Politics

Mitch McConnell: DISCLOSE Act Hypocrite

By Paul Blumenthal

The Lexington Herald Ledger nails Sen. Mitch McConnell down on his hypocrisy in regards to transparency for organizations trying to influence the political process:

Mitch McConnell believed in public disclosure related to campaign contributions in 1987. In a commentary published in the Herald-Leader, he lauded “post-Watergate disclosure laws” that help “flush out” politicians who “sacrifice duties or principles to get more money.”

Kentucky’s senior U.S. senator believed in disclosure in 1989 when he joined a Democratic colleague in introducing legislation that, among other things, would have required disclosure of independent groups or individuals who intended to spend more than $25,000 promoting or attacking a candidate.
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McConnell remained a true believer in disclosure as a candidate for re-election in 1990, when he pledged to introduce a bill that would require full disclosure of donors to multi-candidate political-action committees.

Running for re-election again in 1996, McConnell supported public disclosure of all election-related spending, including spending by independent groups and contributions to political parties.

In a commentary published by the Herald-Leader the following year, McConnell wrote, “Public disclosure of campaign contributions and spending should be expedited so voters can judge for themselves what is appropriate.”
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Given McConnell’s 20-year devotion to the Holy Grail of disclosure, it may seem puzzling to hear him speak of it now as if it were the handiwork of Lucifer himself. But there’s no puzzle to it. McConnell’s apostasy on this issue is born of a Supreme Court decision that took his “money as free speech” argument to its ridiculous extreme.

Now that corporations are people, too, in the eyes of the court and free to spend at will on political causes, McConnell doesn’t want his buddies in the nation’s boardrooms pestered by any disclosure rules.

Full post as published by Sunlight Foundation on August 03, 2010 (boomark / email).