Campaign Finance: Full Disclosure

Tougher campaign finance disclosure rules may soon be coming in the wake of a misguided U.S. Supreme Court decision that gutted key elements of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

The House is considering this week a bill that would force interest groups to tell the public who their top donors are when they run broadcast ads or send out mailings prior to elections. The bill also would ban campaign ads by government contractors, some subsidiaries of foreign companies and the banks that haven't repaid their bailout money to the government.

Congress should enact this proposal, which goes part of the way toward repairing the damage done by the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission. That decision will allow a flood of corporate and union giving to election campaigns. A vote in the House may come yet this week.

The Citizens United decision upended decades of established law by allowing corporations and unions unlimited spending on elections and, perversely, giving them the same free speech rights as human beings when it comes to political campaigns.

Nothing but overturning that decision will undo the damage completely, but legislation that establishes some new limits that can pass constitutional muster and that requires transparency is a good step.

Voters and shareholders have a right to know what companies and unions are doing with their money to influence elections.

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore, a Milwaukee Democrat, put it this way: "What this bill tries to get at are these phony, fly-by-night organizations, you know, Americans for a Free World, and it's really corporate money hiding behind patriotic symbols."

She's right. If there is going to be unlimited spending, the least the government can do is require groups to reveal who is doing the spending. The legislation under consideration in Congress would do that, and lawmakers should pass it.

REPRINTED FROM THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL.

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