Secular Café: House rejects amendment to require disclosure of donations over $10,000 for "issue ads"

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House rejects amendment to require disclosure of donations over $10,000 for "issue ads" Apr 4th 2012, 01:18 http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatch...-campaign-ads/ Quote: The U.S. House of Representatives voted down an amendment to a bill that reforms the Federal Communications Commission that would have required disclosure of any donations over $10,000 to third party groups that take out "issues ads" during campaigns. It was an almost entirely party line vote, 238-179, with five Republicans voting for it and eight Democrats voting against it. Here's why this matters. During campaigns, you see two kinds of ads: Those that explicitly tell you who to vote for and those that pretend not to tell you who to vote for while telling you who to vote for. The actual campaigns take out the ads that say "Vote for so-and-so." But third party groups pay for all those "issues ads" that do not count as campaign ads for the purposes of campaign finance and disclosure laws. Those are the ones you see saying something like this: "Senator Jerkface voted 27 times to make it mandatory to kick puppies and strangle kittens. He voted 53 times to drown your grandmother in the bathtub. Call Senator Jerkface and tell him to stop kicking puppies, strangling kittens and drowning your grandma. This ad is paid for by the Committee for Grandmas, Puppies and Kittens." It doesn't tell you who to vote for, it just tells you that one of the candidates is a horrible, terrible, no-good person. And voila, it's not an electioneering ad anymore, it's an "issues ad" and, depending on the section of the IRS code the organization that made the ad is registered under, it either has no disclosure requirements at all or is only required to disclose the donors after the election is over. They now make up the majority of campaign ad spending in most races. Disclosure should be absolutely mandatory. transparency was never a republican talking point

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