.

In early 2010, a new organization called the Commission on

Hope, Growth and Opportunity--

With a name like that, you know it has to be bad in this environment--

filed for nonprofit, tax-exempt status, telling the

Internal Revenue Service it was not going to spend any money

on campaigns.

Weeks later, tax-exempt status in hand as well as a single

$4 million donation from an anonymous benefactor, the group

kicked off a multimillion-dollar campaign against 11

Democratic candidates, declining to report any of its

political spending to the Federal Election Commission,

maintaining to the I.R.S. that it did not do any political

spending at all, and failing to register as a political

committee required to disclose the names of its donors. Then,

faced with multiple election commission and I.R.S.

complaints, the group went out of business.

The editorial continues:

``C.H.G.O.'s story is a tutorial on how to break campaign

finance law, impact elections, and disappear--the political

equivalent of a hit and run,'' Citizens for Responsibility

and Ethics . . . wrote in a new report.

A cheap shot from the trees by a sniper you can never identify, and to this day no one has ever identified the $4 million donor.

I see the Senator from New Jersey. I am delighted to yield to him so he can make his remarks.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, at least--at least--10 Republican Senators are on record supporting transparency and disclosure in election spending. Some of them are very significant leaders on the Republican side.

Senator Mitch McConnell said this:

I think disclosure is the best disinfectant.

Senator John Cornyn, head of the Republican campaign operation, said this:

I think the system needs more transparency so people can

more easily reach their own conclusions.

Other Senators, colleagues, and friends come from States that require disclosure in election spending. The States they represent know this is wrong. The arguments against this bill are few. Some of those arguments are false. Others don't hold water. Huge majorities of Americans-- Republicans, Democrats, and Independents--support cleaning up this mess.

More than 700,000 Americans signed up as citizen cosponsors of this bill in the last few days. The actual number, I believe, is 721,000. But then that ran up against this: outside political spending that went from 1 percent to 44 percent, not disclosed in the last election. And these secret groups, such as Crossroads, with $76.8 million, and the majority of the money that they spend is secret money--that has changed the debate. But those who are out of the need for that secret money, such as former Republican Senators Rudman and Hagel, are clear:

A bill is being debated this week in the Senate, called the

DISCLOSE Act of 2012. This bill is a well-researched, well-

conceived solution to this insufferable situation. We believe

every Senator should embrace the DISCLOSE Act of 2012. This

legislation treats trade unions and corporations equally and

gives neither party an advantage. It is good for Republicans

and it is good for Democrats.

Most important, it is good for the American people. I urge my colleagues on the Republican side to follow the example of their former colleagues Senator Rudman and Senator Hagel; and I pledge to Senator Murkowski that we take her comments very seriously. She has cast a sliver of daylight. I intend to pursue that sliver ardently to work through this problem.

I will conclude by also complimenting Senator McCain. He believes there is a benefit for unions in here that I do not see, which I disagree exists. But certainly he has a record of courage and determination on campaign finance that entitles his judgment to our respect. I look forward to working with both of them.

I yield back our time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that for the duration of today's session, Alex Link, Rob Famigletti, and Samantha Freeman, fellows on my Judiciary Committee staff, be granted floor privileges.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Arkansas now be recognized to deliver remarks regarding a casualty from his home State--for which I will take this opportunity to send my condolences and the condolences of the people of Rhode Island-- and at the conclusion of his remarks that I be recognized.

Mr. President, I rise to speak about the DISCLOSE Act of 2012, legislation that will shine some much needed light into the flood of secret money that is now polluting our elections. I would like to open with thanks to Senators Chuck Schumer, Mike Bennet, Al Franken, Jeff Merkley, Jeanne Shaheen, and Tom Udall for their hard work in our task force that developed this legislation. I look forward to continuing to work with them through this debate.

On Thursday, Majority Leader Reid moved to proceed to this vital piece of legislation, and we will vote on it this evening. I thank the leader. I and many of my colleagues are looking forward to the opportunity to make the case for this important measure. But in a sense, for the American public, the case has already been made. As anyone who watches television knows, our airwaves are filled with political attack ads. The organizations paying for many of these ads have patriotic and benign-sounding names with words such as ``prosperity'' and ``freedom'' and ``future'' frequently to be found. These names sound harmless, but all too often the ads are actually paid for by secret special interests, such as billionaires and wealthy corporations seeking secret special influence in our democracy. In the process, they drown out the voices of regular American families who wish to participate in elections.

The Republican leader indicated we were going after the impression of mischief where there is none. Many Americans certainly have the impression of mischief.

As U.S.A. Today put it last week in an editorial supporting this DISCLOSE Act:

Everybody's watching what's expected to be by far the most

expensive presidential campaign in history, and not without a

dose of horror. Freed by the Supreme Court from spending

limits, all manner of special interests are opening the

spigots to buy influence.

Here is how my home State paper, the Providence Journal, explained the Citizens United decision that unleashed this torrent of special interest money.

The [Citizens United] ruling will mean that more than ever,

big-spending economic interests will determine who gets

elected. More money will especially pour into relentless

attack campaigns. Free speech for most

individuals will suffer because their voices will count for

even less than they do now. They will simply be drowned out

by the big money.

I think the Providence Journal hit the nail right on the head. What has happened since the Citizens United decision has, in fact, proved them right. Senator John McCain said earlier this year:

The United States Supreme Court--in what I think is one of

the worst decisions in history--struck down the restrictions

in the so-called McCain-Feingold law, and a lot of people

don't agree with that, but I predicted when the United States

Supreme Court, with their absolute ignorance of what happens

in politics, struck down that law, that there would be a

flood of money into campaigns, not transparent, unaccounted

for, and this is exactly what is happening.

Senator McCain is right. This is exactly what is happening. It is not an impression of mischief, it is mischief on the loose.

Richard Posner, a leading conservative legal scholar and a Federal judge, recently said:

Our political system is pervasively corrupt due to our

Supreme Court taking away campaign-contribution restrictions

on the basis of the First Amendment.

Our political system is pervasively corrupt. This is from a conservative Federal judge.

The impact of Citizens United has been very clear. In the 2010 midterm elections, the first after Citizens United, there was a more than a fourfold increase in expenditures from super PACs and other outside groups compared to 2006--$69 million up to $305 million--with nearly three-quarters of political advertising coming from sources that were prohibited from spending money back in 2006. Also, in 2010, those 501(c)(4)s and (c)(6) not-for-profit organizations spent more than $135 million in unlimited and secret political contributions. Anonymous spending rose from 1 percent of outside spending in 2006 to 44 percent in 2010.

We are already seeing the influence of money on the 2012 elections. Super PACs and other outside groups have spent over $150 million in this election cycle, about twice of what was spent in the same period of 2008 during the last Presidential election.

Nondisclosing groups, said the New York Times, ``have accounted for two-thirds of the political advertising bought by the biggest outside spenders so far in the 2012 election cycle . . . with close to $100 million in issue ads.''

Campaigns are no longer waged by candidates and parties fighting over ideas, they are now waged by shadowy political attack groups posing as social welfare organizations run by the likes of Karl Rove and other political operatives and fueled by millions of undisclosed dollars from secret special interests. When these secret special interests take over our elections this way, it drowns out the voices of regular individual Americans. It also puts in jeopardy some of the key pillars of a strong middle class, pillars such as Medicare, Social Security, and Pell grants that have paved the way for generations to achieve the American dream but have always been the targets of special interests.

These special interests have motives. They have motives to spend this kind of money. If those motives were good for America and were welcomed by the average American, they wouldn't need and wouldn't want to keep them secret. We need to ask ourselves a very important question: What are they hiding? Why do they demand secrecy? Whatever the answer, one thing is clear: Americans who worry that Washington is too beholden to special interests now need to be concerned more than ever. Hang onto your wallets, here come the special interests, and you won't even know who they are.

As recently reported in the New York Times, secret spending groups have accounted for two-thirds of this advertising. Two-thirds of ad spending from groups, other than candidates or parties, has come from secretive corporations and billionaires whose names and agendas the voters may never know and who will have no accountability for how that money is spent. Impression of mischief, indeed.

Of course, when we don't have accountability, there is no limit to what people will say. One of the restraints on the vitriol and the filth that is so often part of the American political debate is that candidates have to stand by their ads. If someone says something that is awful, if they engage in relentless negative attacks, voters may charge them a price for that. They may find that unwelcome. That, of course, disappears when the name behind the ad is attached to no living person or corporation. It is just an entity, a sham, a phony, a shell.

How has this worked out? Not well for the American public. An April study found that about 70 percent of ads in this election cycle have been negative. That is up from only 9 percent through the same period in 2008. In 2008, 9 percent of ads in that time period had been negative. In this cycle, 70 percent have been negative. Over the last 6 months, if we look at the four top-spending political 501(c)(4) organizations, the ones that don't have to disclose their donors, they spent an estimated 85 percent of their election spending on ads containing deceptions. So 70 percent of the stuff out there is negative, up from only 9 percent, and 85 percent of the big spenders are spending their money on ads that have been determined to be deceptive.

The names of the organizations sound lovely: Americans for Prosperity, American Future Fund, American Energy Alliance, and Crossroads GPS. Without knowing who funds these shadowy groups, the American voter has no idea what mischief they are up to.

This is all a result of the Supreme Court's disastrous and misguided decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. This is the decision that opened the floodgates to unlimited and secret corporate and special interest money pouring into our elections.

This chart shows how easy it is under our current system for wealthy interests to skirt existing disclosure rules and spend secret millions in election ads. This amounts to a form of legalized political money laundering or, to use the phrase Senator McCain and I used in our brief to the Supreme Court, ``identity laundering.''

Super PACs are supposed to disclose their donors under current law, but that can sometimes be weeks or months after a deceptive ad runs. If a donor wants to avoid even that disclosure, it can set up a shell corporation, which may be nothing more than a P.O. box someplace, and send the money through that super PAC through a shell corporation without a real name showing up on a disclosure form. They just launder it through the shell corporation, and the next thing they know the money is doing their work.

They can also pass the money through a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization. I put the words ``social welfare'' in quotes because that is the IRS phrase that is used for these organizations. There is very little social welfare being accomplished by the big political donor groups known as social welfare associations. The IRS gives nonprofit status to these groups whose primary purpose--and in many cases their only purpose--is to shield big spenders from having their identities disclosed. In many cases, these 501(c)(4) so-called social welfare groups are so closely affiliated with the super PACs that they have all the same staff and the same office space. It is a 501(c)(4) independent social welfare organization for the IRS with the same staff and the same office space as a super PAC. Please. Of course, the 501(c)(4) groups still don't have to disclose their donors, even when they are the same staff and the same office as the super PAC.

On this chart, we see the money raised by one of them, Citizens United, by Republican political operatives, including Karl Rove. They raised money through the Crossroads PAC. It is a super PAC, and it is supposed to disclose its donor. It has attached to it Crossroads GPS, a 501(c)(4) group that is not the super PAC and it can maintain complete secrecy for its donors. Guess which one has raised the most money. It is an easy question. It is the 501(c)(4) group that doesn't have to disclose its donors. The group raised $76.8 million through 2011 as opposed to only $46.4 million raised by its sister super PAC. This is by no means a unique situation.

As the New York Times wrote in an editorial last Sunday in support of the DISCLOSE Act, ``Corporations love the secrecy provided by Mr. Rove's group because it protects them from scrutiny

by nosy shareholders and consumers.'' They want a big influence on elections but without leaving any tracks.

An unnamed corporate lobbyist told the newspaper Politico earlier this year that nondisclosure is always preferred by corporate donors. Why is it preferred? Because it makes it impossible for the public and law enforcement to track down the corrupting influence of the money that these corporations spend in elections. The DISCLOSE Act puts an end to this nonsense. It puts an end to using 501(c)(4) groups and shell corporations to shield the identities of big donors.

One thing that should not be lost in the discussion of anonymous spending is the fact that there is one person to whom this spending is never anonymous; that is, the candidate who is either benefited or punished. Although the donors have managed to hide their identities from the public, they can sure tell the candidate how much money they are putting in the candidate's super PAC and, by the way, what position they want that candidate to take on issues. What this creates is a perfect recipe for corruption--wealthy corporations, individuals, and special interests secretly spending millions of dollars to influence a candidate in ways the public never sees.

A rich donor can secretly threaten massive spending against a candidate without even putting up the money. If the candidate doesn't take the right position on an issue, then they can pull the trigger, but they can make the threat quietly.

Political scientist Norm Ornstein recently said:

I had this tale told to me by a number of lawmakers. You're

sitting in your office and a lobbyist comes in and says,

``I'm working for Americans for a Better America. And I can't

tell you who's funding them, but I can tell you they really,

really want this amendment in the bill.'' And who knows what

they'll do. They have more money than God.

If the candidate complies, of course, the expenditure is never made, there is no paper trail, no trace of that threat. Yet the system has been corrupted. Let's also dispense with the fiction that this spending is independent. The whole rationale for unlimited spending was that it was to be done independently of candidate campaigns. The reality is that super PACs are anything but independent. Campaigns and super PACS share fundraising lists, donors, former staff, and consultants. Candidates appear at fundraisers for their super PACs. Super PACs recycle ads that were originally run by the candidates. They share film. They are free to act as the evil twins of candidate campaigns, as one FEC Commissioner put it, raising unlimited, secret money, and then spending it on massive amounts of advertising--most of it negative--to benefit their preferred candidates.

Our campaign finance system is broken, and it lends itself to corruption in new and unprecedented ways. Immediate action is required to fix it. Today we are debating a bill that will at least bring some transparency and accountability into this election spending. This should not be a Democratic issue or a Republican issue, and in the past, it has not been. It has always had bipartisan support because it is about protecting our Democratic process. We need to pass the DISCLOSE Act now.

The USA Today editorial said:

Citizens United left the public only one way to protect

itself from the rising threat: Disclosure. At the federal

level, this would be achieved by the DISCLOSE Act.

I thank USA Today for supporting this bill.

The Supreme Court also made it crystal clear in this very Citizens United decision that disclosure was an appropriate and even a necessary part of a healthy campaign finance system. Here is what Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, writing for the majority:

[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 new version of the DISCLOSE Act will do exactly this. It says nothing more and nothing less than when corporations and other wealthy interests spend money--more than $10,000--to influence our elections, their identities must be disclosed.

There is no question where the American people stand on this issue. Americans of all political stripes are disgusted by the influence of unlimited, anonymous corporate cash in our elections and by campaigns that succeed or fail depending on how many billionaires the candidate has in his pocket--or advisers, perhaps. More and more, people feel their government responds only to wealthy and corporate interests. They see their jobs disappear. They see their wages stagnate. They see bailouts and special deals for the big guys. And they lose faith that their elected officials will listen to them.

Six in ten Americans say the middle class will not catch a break in this economy until we reduce the influence of lobbyists, big banks, and big donors. Seven in ten Americans, nearly, including a majority of both Democrats and Republicans, agree that ``new rules that let corporations, unions, and people give unlimited money to super PACs will lead to corruption.'' Notwithstanding what the NRA and the chamber and other big DC lobbying powerhouses want, they are at odds with the regular American people. Indeed, one in four Americans says they are actually less likely to vote because big donors to super PACs have so much more influence over elected officials than average Americans.

These numbers should be a call to arms for anyone who believes our American democracy is one of our world's shining jewels and should be scrupulously, carefully, ardently protected. Indeed, people are answering this call to arms in numbers that are increasing every day.

I have with me today here on the Senate floor 213,000 Americans-- 213,000 citizen cosponsors of this DISCLOSE Act, which were collected by CREDO Action. My colleagues can leaf through them and see people from Apple Valley, MN; from San Francisco, CA; from Ashland, OR; from Austin, TX; from Long Beach, NY; from Imperial, NE; from Yorktown Heights, NY; from Brick, NJ; from Schaumburg, IL; people from all across the country--nearly a quarter of a million of them now--coming from all 50 States, and more than 1,000 Rhode Islanders are in this group. Unlike the corporations and the billionaires who are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy our elections and who insist on doing it in secret, these regular people are unashamed to stand up for what they believe in. Their pride in civic engagement reflects the best values of America, and their numbers show that this is an issue where a broad cross-section of Americans demand a change to what is happening in our elections.

Justice Antonin Scalia has written:

Requiring people to stand up in public for their political

acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is

doomed.

Our friends who have signed on as citizen cosponsors have that courage, and the biggest campaign spenders in the world should as well. Frankly, even those big campaign spenders should be patriotic enough to understand, as Justice Scalia did, that democracy is doomed without civic courage, and they should step up on their own. But, instead, they are hiding behind the rules and hiding their identities and trying to buy influence.

I will conclude by saying that prior to Citizens United, there was a long bipartisan tradition supporting laws that require disclosure of spending in elections. This bipartisan consensus may be reemerging. Senator John McCain of Arizona and I recently filed with the Supreme Court a brief that urged the Court to reconsider the flawed premise of its decision in Citizens United--the false premise that independent expenditures can't lead to corruption or the appearance of corruption. As the statistics about anonymous spending and public perception I have cited make clear, this premise has been fully discredited.

Although the Supreme Court declined this opportunity to put our elections back on a saner path, I am proud to have worked in a bipartisan fashion on that brief with Senator McCain, who has long been a leader in this Congress and in this country on campaign finance issues. I hope our partnership will mark the beginning of greater cooperation across party lines on this issue of vital importance to our democracy.

There are some misconceptions about the act that have colored the public debate. We plan to explain during the course of the debate why the critics of this bill have gotten so many things just plain wrong. This act contains only the most basic provisions requiring outside groups to disclose campaign-related fundraising and spending. The legislation has been streamlined from the DISCLOSE Act that nearly passed the Senate in 2010. It places fewer burdens on covert administrations. It contains no prohibitions on spending, no special exemptions for any group or type of group. Contrary to what the Republican leader said, it does not require grassroots organizations to disclose their donors, and it treats every organization exactly the same right across the board.

Some have complained, such as a Republican witness in the Rules Committee hearing on this bill, that the so-called stand-by-your-ad requirements originally in the bill were too burdensome. He described them, actually, as radical. So we removed them. We have tried to accommodate. I know that many of my colleagues, including Senator Ron Wyden, who authored this stand-by-your-ad legislation and who has heroically fought for it for many years, remained very supportive of these provisions, and I hope we will be able to reintroduce them at another time. But we didn't, so that complaint should be closed off. Some complain that this was just an attempt to influence this election. Well, its effective date is January 1, 2013, so it will not, to the regret of many, influence this election.

According to Republican former FEC Chairman Trevor Potter, the DISCLOSE Act of 2012 is ``appropriately targeted, narrowly tailored, clearly constitutional and desperately needed.''

I stand ready to work with any of my colleagues, Democrats or Republicans, who want to make this bill better, but we can't use complaints--particularly unjustified complaints--as an excuse to do nothing.

While the status quo of unlimited secret money may work to benefit some politicians for the moment, in the long run it will hurt us all, regardless of party. Unlimited money is not a force that anyone can ultimately hope to control, and unlimited secret money is even more dangerous. More important, the American people, who are already beginning to lose faith in our electoral system, can reasonably fear that their elected officials will only care about the anonymous donors writing eight-figure checks in deals and gifts that they will never see.

Many of my Republican colleagues in the Senate know this, and they have supported disclosure in the past. Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, for instance, was once a great advocate for disclosure. As he said in 2000, ``Republicans are in favor of disclosure,'' adding, ``Why would a little disclosure be better than a lot of disclosure?'' That question is as timely today as it was then.

I hope my Republican colleagues will join us in passing this important piece of legislation. Help us restore the fundamental principle of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The Washington Post wrote yesterday in an editorial supporting this DISCLOSE Act:

We'd like to see a few courageous Republicans rise in the

Senate on Monday and declare: Enough is enough.

If our friends across the aisle decide to block this legislation which clearly reflects the will of the American people, I am prepared to force this issue by debating this bill long into the night. If they are unwilling to join us in our mission to shine a light on secret money elections, we will keep the lights on here.

I urge my colleagues to support the DISCLOSE Act of 2012.

I thank the Presiding Officer, and I yield the floor.

Madam President, in 1822, the Founding Father James Madison wrote:

A popular government without popular information or the

means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a

tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern

ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors

must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives.

A vote for DISCLOSE is a vote to arm the people with the power that knowledge gives, to arm them with the popular information about elections--information necessary to prevent this

great popular government of ours from becoming a special interest farce, information necessary to protect this democracy from the tragedy, as John McCain predicted, of scandal that will result.

Give the American people the information they need to be their own governors. Vote for DISCLOSE.

I yield back the remainder of our time.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Inhofe be recognized for 15 minutes for his remarks regarding the Law of the Sea, that Senator Shaheen and Senator Klobuchar then be recognized, and then for the duration of today's session Senators be able to speak for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I know we have Senator Hagan, Senator Bennet, and Senator Franken all here waiting, but I would like to do some quick parliamentary business that needs to be accomplished.

Resolutions Submitted Today

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration en bloc of the following resolutions which were submitted earlier today: S. Res. 520, 521, 522, and 523.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolutions be agreed to, the preambles be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the resolutions be printed in the Record at the appropriate place as if read.

In conclusion, I note that S. Res. 520 recognizes the 103rd anniversary of the founding of the NAACP, which for reasons I will discuss later, is an interesting irony in today's debate coming from the Republican side.

I will now yield to Senator Bennet of Colorado, and he will be followed by Senator Hagan.

Mr. President, may I ask the Senator from Colorado that in an environment in which the bulk of the political spending is being done by outside groups and the bulk of the outside spending groups is secret, what is the likelihood of those goals being accomplished with the best interests of the American people in mind and not with the best interests of the special interests behind those secret donations in mind?

Mr. President, Senator Coons will be joining us very shortly. He was on the floor a moment ago and will be back very shortly. I wish to take a moment before he returns--here he is. I will not take a moment before he returns.

I yield the floor to the Senator from Delaware. I await hearing from him.

Mr. President, let me thank Senator Coons for his remarks, echo one point he made, and make an announcement.

The point I wish to echo is that the importance of American democracy and of clean American elections does, indeed, extend beyond our borders, as Senator Coons mentioned from his role as the chair of the Subcommittee on Africa in the Foreign Relations Committee.

I grew up in the Foreign Service and served on the Intelligence Committee. I have traveled pretty widely in that role. There is a reason Presidents have talked about our Nation as a city on the hill. There is a reason Presidents have described our Nation as a lamp raised in the darkness, that the glow from what we accomplish lights the world. There is a reason the hymn ``America The Beautiful'' talks about how our ``alabaster cities gleam.'' There is not much gleam on those alabaster cities tonight, not after this vote. There is a lot of mud on the walls of those cities, and it is going to get worse unless we pass this vote.

And people get it, which brings me to my announcement, which is that up to this evening, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee has had 34,269 Americans sign its petition supporting the DISCLOSE Act. Demand Progress has had over 50,000 Americans sign up for its petition supporting the DISCLOSE Act. CREDO Action, as I mentioned earlier, has had 213,000 Americans--213,000 Americans--sign up as citizen cosponsors of the DISCLOSE Act. This stack of papers I have in the Chamber has 57 names to a page--213,000 Americans who really put their name down there, something that, evidently, the big, sneaky donors are not willing to do and our colleagues are not willing to force them to do.

And DISCLOSEAct.com has 320,378 signatures supporting the DISCLOSE Act. That Web site got so much activity earlier tonight, as we rolled into this vote, that the Web site crashed from the activity of Americans trying to be a part of the debate we are having here, trying to make their voices heard because they perfectly well understand that these big special interests--the ones that do not want how and why they spend their money in politics to be known to anybody--they do not have Americans' best interests at heart, and they see this coming, and they want to fight back.

That total is 617,000 Americans who have signed up to have our backs and to support this bill.

So as we go forward into the remarks from Senator Pryor, Senator Blumenthal, and then Senator Franken, we should know that it is not just the one, two, three, four, five, six of us who are now in this Chamber. For each one of us, there are 100,000 Americans who are behind us and want this to happen.

May I follow up on the points that Senator Merkley made. The comparison he made to the constitutional change that took the Senate from election by State legislators to direct election by the people is very much a model for what is happening here. There was a desire to get the vote away from the special interests and put it in the hands of the actual people.

Here it is a desire to get the spending, the money behind the vote, out of the hands of the special interests and back to the people. What Citizens United did was to go backwards, open the flood gates of special interest money, and allow it to be secret. Try to put ordinary voters up against that kind of a force. It is not fair to ordinary voters. It is not right. In some respects it puts the right they are taking up inside out, and that is the right of freedom of speech.

I think we all have seen the four freedoms, the posters by Norman Rockwell. Perhaps the most famous of those posters is the one of the fellow in the tan windbreaker jacket, a thin guy. He is standing up tall surrounded by people, clearly at a townhall meeting. Why is he standing and what is he doing? He is speaking. He is having his say.

The way Citizens United worked out, they are basically saying we do not have a constitutional right to speak. We have a constitutional right to listen. We have a constitutional right to listen when big money speaks. It is essentially a shut-up-and-listen-to-the-big-money version of the first amendment. When money is speech, which is the principle of Citizens United, guess what. Those with the most money get the most speech.

Those who do not have a lot of money do not get a lot of speech, and those who have no money get no speech. That is not what the Founders intended. So there is a strong similarity between the move to take the vote and put it in popular hands and what we are trying to do with disclosure, which is put the money in popular hands. We cannot do that under Citizens United.

With the DISCLOSE Act, at least you know what is going on. You can look at the game that is being played. It is cards up on the table. If you are being denied the ability to speak on even terms with the CEO or a billionaire or a major corporation or some big lobbying group, at least you have the right to know what they are doing, what they are saying, what is going on. You can keep score. When you get together, you can get mad and do something about it.

Behind the veil of secrecy you cannot even keep score. You do not know what is going on.

Mr. President, I was a prosecutor for many years. I was the U.S. attorney for our State. I was the attorney general for our State. When you are prosecuting crimes, there is one very important thing that you always look for. Motive. You look for a motive. And I think one of the things that is obvious to all Americans is that the folks who engage in unlimited election spending do so because they have a motive. Someone may give $1,000 here or there because they are passionate about an issue. They may give $20 because they know the councilman who is running. But these folks who are giving $4 million at a hike, they are doing it because they have a motive, and it is important for the public to know what that motive is.

So now you take the next step. If it is unlimited, it is to open the doors for the people who have a motive. If it is secret, what does it tell you about that motive? If it is secret, what it tells you about that motive is that it is a bad motive for the American people.

This goes back to the point Senator Landrieu and Senator Merkley were making, whether it is trying to help get your kids through college, not having to pay the increased interest rates, to be able to get a Pell grant or whether it is paying to put food on the table or trying to get a decent job--and Rhode Island still has 11 percent unemployment--you can name your issue.

If this special interest, unlimited, secret money was aligned with what the American people want, they would not be fighting about this. They would not care whether it was secret. They need it to be secret. They filibustered this bill because they know those special interest motives are against the public interest, against the interests of the American people. There is no other logic.

There is no reason people would give that much money in a race-- unlimited money--if they didn't have a motive. There is no reason they would want their behavior to be secret unless that motive was bad. There is no other explanation.

That is a fascinating development. I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but I will try. My recollection is that before the super PACs kicked off with all this, 9 percent of the ads were negative in the last election cycle, at a time when 78 percent, I want to say, were negative--or 70 percent. It went from 9 percent being negative the cycle before--the Presidential cycle before--to 70 percent being negative now. That is nearly eight times as much negativity--more than half, nearly three-quarters, where it was less than 1 in 10 before--an explosion of negativity.

So we know that is happening. The other thing we know is happening is it is misleading. It is not accurate. It is deceptive. The Annenberg Institute has done a study of the top four outside spenders--outside political spenders that aren't campaigns or parties--these special influence manipulating machines. The top four--they looked at their ads and, if I remember the figure correctly, 76 percent of them contained information that was deceptive.

There it is, 85 percent. I underestimated it.

If I can add an additional point that Senator McCain and I made in our brief to the U.S. Supreme Court opposing the Citizens United decision and asking for its reconsideration. It is terrible what these negative ads filled with deception do to the American public, and it is discouraging to people about the participation we expect of Americans and government and, ultimately, it leads to corruption, as the Senator points out. At least in the example Senator Landrieu gave, you see the spending. There is at least a dirty, deceptive, negative attack campaign up on the air. So it is not completely invisible. You just don't know who is behind it.

What that leaves open--again, this is the prosecutor in me talking-- is the threat of that same campaign--the visit from the lobbyist who comes in to the Congressman and sits him down in a quiet room and says: Have a look at this and places a 30-second commercial--negative, deceptive, slashing, vitriolic, vile, all against him, and says, you know what, under Citizens United, we have the right to spend $5 million playing that ad against you all through the next election, and we are thinking about doing it. You know what, under Citizens United, we have the right to put up phony shell corporations so they will never see our fingerprints. The only thing the public will see is Americans for peace, puppies, and prosperity. That will be the phony name we are going to use. If you vote right, this will be the last time you hear from me. If you don't vote right, you are going to hear $5 million worth from me through my shell companies. How are you going to vote?

If the Congressman gives way to that kind of pressure--pressure that was never possible before Citizens United and is not as possible if it is not secret--then you have no clues and you have actual corruption and the system is even worse than what we see out there.

In some respect, as awful as what we see is that it might be the iceberg that you see above the water and the 90 percent that is under the water that you don't see could be worse still.

That is an interesting question. One would have to look into the hearts of those five Justices to get the answer to it. But why they would be willing to make such a dramatic, activist move without working with four other colleagues to try to bring them along-- why it is always those five making these activist steps toward the Republican agenda is a question I can't answer. What is their motive? They know that in their hearts. I don't.

One can observe that over and over again, the five Justices who are performing the Republican role on that Supreme Court are delivering the goods and doing things that advance the Republican agenda. That is not me talking, those are people who have followed this Court for decades-- the most prominent writers about the Supreme Court--who noted that fact.

In effect, that is what they did. The famous expression that ``corporations are people, my friends,'' is the expression actually of Governor Romney. But it sort of attached itself to the Citizens United decision, which doesn't actually use those words. But it does treat corporations as having the same rights in the political process as human beings do. They don't have consciences because they are not human.

They don't have children. They don't have aspirations.

They don't have souls because they are not human. They don't have goals. They don't have all the things that make us different and make us human. But, evidently, they have the same rights. Because they don't truly exist, it is a legal fact that they are a legal fiction. What that is doing is empowering the people behind the corporation, the people who control the corporation, ultimately.

Madam President, I will be the last speaker for tonight. Let me close with a number of thank-yous.

First, let me thank the Presiding Officer, Senator Landrieu of Louisiana, for staying past the midnight hour to help keep the Senate open. Let me thank Senator Merkley, who has been--to the extent one can be enthusiastic about staying until this hour, there he is, smiling. Yes, ``enthusiastic'' is the right word. He was part of a group Senator Schumer organized himself, along with Senator Michael Bennet, Senator Tom Udall, Senator Al Franken, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Senator Jeff Merkley, and myself, who worked together to redraft this legislation, trim it down, and to organize today's vote and events and tomorrow's vote. So I thank all of them for their enormously hard work.

I thank the pages, who have had to stay very late, and the floor staff, who have had to stay very late. I appreciate the fact that we have put a burden on them and on their families, and we would not be doing that if we didn't consider this to be a very important issue.

I wish to thank the entire Democratic caucus for their support. Our colleague Bill Nelson has had a unique experience. He has actually ridden a rocket up into space. He has been up with the NASA program as an astronaut. In some respects, I feel that I and others who were leading this were really doing nothing more than riding a rocket of the enthusiasm of our caucus to get this thing done for the sake of our country.

I thank the American people, who went out of their way to have their voices heard in this debate. We know the public is strongly behind this.

Six in ten Americans say the middle class isn't going to catch a break while the big lobbyists and big donors control things in Washington. Americans get that you don't spend this kind of money without a motive, and they get that if you will only do it in secret, it is probably not a good motive. They can figure this out, so they understand. Seven out of ten believe super PACs should be outright illegal--not secret, but illegal. Seven in ten agree with the statement that new rules that let corporations, unions, and people give unlimited money to super PACs will lead to corruption. Seventy percent of Americans agree with that. Seventy-seven percent want to reform the campaign finance laws and consider that to be very important. As a number of my colleagues have said, one in four Americans is so upset by what this has done to degrade American democracy. They think it makes them actually less likely to go out and vote because they figure, why bother, this is just a racket at this point.

These numbers really should be a call to arms for the people who believe America is, in fact, a city on a hill, the American exceptionalists--of which I consider myself to be one--the lamp held up to other nations, the alabaster city is gleaming. That is all for real, but the Citizens United decision and the failure to support us on DISCLOSE does nothing for that.

But it wasn't just the polling that brought that up to a lot of people. People came online in a very big way to participate in this debate--617,000. Mr. President, 617,000 Americans have signed up as supporters of the DISCLOSE Act now on a variety of different Web sites, including DISCLOSE Act.Com. DISCLOSE Act.Com got so much activity just before the vote that the public interest in it actually crashed the Web site. So the American public is really paying attention. I thank those folks who paid attention, and I thank those who set up the opportunities for those Americans to have their voices heard. I appreciate it very much.

I want to thank some of the leading newspapers in this country for their editorial support in the past few days. I have already spoken before about the New York Times' editorial, so I won't go back and repeat it at length, except for the phrase they used:

Corporations love the secrecy . . . because it protects

them from scrutiny by nosey shareholders and consumers.

The Washington Post had a very strong editorial entitled ``Expose the Fat Cats.'' It said the following things:

Not a single Republican in the chamber has expressed

support for the Disclose Act . . . It should be interesting

to hear how the Republican senators justify this monumental

concealment of campaign cash.

They allude to the Watergate break-in and the bad old days of unregulated cash contributions and describe what has happened recently after Citizens United as, ``We seem to have created the political equivalent of secret Swiss bank accounts.''

They asked the question, Who is writing checks for $10 million or $1 million at a single throw? And what do they want? We don't know. This shadowy bazaar undermines our political system. They note that until recently Republicans supported full disclosure. Now that the tide of money is running in their favor, they don't. They described this DISCLOSE bill as a reasonable bill that would, among other things, require identification of donors of $10,000 or more to certain organizations that spend money on political campaigns, and they close with this question and this observation: There is a very good chance that when some government decision or vote comes along next year, responsible politicians will find themselves haunted by the secret money of the 2012 campaign.

Is it really worth it? The Washington Post asks: Do these donors deserve to remain hidden? Why can't they handle a little sunshine?

I want to thank USA Today for a July 6 editorial supporting this: ``Freed by the Supreme Court from spending limits,'' they observed, ``all manner of special interests are opening the spigots to buy influence.''

``Especially worrisome,'' USA Today points out, ``are secret donations, which are proliferating. A corrupting influence in any campaign, secret money is even more dangerous in less expensive races where it can buy a seat in Congress or a state legislature, without voters knowing who the buyers are or what their agenda is.''

USA Today folks said:

Citizens United left the public only one way to protect

itself from the rising threat disclosure. At the federal

level, this would be achieved by the Disclose Act. . . .

Today's version, scheduled for Senate debate this month,

requires that all groups--social welfare, union and

business--report all expenditures and all donations more than

$10,000.

They fear that ``the inevitable result is that come November, voters in many closely contested races will make their decisions based on a late flood of ads of dubious credibility paid for by people whose names and motives are unknown. How long it will take voters to realize they're getting conned and demand disclosure is anyone's guess.''

I will briefly point out that the claim that the DISCLOSE Act favors unions is a complete nonstarter as a criticism. The bill is very short. It has very big print. You can read it very quickly. There is nothing in the bill that gives unions any advantage over any other form of organization. It is just not there.

I have challenged Republican colleagues to point to a single provision or make a single counterproposal, and they have done neither. The DISCLOSE Act applies equally to all corporations, period, end of story.

The $10,000 threshold eliminates another problem, which is this business

that membership organizations are going to have to disclose their donor list. As recently as today, the Republican leader said this will force organizations to disclose their donor lists. It won't. Not at a $10,000 threshold. You can get a lifetime membership in the National Rifle Association for $1,000. If you are a cat and you have nine lives, you can get nine lifetime memberships in the NRA and still not break the $10,000 threshold. It will catch 93 percent of the money that goes into the super PACs because it goes in in such big chunks.

So it is a good number to use. It protects the small membership organizations but hits virtually all the big donors. Clearly, it is not an attack on the first amendment. This charge has its roots only in the opponents' imagination, not in the U.S. Constitution. It contains no restrictions or limitations on speech of any kind. None. Pure disclosure legislation, plain and simple, as my Republican colleagues have heretofore usually supported.

The Court, in Citizens United, fully supported disclosure. Prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions.

An important point, going back to the words that began this vote, from our Founding Father James Madison: A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. The Supreme Court recognized this, and clearly it is constitutional.

The last is the argument that this bill in some way will intimidate the big spenders. First of all, the idea of the billionaire Koch brothers or gigantic coal barons or ExxonMobil--the largest corporation in the world--being intimidated by the unkind words of some blogger is preposterous on its face.

Second, Justice Scalia has said: Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.

May I point out that it is a rather small courage. On the way here this afternoon, I passed through the trolley lobby. Down in the trolley lobby was a young marine from Pennsylvania who had lost both his legs to an IED explosion in Afghanistan. We can ask our young men and women to travel the roads of Kandahar and to risk blowing off their legs and coming home like that young man, but we can't ask billionaire big spenders to even show who they are even though, clearly, the link to motive and influence and control and corruption is apparent? It is a ridiculous proposition, and I hope my colleagues will not persist in following it.

They have even compared themselves to the NAACP during the civil rights movement--Black families burned out of their homes, and they compare the Koch brothers being criticized by bloggers to that. It simply isn't so, and it simply isn't right.

I will conclude by saying that we are not done. This is too important. It is too important for what America stands for. It is too important for the middle class who are going to be losers in the debates that are influenced and corrupted by special interest money. It is too important for the world which depends on the example that America provides.

So we didn't have any luck today. We are going to vote again tomorrow. I urge my colleagues to vote with us. But even if we don't win tomorrow, we will be back again and again and again.

When Joshua took the Israelites around the city of Jericho, they went around and around blowing their rams horns so that those walls would come tumbling down. It didn't happen on the first circuit, it didn't happen on the second. According to the Bible, Joshua had to go around the city of Jericho seven times before the walls came tumbling down. I don't care if we have to do this 7 times or 77 times; we are going to do this because it is right.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that for the duration of today's session, Alex Link, Rob Famigletti, and Samantha Freeman, who are fellows on my Judiciary Committee staff, be granted floor privileges.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that privileges of the floor be granted to the following Members of Senator Franken's staff: Whitney Brown and Joel Salomon, for the rest of today's session.

I ask unanimous consent that at 3 p.m. Tuesday, July 17, the motion to proceed to the motion to reconsider the vote by which cloture was not invoked on the motion to proceed to S. 3369 be agreed to; that the motion to reconsider be agreed to; and the Senate proceed to the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 3369, the DISCLOSE Act, upon reconsideration.

I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. on Tuesday, July 17; that following the prayer and pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, and the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that the majority leader be recognized and the time until 12:30 p.m. be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees, with the Republicans controlling the first 30 minutes and the majority controlling the second 30 minutes; and that the Senate recess from 12:30 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. to allow for the weekly caucus meetings; finally, that the time from 2:15 until 3 p.m. be equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees.

Mr. President, today at 3 p.m. there will be a cloture vote on the motion to proceed to S. 3369, the DISCLOSE Act, which we have discussed at such length tonight, upon reconsideration.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the DISCLOSE Act of 2012. This is legislation that will shine a bit of needed light into the flood of secret money in our elections. I would like to start with particular thanks to Senators Chuck Schumer, Michael Bennet, Al Franken, Jeff Merkley, Jeanne Shaheen, and Tom Udall for their hard work on developing the legislation. I look forward to joining them as this debate goes forward.

This morning the majority leader moved to proceed to this vital piece of legislation. I thank him. I and many of my colleagues are looking forward to the opportunity to make the case in

this Chamber for this important piece of legislation. In a sense, that case has already been made. As anyone who watches television knows, our airwaves are filled with negative political attack ads. The organizations that pay for these negative political attack ads all have patriotic-sounding names dotted with words like ``prosperity,'' ``freedom,'' and ``future.'' The names sound harmless, but they are phony. All too often the ads are paid for by secret special interests, billionaires, and wealthy corporations seeking special secret influence in our democracy and drowning out the voices of middle-class American families.

As USA Today put it just last week in an editorial supporting this DISCLOSE Act, ``Everybody's watching what's expected to be by far the most expensive presidential campaign in history, and not without a dose of horror. Freed by the Supreme Court from spending limits, all manner of special interests are opening the spigots to buy influence.'' That is exactly right, ``All manner of special interests are opening the spigots to buy influence,'' and because their money is secret, the American public doesn't even know who is behind the negative political attack ads other than the phony name.

Here is how my home State paper, the Providence Journal, reacted to the original Citizens United decision that has unleashed this torrent of secret special interest money:

The [Citizens United] ruling will mean that, more than

ever, big-spending economic interests will determine who gets

elected. More money will especially pour into relentless

attack campaigns. Free speech for most individuals will

suffer because their voices will count for even less than

they do now. They will simply be drowned out by the big

money.

The Providence Journal could not have been proven out more correctly by the events that have taken place since.

Senator John McCain said earlier this year:

I predicted when the United States Supreme Court, with

their absolute ignorance of what happens in politics, struck

down [the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law], that there

would be a flood of money into campaigns, not transparent,

unaccounted for, and this is exactly what is happening.

Senator McCain was right. Campaigns are no longer waged by candidates and parties fighting over ideas; they are now waged by shadowy political attack groups posing as social welfare organizations, run by political operatives, linked to specific candidates, and fueled by millions of undisclosed dollars from secret special interests. When these secretive special interests take over our elections, it puts in jeopardy the key supports of a strong middle class, supports such as Social Security, Medicare, Pell grants, a progressive tax system, and things that have paved the way for generations to achieve the American dream.

Why do I say that? I say that because these special interests have motives to spend this kind of money. If those motives were good for America, would they be so desperate to keep what they are doing secret? I don't think so.

Americans who worry now that Washington listens too much to the special interests, strap in, look out, and hang on to your wallet because a secret special interest avalanche is underway. According to a study in April, 90 percent of the money being spent by super PACs, nonprofits, and other outside groups to elect the President of the United States is coming from secret sources, secretive corporations, and billionaires whose names and motives the voters may never know and who will have no accountability for how that money is spent.

When there is no accountability for how money is spent because the phony front organization that purports to be spending it isn't real and the real party and interest has hidden behind a veil of secrecy, then there is no limit on what people will say. It is accountability that keeps public dialog in reasonable check. That is why you and I, Mr. President, are obliged at the end of our campaign advertisements to say: I am Senator Whitehouse, and I approve this message. I am Senator Coons, and I approve this message.

Well, relieved from that accountability, about 70 percent of the ads in this election cycle have been negative. That is up from 9 percent in 2008. I will say it again: 70 percent, up from 9 percent, as this flood of secret special interest money has hit.

Even worse, if we look at the four top-spending political 501(c)(4)s--the secret organizations, the ones that hide their donors-- and what they have done in the last 6 months, an estimated 85 percent of their election spending was spent on ads that contained deceptions, according to a recent analysis by the Annenberg Public Policy Center. So we unhinge any real person from accountability for this spending. The special interests behind it remain secret, and the ads become virtually exclusively negative attack ads and they are riddled with deception.

This is what the Supreme Court thought free speech looked like. This is all the result of that disastrous decision by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission which opened the floodgates of secret, anonymous special interest money. I think it was a deliberate decision, but that is a discussion for another day. For today, our purpose is to point out that the campaign finance system, as a result, is broken and it lends itself to corruption in new and unprecedented ways.

The Supreme Court, in the Citizens United decision, in its blissful ignorance, never even considered what happens behind the scenes. They talked only about the public debate and the public expenditure of this money. They assumed it would be independent of the candidates, and they were wrong. They assumed it would be transparent as to who was behind it, and they were wrong. They also assumed that what was put on the air was the end of the issue. They took no consideration of the behind-the-scenes meeting where the special interest comes in to meet the Congressman and doesn't spend $5 million in secretly funded negative attack ads but threatens to. And if the threat works, they buy the vote, nobody ever sees an ad, and the institution of government is corrupted.

It is one thing if it is a company and they say: Well, I am going to be against you, and my CEO is going to have a party and raise money in $5,000 increments against you, and our PAC is going to give a $10,000 check to your opponent. We are going to tell our workers that you are not a good person for our industry.

OK, that is not great, but it is nowhere near as dangerous as being able to say: We are going to put $5 million into a secret campaign of negative attack ads against you, and nobody is going to know it is us. If you play right and do what you are told, we will lay off, but otherwise, look out, we are coming after you. It will be hidden, it will be negative, and it will be nasty.

That is no way to run a democracy. So today the majority leader has moved to a bill that will bring at least transparency and accountability to our elections. At least these big special interests will have to say who they are. Then we as Americans can evaluate what their motives are, what the deal might be, whether we are actually aligned with their interests, and we can evaluate what they are saying about candidates. We will have more information. We will have a better quality of free speech. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. In fact, disclosure has never before been a Republican or Democratic issue. This is about protecting our democratic process as Americans.

I really look forward to debating this important measure with my colleagues in the upcoming days. I am joined by Americans of all political stripes who are disgusted by the influence of this unlimited secret money pouring into our elections. We are disgusted by campaigns that succeed or fail, that last or don't last, depending on how many billionaires the candidate has funding their campaign through these special organizations. More and more around this country, particularly in Rhode Island--the people I hear from at home--people feel this government responds only to wealthy and corporate interests. They feel the middle class can't catch a break, that nobody is listening, that everything is done for the big guys. They see their jobs disappear. They see their wages stagnate. They see bailouts and special deals for the big guys, and they lose faith that their elected officials are actually listening to them. If we thought that was a problem before, when at least it was public and at least we knew who the registered lobbyists were and who had

made the campaign contributions and at least we knew there were some reasonable limits on all that--all those gates have been knocked down. It is the Wild West now, and it is secret.

Six in ten Americans say the middle class will not catch a break in this economy until we reduce the influence of lobbyists, big banks, and big donors. Guess what. With these fountains of secret money behind them, their influence isn't being reduced; it is going to be dramatically increased--and increased in ways that lend themselves to corruption.

One out of every four Americans actually says they are less likely to even vote because they believe big donors and super PACs have so much more influence over elected officials than they do that they feel pushed out of the process, so why bother. That is a terrible blow to American democracy.

Nearly 7 in 10 Americans, including a majority of Democrats and Republicans, agree with this proposition: New rules that let corporations, unions, and people give unlimited money to super PACs will lead to corruption. One would think that is a blindingly obvious proposition. It escaped the five conservative members of the Supreme Court who decreed that was not going to be the case. Seven out of ten Americans disagree with them. I disagree with them. The closer we get to elections, the more we see that proposition is foolhardy.

So we have the DISCLOSE Act, a bill that Republican and former Federal Election Commission Chairman Trevor Potter said is appropriately targeted, narrowly tailored, clearly constitutional, and desperately needed. I very much hope we can join in this debate; that we can get this bill passed in the Senate; that we can clean up our elections and begin to do something about this foul avalanche of negative attack ads--again, 85 percent of them containing deception-- that are now polluting our public discourse.

Prior to the Citizens United decision and prior to the floodgates actually opening, there was a long and rich bipartisan tradition in this Senate of demanding disclosure of spending in elections. Many of our Republican colleagues in the Senate have loudly and clearly supported disclosure in the past, and I hope they will join us in passing this important piece of legislation. The fundamental principle of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people is a government that will listen to the people, not just to the big special interests that can afford massive secret money.

I urge my colleagues to support the DISCLOSE Act of 2012.

I thank the Presiding Officer.

I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.