Sen. Elizabeth Warren slams Republicans: Worry less about helping big banks

By Eric W. Dolan | RAW Story
Tuesday, March 12, 2013


Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts slammed Republicans on Tuesday for holding up the confirmation of Richard Cordray to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

At a Senate Banking Committee hearing, the progressive senator suggested Republicans were using false arguments to fight the nomination of Cordray. Warren, who was a key figure in setting up the relatively new agency, questioned why Republicans believed it was wrong for the CFPB to have a single director, but was acceptable in the case of numerous other agencies like the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

“I see nothing here but a filibuster threat against Director Cordray as an attempt to weaken the consumer agency,” Warren said. “I think the delay in getting him confirmed is bad for consumers, it’s bad for small banks, bad for credit unions, for anyone trying to offer an honest product in an honest market.”

“The American people deserve a Congress that worries less about helping big banks, and more about helping regular people who have been cheated on mortgages, on credit cards, on student loans and on credit reports,” she added.

The Consumer Bureau was created by the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to regulate financial services such as mortgages and credit cards. The agency issued new rules to restrict high-risk home loans in January and began looking into predatory private student lenders in February.

Senate Republicans previously blocked Cordray’s confirmation to the CFPB in 2011, but Cordray later became the director of the agency through a recess appointment. Republicans have called for the agency to have significantly reduced powers, claiming it currently lacks proper oversight.

Watch video, uploaded to YouTube by Sen. Warren, below:

America Shamed Again: A colonized people

February 17, 2013 | Paul Craig Roberts

Americans have been shamed many times by their elected representatives who cravenly bow to vested interests and betray the American people. But no previous disgraceful behavior can match the public shame brought to Americans by the behavior of the Senate Republicans in the confirmation hearing of Senator Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense.

Forty Senate Republicans made it clear that not only do they refuse to put their service to America ahead of their service to Israel, but also that they will not even put their service to America on a par with their service to Israel. To every American’s shame, the Republicans demonstrated for all the world to see that they are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Israel Lobby. (The Israel Lobby is not their only master. They are also owned by other powerful interest groups, such as Wall Street and the Corporate Military/Security Complex.)

The most embarrassing behavior of all came from the craven Lindsay Graham, who, while in the act of demonstrating his complete subservience by crawling on his belly before the Israel Lobby, dared Hagel to name one single person in the US Congress who is afraid of the Israel Lobby.

If I had been Hagel, I would have written off the nomination and answered: “You, Senator Graham, and your 40 craven colleagues.”

Indeed, Hagel could have answered: The entire US Congress, including Rand Paul who pretends to be different but isn’t.

The real question is: Who in the Congress is not afraid of the Israel Lobby?

The hatchet job on Hagel is driven by fear of the Israel Lobby.

Perhaps the worst affront Israel’s American representatives ever inflicted on the US military was the coverup of the Israeli air and torpedo boat attack on the USS Liberty in 1967. The Israeli attack failed to sink the Liberty but killed and wounded most of the crew. The survivors were ordered to silence, and it was 12 years before one of them spoke up and revealed what had happened (James Ennes, Assault On The Liberty). Not even Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff could get Washington to own up to the facts.

The facts are now well known, but as far as Washington is concerned they are dead letter facts. The entire event has been moved to some parallel universe.

Why are the Senate Republicans out to destroy Hagel for Israel?

The answer is, first, back when Hagel was a US Senator he refused to be intimidated by the Israel Lobby and declared, “I am a US Senator, not an Israeli Senator.” In other words, Hagel did the impermissible. He said he represented US interests, not Israel’s interests. Hagel’s position implies that the interests of the two countries are not identical, which is a heresy.

The second part of the answer is that Hagel doesn’t think that it is a good idea for the US to start a war with Iran or for the US to permit Israel to do so.

But a US war with Iran is what the Israeli government and its neoconservative agents have been trying to impose on the Obama regime. Israel wants to get rid of Iran, because Iran supports Hizbollah in Southern Lebanon, thus preventing Israel from annexing that territory and its water resources, and because Iran supports Hamas, the only Palestinian organization that tries to oppose Israel’s total theft of Palestine, although Iran has never supplied Hamas with effective weapons.

The two organizations that oppose Israel’s territorial expansion, Hizbollah and Hamas, represent large numbers of Arab peoples. Nevertheless, both are declared, on Israel’s orders, to be “terrorist organizations” by the servile US Department of State, which in all reality should be called the Israeli Department of State, as it never puts US interests before Israel’s.

In other words, Hagel did not grovel. He did not say how much he loved Israel and how it would be his great honor to sacrifice all other interests to Israel’s, how he has waited his entire life for the chance to serve Israel as the US Secretary of Defense.

Hagel is not an opponent of Israel. He merely said, “First, I am an American.” His lack of craven subservience is unacceptable to the Israel Lobby, which has branded him an “anti-semite.”

Lindsay Graham, in contrast, has what it takes to be Israel’s perfect choice for US Secretary of Defense.

Graham will go out of his way to please the Israel Lobby. He will pull out all stops and behave with maximum servility to a foreign power in his effort to embarrass the President of the United States and his nominee, a war veteran and former US Senator who simply thinks that the US Congress and the executive branch should put American interests first.

Senate Majority Leader Reid has used Senate rules to keep Hagel’s nomination alive.
If Lindsay Graham succeeds in doing the Israel Lobby’s dirty work, he will have handed a defeat of the US President to the Israeli Prime Minister, who has demeaned the President of the United States for not doing Israel’s bidding and attacking Iran.

Americans are a colonized people. Their government represents the colonizing powers: Wall Street, the Israel Lobby, the Corporate Military/Security Complex, Agribusiness, Pharmaceuticals, Energy, Mining, and Timber interests.

Two elected representatives who tried to represent the American people–Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich–found representative government to be an inhospitable place for those few who attempt to represent the interests of the American people.

Like Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and Gerald Celente, I stand with our Founding Fathers who opposed America’s entanglement in foreign wars. In an effort to prevent entanglements, the Founding Fathers gave the power to declare war to Congress. Over the years Congress has gradually ceded this power to the President to the extent that it no longer exists as a power of Congress. The President can start a war anywhere at any time simply by declaring that the war is not a war but a “time-limited, scope-limited, kinetic military action.” Or he can use some other nonsensical collection of words.

In the first few years of the 21st century, the executive branch has invaded two countries, violated the sovereignty of five others with military operations, and has established military bases in Africa in order to counteract China’s economic penetration of the continent and to secure the resources for US and European corporations, thus enlarging the prospects for future wars. If the Republicans succeed in blocking Hagel’s confirmation, the prospect of war with Iran will be boosted.

By abdicating its war power, Congress lost its control of the purse. As the executive branch withholds more and more information from Congressional oversight committees, Congress is becoming increasingly powerless. As Washington’s war debts mount, Washington’s attack on the social safety net will become more intense. Governmental institutions that provide services to Americans will wither as more tax revenues are directed to the coffers of special interests and foreign entanglements.

The tenuous connection between the US government and the interests of citizens is on its way to being severed entirely.

Congressional Research Service Report On Tax Cuts For Wealthy Suppressed By GOP

Ryan Grim  | Huffington Post

The New York Times reported on Thursday that Senate Republicans applied pressure to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) in September, successfully persuading it to withdraw a report finding that lowering marginal tax rates for the wealthiest Americans had no effect on economic growth or job creation.

"The pressure applied to the research service comes amid a broader Republican effort to raise questions about research and statistics that were once trusted as nonpartisan and apolitical," the Times reported. Democrats in Congress, however, have resurfaced the report and published it in full. It can be read below.

Republicans told the Times they had issues with the tone, wording and scope of the report, but they clearly objected most strongly to its findings, which undermine the governing fiscal philosophy of the party, that tax cuts for the wealthy will spur growth and benefit everybody.

GOP officials told The Times that the decision by the CRS came after a cooperative discussion, but Democrats have suggested that the move is part of a broader effort by Republicans to squelch legitimate research that runs counter to their economic principles.

The CRS report, by researcher Thomas Hungerford, concluded:

The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie. 

However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income disparities.

Rep. Sandy Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, demanded the CRS explain its decision. "The impartial research and advice provided by CRS experts informs and strengthens the work of Congress. However, this valuable role hinges on the impartiality of CRS analysts and their freedom from political pressure. As with other non-partisan institutions, subjecting CRS analysts to political considerations undermines the legislative process and the American people’s trust in it," Levin wrote in a letter to CRS. "Therefore I was deeply disturbed to hear that Mr. Hungerford’s report was taken down in response to political pressure from Congressional Republicans who had ideological objections to the report’s factual findings and conclusion."

(Scroll down for Hungerford's response in the UPDATE.)

The report is extensive, but the reasoning behind its conclusion is fairly straightforward. The richest Americans are the least likely to spend extra money they get as a result of a tax cut, and are more likely to save it or invest it offshore. Those on the lower end of the economic spectrum, meanwhile, are the most likely to spend transfer payments they receive from the government.

A release by the Democratic Policy & Communications Center on Wednesday accused Republicans of attempting to bury the report because its "findings undermine a central tenet of Republican party orthodoxy on taxes." They included a copy of the original report, which is available below:

 

 

UPDATE: 5:45 p.m. -- Thomas Hungerford, the CRS researcher who produced the report, told HuffPost that he stands by it. "Basically, the decision to take it down, I think The New York Times article basically got it right, that it was pressure from the Senate minority to take it down," Hungerford said. "CRS reports go through many layers of review before they're issued and as far as the tone and the conclusions go, people who specifically look at the writing and the tone said it was okay. So it's not going to be that and as I can tell you outright, I stand by the report and the analysis in the report." Hungerford said that he had never experienced suppression like this before, and he pushed back on the GOP argument that he had only looked at the effect of tax cuts in the year immediately following enactment. Regardless, he said, Republicans argue that tax breaks for the rich will bring an immediate benefit to the economy, so their criticism is inconsistent. "I checked out three years and then five years and found that no, it doesn't change the results or the conclusion of my paper. So in a way, I find it interesting that they keep talking about the need to lower the top tax rate in order to stimulate the economy now," he said. 'It sounds like they're being a little inconsistent here." Despite the pressure, Hungerford said he'll continue doing his job in a nonpartisan way. "I'm not going to change. My job is to do economic analysis on issues that the Congress is comparing and quite frankly, I'm going to continue doing that. That's my job," he said. The Times reported that Hungerford has given $5,000 this election cycle to Democrats. HuffPost asked if that biased his report in any way. "I leave any political baggage at the door when I walk into my office and pick it up on my way out. I'm there to provide help to members of both parties, which I do," Hungerford said.

Senate Republicans Want to Force the Unemployed to Work For Free

Along with efforts to drug-test the unemployed and deny benefits to those without high school diplomas, Republicans now want to make "volunteer" work a requirement.
By Laura Clawson, Daily Kos
Posted on February 12, 2012,

In recent months, Florida and South Carolina have talked about forcing people to "volunteer" for their unemployment insurance benefits, only to be told it was against federal law. Now, Senate Republicans want to change federal law to allow states to pass such laws but to require all long-term unemployed people to "volunteer" 20 hours a week to continue receiving benefits, with an additional bill introduced by North Carolina's Richard Burr calling for them to spend 20 hours a week looking for work. Those requirements could be added to Republican efforts to allow drug testing requirements and to deny unemployment insurance to people who don't have high school diplomas.

The number of job-seekers for every available job just dipped below 4 to 1 for the first time in nearly three years. There are still simply no jobs for more than two out of three people looking for jobs. Job-seekers receiving unemployment insurance benefits spend more timelooking for work and are more likely to have looked for work through five out of six different methods than people not receiving benefits. A law requiring them to spend 20 hours a week looking for work is nothing but an insult to people who are already searching desperately; making it a requirement would likely add a reporting burden that would either detract from their search or force them to spend time beyond their active job searching.

Forcing them to spend 20 hours a week "volunteering" additionally takes time people need for the very hard work of keeping their heads above water on limited means. And of course, creating an involuntary volunteer workforce is no kind of incentive to job-creation—why would any organization being provided free labor by the government ever create a job?

The are basically two reasons for measures like this. First,

"This proposal is very much about 'welfarizing' federal unemployment insurance benefits," said George Wentworth, a senior staff attorney with the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group. Wentworth noted that the bill borrows language from the 1996 welfare law. 

That is, it reframes unemployment insurance as something other than an insurance program that exists for all of us and that we work for. Second, such measures simply punish and stigmatize people for being jobless at a time when there simply are not jobs in the economy for them. Because Republicans are mean-spirited like that.

GOP Senators Vow to Block Any Nominee for Consumer Bureau

Friday, May 6, 2011 by The Hill

by Peter Schroeder 

 

Nearly every Republican senator is vowing to block any presidential nominee to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) unless major changes are made to the agency.

In a letter sent to the president Thursday, 44 GOP senators said that any pick to become the first director of the CFPB, regardless of political affiliation, will be unacceptable unless the bureau is significatly altered to reduce its "unfettered authority."

"The Dodd-Frank Act failed to provide any real checks on the CFPB director’s powers. Once confirmed, the director effectively answers to no one," the lawmakers wrote.

The demands set up a high stakes showdown between the Senate GOP and the White House, which has yet to name a nominee even as the CFPB works to get up and running by July.

"The CFPB as created by the deeply-flawed Dodd-Frank Act is set to be one of the least accountable and most powerful agencies in Washington," said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). "The reforms outlined are necessary before we will consider any nominee to head this agency.”

"This about accountability," added Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee. "The bureau, as currently structured, lacks any semblance of the checks and balances inherent in the Constitution."

Specifically, the lawmakers are demanding the top of the CFPB be changed so that instead of being run by a single director, it is headed by a board of directors. They also want the CFPB's budget to fall under the jurisdiction of Congressional appropriators — currently the CFPB is set up to receive its budget from the Federal Reserve. And finally, they want other regulators to be able to block CFPB regulations if they deem it could endanger the safety and soundess of banks.

The list of demands is comparable to legislation currently pending in the House and Senate that would curb the CFPB's power. A subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee advanced three bills Wednesday that would make similar changes, and companion legislation has been introduced in the Senate.

Congressional Democrats have blasted the bills as surreptitious attempts to kill the agency before it is started. And CFPB architect and presidential advisor Elizabeth Warren has said any attempts to change the agency are mere efforts to "defund, delay and defang" the bureau, which was hotly contested by the GOP in the debate over the Dodd-Frank financial reform law that created it.

Reid to force Senate vote on controversial Ryan budget

By Sahil Kapur - RAW Story
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

WASHINGTON – Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will hold a Senate vote on Rep. Paul Ryan's (R-WI) controversial budget plan, Raw Story has confirmed.

The plan, recently approved by the House, has virtually no chance of passing the Democratic-led Senate. The vote would serve to put Senate Republicans on the record in favor of slashing taxes on the rich while replacing Medicare with a voucher program.

"There will be an opportunity in the Senate to vote on the Ryan budget to see if Republican senators like the Ryan budget as much as the House did," Reid told reporters on a conference call. "Without going into the Ryan budget we will see how much the Republicans like it here in the Senate."

Numerous polls have found the budget's provisions to be unpopular, and House Republicans who voted for it two Friday ago -- all but four backed it -- have since faced a backlash from constituents back home.

Reid said enactment of the plan would be "one of the worst things that happened to this country."

A date hasn't yet been set for the vote, a Reid aide said.

GOP blocks Democrats’ jobs outsourcing bill

Senate blocks bill to punish firms that export jobs overseas
By The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

The Senate on Tuesday blocked tax legislation that would have punished U.S. firms that export jobs. But the political symbolism of trying to save American jobs, not passing a bill, was the Democrats' closing argument on the economy in the waning weeks of the congressional elections.

Republicans complained that the vote used a serious subject — economic recovery — to score points with voters five weeks before the balloting in which all 435 House seats, 37 Senate seats and the Democratic majority are on the line. The bill in question, Republicans said, would make U.S. companies less competitive.

"The liberal Senate leadership has brought forward a politically motivated bill that will never become law," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah.

But majority Democrats, now without their original plan to close the campaign with a middle class tax cut, sought to convince voters that the bill showed off their commitment to supporting the nation's economic recovery.

"This is part of the continuing focus on jobs," Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., told reporters.

The bill failed, 53-45, to attract the 60 votes required to advance. Four Democrats and one Independent joined Republicans to block its progress.

But debating it and forcing senators on the record was the Democrats' point.

"We're just a few weeks away from an election," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. "I wish this election would be a simple referendum on the debate we're having on the floor of the Senate right now."

The bill at issue in the Senate would exempt companies that import jobs from paying the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax for new U.S. employees who replace overseas workers who had been doing similar work.

The two-year exemption would be available for workers hired over the next three years. The tax cut — estimated to cost about $1 billion — would be partially offset by tax increases on companies that move jobs overseas.

The bill would prohibit firms from taking deductions for business expenses associated with expanding operations in other countries. It would increase taxes on U.S. companies that close domestic operations and expand foreign ones to import products to the U.S.

Republicans argued the tax cuts would be difficult to administer and the tax increases would hurt international corporations that employ U.S. workers.

"Let's have votes on real job creation incentives and let's get out of this gamesmanship," said Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee.

The tax increases total $369 million over the next decade, according to a preliminary estimate by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. Combined with the tax cut, the bill would add an estimated $721 million to the budget deficit over the next decade.

The Democrats voting to block the bill were Sens. Max Baucus of Montana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Jon Tester of Montana and Mark Warner of Virginia. Also voting no was Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.

US Senate Republicans block campaign disclosure bill

By Thomas Ferraro - Thu Sep 23, 2010

WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Republicans dealt a blow to President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats on Thursday by again blocking a bill to require public disclosure of who pays for political campaign advertising.

On a party-line vote of 59-39, short of the needed 60, Democrats failed to end a procedural roadblock against the measure, likely killing it for the year.

Drafted with the support of Obama, the bill was designed to blunt the impact of a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruling in January that overturned state and federal limits on independent expenditures by corporations to support or oppose candidates.

The bill would require corporate -- as well as union and advocacy group -- leaders to disclose their names in campaign ads rather than allow front groups to take responsibility.

Most of those funding campaign ads before the Nov. 2 elections are expected to be members of pro-Republican business interests that would like to end control of Congress by Obama's Democrats.

Obama, who denounced the Supreme Court ruling in January, saying it would open the floodgates to special interest money in American politics, blasted Republicans for stopping the bill.

"Wall Street, the insurance lobby, oil companies and other special interests are now one step closer to taking Congress back and returning to the days when lobbyists wrote the laws," Obama said in a statement. (err...you mean the same special interest lobbies you caved to in your two reform bills--the financial and healthcare reform bills which lobbyists wrote and congress passed earlier this year?-jef)

"But despite today's setback, I will continue fighting to ensure that our democracy stays where it belongs -- in the hands of the American people," the president said.  (Really? Because it really doesn't appear that you do want that.-jef)

It was the second time Republicans stopped the bill, "The Disclose Act." It was also blocked in July.

With voters most concerned about the weak economy, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell ripped into Democrats for having returned to the campaign finance measure.

"We're now on day two of debate regarding the Disclose Act -- two more days Senate Democrats have chosen to ignore the jobs of the American people in an effort to save their own," McConnell said.

To win passage of the bill earlier this year by the House of Representatives, two groups were exempted from some reporting requirements, the conservative National Rifle Association and liberal Sierra Club.

Republicans denounced the exemptions as favoring the free speech of some over others. Public interest groups said the exemptions were a small price to pay for meaningful reform

DISCLOSE Act Fails Procedural Vote in Senate (2 articles)

Republicans Thwart New Campaign Finance Disclosure Rules 
by Michael Beckel |Wednesday, July 28, 2010 | OpenSecrets Blog

Senate Republicans today blocked legislation calling for new disclosure rules for campaign advertisements.

A unified Democratic caucus generated 57 "yes" votes -- three shy of the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster and allow the legislation, known as the DISCLOSE Act, to advance to an up-or-down vote. For procedural reasons, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) switched his vote from a "yes" to a "no" in order to bring the bill up again at a later date.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who caucuses with the Democrats, missed the vote due to a funeral in his home state, and no Republicans broke rank to join their Democratic colleagues. Campaign finance reformers had been working to win over moderate Republicans such as Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) andOlympia Snowe (R-Maine).

The transparency measure, technically the "Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections" Act (S. 3628/H.R. 5175), was crafted by Democratic leaders in response to the Supreme Court's January ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which overturned a ban on corporations using money from their treasuries to fund independent expenditures.

Since Citizens United, unions and corporations have been using the new campaign finance landscape to their advantage. Last month, Mother Jones magazine reported on labor unions using money from their treasuries to fund advertisements for their preferred candidates in Pennsylvania and Arkansas races. The Texas Tribune earlier this year reported on corporate-funded newspaper ads attacking a state lawmaker. And a group supporting the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota last week began running TV ads thanks to significant contributions from several businesses -- including Target, Best Buy and Polaris Industries.

The battle over Citizens United and the appropriate legislative response has raged for months. Many business groups and GOP lawmakers hailed the decision as a victory for free speech and say they don't want to see First Amendment rights impeded by legislation such as the DISCLOSE Act. Many Democrats have countered that steps must be taken to curb the influence of special interests and that the public should at least have a right to know about the interests fueling new advertisements.

The Democrats' plan would impose new reporting requirements on independent political advertisements and electioneering communications broadcast in the run up to Election Day. Corporations, unions, trade associations, so-called 527 groups and 501(c)(4), (c)(5) and (c)(6) advocacy organizations that produce such ads would be required to disclose more information about their donors.

They would also be required to show the names of the top donors in the advertisements, and the head of the organization or the group's largest contributor would be required to "stand by the ad" -- giving the same, familiar disclaimer that candidates must include in their advertisements: "My name is so-and-so, and I approve this message."

Additionally, the bill would prohibit companies with outstanding loans from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), large government contractors and foreign-controlled companies from producing independent expenditures.

The House narrowly passed the DISCLOSE Act in late June, with just two Republican Congressmen crossing the aisle to support the bill. Ahead of that vote, Democratic leaders struck a deal that would exempt the National Rifle Association and a handful of other organizations from certain disclosure provisions of the bill -- so long as the groups didn't primarily rely on corporate money for any political advertisements. (This legislative maneuvering irked many on the left, and earned the NRA staunch criticism from its typical allies on the right.)

Thanks to an amendment pushed by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the House version of the legislation also sought to prohibit companies with government leases for Outer Continental Shelf offshore drilling -- such as BP -- from making independent expenditures.
In advance of today's vote, the chief sponsor of the legislation in the Senate, Sen.Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), removed Kucinich's amendment from the bill. Schumer also added a provision -- long-supported by the Center for Responsive Politics -- to require senators and senate candidates to file their campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission electronically, instead of on paper, as they currently do.

President Barack Obama has championed the DISCLOSE Act and warned against the consequences of inaction.

"Corporate lobbyists will be able to tell members of Congress if they don't vote the right way, they will face an onslaught of negative ads in their next campaign.  And all too often, no one will actually know who's really behind those ads," Obama said during an event in the Rose Garden of the White House on Monday. "A group can hide behind a name like 'Citizens for a Better Future,' even if a more accurate name would be 'Companies for Weaker Oversight.'

"A vote to oppose these reforms is nothing less than a vote to allow corporate and special interest takeovers of our elections," Obama continued.

Democrats are hoping to highlight Republican obstruction and opposition to the DISCLOSE Act ahead of November's elections. And criticism of the GOP continued to stream in after the failed cloture vote this afternoon.

"As millions of Americans struggle in this economy, the rich and powerful should not be able to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens; the power should be put back into the hands of the voters," Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement. "Today, once again, Senate Republicans put the special interests ahead of the interests of all Americans."

Such sentiments were echoed by Senate Democrats -- many of whom at railed againstCitizens United during the recent confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, as OpenSecrets Blog previously reported.

"It is very disappointing that a minority of senators decided to block the Senate from even considering this bill to increase transparency and disclosure in elections," Sen.Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), long a champion of campaign finance reforms, said in a statement. "While the bill is not perfect, it was our best chance to provide voters with adequate information about exactly who is behind the onslaught of political ads they can expect to see this fall."

Yet Republicans believe they will be able to brandish their opposition to the DISCLOSE Act to win over voters in November.

On the Senate floor today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) decried the DISCLOSE Act as "117 pages of stealth negotiations in which Democrats pick winners and losers, either through outright prohibitions or restrictions so complex that they end up achieving the same result" and as an example of Democratic "overreach."

"The supporters of this bill say it's about transparency. To that, I say it's transparent all right. It's a transparent effort to rig the fall elections," said McConnell, a long-time opponent of campaign finance regulations. "Their one goal here is to get people who would criticize them to stop talking about what Democrats have been doing here in Washington over the past year and a half."

McConnell's rhetoric has been mirrored by House Republicans, too.

"This was a blatant attempt by the Majority to use the people's House to sway the November election in the Democrats' favor, at the expense of Americans' constitutional right to free speech but at great favor to special interest union bosses," Republican House Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said after last month's vote in the lower chamber of Congress.

Beyond Republican members of Congress, the bill's opponents include the Center for Competitive Politics, the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

"Congress should not be wasting its time on an 'Incumbent Protection Act,' but instead should be focused on job creation," Chamber President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Donohue recently said. "The DISCLOSE Act is an unconstitutional attempt to silence free speech and a desperate attempt by [Democrats] to gain political advantage in the 2010 elections."

The bill's activist supporters counter that it will be Republicans, rather, who gain a political advantage -- for blocking the new rules.

"By opposing transparency, it seems that Senate Republicans and their special interest allies are trying to boost their own fortunes in November by ensuring that Republican-leaning corporate coffers can be opened up to help Republican candidates without leaving any fingerprints behind," Lisa Rosenberg, a lobbyist for the Sunlight Foundation,wrote in a blog item Monday.

Other groups campaigning for the DISCLOSE include the Campaign Legal Center,Common Cause, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters, People for the American Way, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG.

***

Money Spoke Against Disclose Act
Wednesday, July 28, 2010 by San Francisco Chronicle

Senate Republicans made sure this fall's elections will be drenched in corporate money. By threatening a filibuster, the minority party blocked a Democratic plan to require disclosures of business and labor contributions in campaigns.

The measure was a direct response to a disastrous Supreme Court decision in January that ended a century-old ban on companies dipping into the treasuries to make campaign contributions. Get ready for a high-spending mud fight this fall as business groups exploit the ruling and take advantage of low polling numbers for Democrats.

The proposed law, known as the Disclose Act, passed the House narrowly last month. In the more conservative Senate, it was always an uphill fight, because every major bill needs a 60-vote margin to cut off endless filibuster debate. On this issue, Democrats needed at least one extra vote from the GOP side, which couldn't be found.

The upshot is a political landscape with few restraints on lobbyists and special interests, the very groups Republicans claim to repudiate in insider Washington. The proposal would have obliged major contributors to appear in disclaimers in ads, much the way candidates do in criticizing opponents.

The measure wasn't perfect. Major players ranging from the National Rifle Association to the Sierra Club won exemptions from the disclosure rules.

The Supreme Court ruling, known as the Citizens United case, had galvanized the Obama White House into pushing for the law. But the president's late push for votes fell short. Now the country gets to live with the no-rules results blessed by Republicans.