Freedom Line Blog

In an interview with CFIF, Bradley Smith, Founder of the Center for Competitive Politics and former Federal Elections Commission Chairman, discusses the numerous flaws of the so-called DISCLOSE Act of 2014. 

Listen to the interview here.

Along with lying about the size of the budget deficit and imposing a steep rise in the car tax, California Governor Gray Davis did something else to guarantee his historic recall: impose a pay-to-play “donation” schedule on groups wanting to do state business.  Want a permit from the Coastal Commission?  How about a government contract to manage welfare cases?

For Davis & Co. there was only one question: How much did you contribute to my campaign?

Former Federal Elections Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky obtained a draft executive order that would implement the substance of the Disclose Act, a bill promising to chill corporate political speech before it was defeated in Congress last year.

According to von Spakovsky, the proposed executive order claims to “increase transparency and accountability,”

Yet this proposed Executive Order would require government contractors to disclose:

(a) All contributions or expenditures to or on behalf of federal candidates, parties or party committees made by the bidding entity, its directors or officers, or any affiliates or subsidiaries within its control.

(b) Any contributions made to third party entities with the intention or reasonable expectation that parties would use those contributions to make independent expenditures or electioneering communications.

In layman’s terms, that means the federal government wants to know which political groups you’ve been giving money to before it will consider awarding a government contract.

In an editorial today, the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) notes that the order exempts federal employee labor unions and the recipients of federal grants, both dues paying members of the Democratic Party.

At the moment, the Right is deploring the president’s last-ditch effort to silence dissenting political views after losses in the courts, Congress, and the FEC.  (Especially since Obama’s executive order specifically targets only those entities most likely to disagree with him.)

However, the Left should be leery of this latest version of gangster government.   There’s only a hair’s breadth of difference between punishing “bad” political expenditures, and demanding “good” ones.  As the deposed Gray Davis showed in California, a government nosy enough to punish its enemies, is a government powerful enough to tax its friends.

Amid the flurry of inanity brought upon this nation by Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, it is important to stop and smell the roses of triumph.  One arrived today when the Senate blocked, at least for now, the DISCLOSE Act. 

That act would violate the First Amendment rights of free speech and free association in its attempt to reverse the Supreme Court’s correct Citizens United v. FEC decision, while effectively exempting politically powerful labor unions.   Obama, Pelosi and Reid will surely follow with their usual bromides about “the people versus the powerful,” but the fact is that the DISCLOSE Act is nothing more than a scheme to enable the powerful, namely partisan Big Labor, at the expense of everyday citizens.  It’s a welcome victory for free speech and freedom of association, and a stinging defeat for an Obama Administration that manages to pioneer new realms of cynical partisanship on a daily basis.

House Democrats are planning to force a vote TODAY on H.R. 5175, the so-called DISCLOSE Act.  CFIF is asking its activists — and all Americans — to call their Representatives in Congress now to demand they vote “No” on this assault on the First Amendment.

Billed by proponents as a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, the DISCLOSE Act is nothing more than another attempt by career politicians to silence their critics during elections.  Specifically, the legislation seeks to subject small non-profit organizations like CFIF and others to burdensome and expensive disclosure requirements that will make it virtually impossible to speak out on important public policy issues at times when it is most important to do so – in the months leading up to elections.
 
Alarmingly, the DISCLOSE Act exempts labor unions and other large powerful organizations.  In other words, Congress wants to arbitrarily preserve the free speech and association rights of a handful of politically-favored interests, while at the same time muzzle the voices of smaller groups of Americans, including Tea Party groups.

Such a flagrant assault on the First Amendment must be stopped.  Remember, a vote on the DISCLOSE Act in the House of Representatives is expected to take place today.  

Call your Representative in Congress and urge him or her to vote “No” on H.R. 5175, the DISCLOSE Act.  To find your representative’s contact information, click here.