I looked at it with disbelief because its too far fetched to be real. But then the Raw Story site isnt known to create fantasy articles like The Onion.
The first sentence got me: Republican Senator-elect Mark Kirk may help push through a campaign-finance transparency bill opposed by Republican leaders during the lame-duck session. I don't recall Kirk running on this during the campaign.
For those who don't know, Kirk defeated Democratic candidate Alexi Giannoulias in Illinois. It's Obama's old seat. Kirk will be serving before all the other newly elected freshmen starting this lame duck period. Why is that a big deal? The rest of the Senate is still sitting there waiting to finish the year's dirty work. The DISCLOSE Act is on that list.
Kirk acknowledges that transparency was thrown under the bus during this election cycle as "Citizens United" altered the campaign finance donation laws.
The pending bill would prohibit foreign corporations, government contractors and TARP recipients from making campaign contributions.
What Mark Kirk did make clear was his support for the McCain-Feingold campaign finance laws. That infamous Supreme Court decision pretty much decimated that provision leading the way for the abuse we saw in 2010.
Kirk told the AP that he may end the filibuster on the DISCLOSE Act once sworn in, thus forcing independent groups producing ads, to open their contributer books. All in the name of transparency.
I don't know about you, but I'd be interested in finding out who donated to which group this past summer.
No comments:
Post a Comment