Surprise, Democrats use the Campaign Finance "Disclosure Act" to tilt the playing field

The proposed law seems to make it much more difficult for corporations than unions to take out ads.

They assert that the bill’s requirements for new forms of disclosure and other provisions unfairly target GOP allies and give a free pass to Democratic ones headed into the critical 2010 midterm elections. . . .

Josh Holmes, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a leading opponent of campaign finance restrictions, said the senator from Kentucky “supports full disclosure of donors to candidates and party committees” but asserted that the bill “silences entities that traditionally disagree with Democrats and simultaneously exempts the big unions that spent millions electing Democrats from any restriction. . . .

homing in on an assertion made by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in introducing the bill. He said the bill’s heightened disclosure requirements would deter corporate ad spending and that people who put the ads forward are “happy to do it in the dark of night, but once sunlight occurs, they shrivel up and don’t do them, so I think there will be many fewer of them. In late April, at the event on the steps of the Supreme Court, Schumer said the bill’s “deterrent effect should not be underestimated.”

Schumer’s prediction was a “surprising acknowledgment that in this area where speech is so important, the aim is actually to prevent people from speaking, rather than encouraging speech during the election cycle,” said Eugene Scalia, outside counsel to the U.S. Chamber, which filed a brief in support of Citizens United and has emerged as a leading outside critic of the DISCLOSE Act.

On Wednesday, the National Rifle Association, an influential conservative lobby, fired off a letter to members of Congress, saying the measure “creates a series of byzantine disclosure requirements that have the obvious effect of intimidating speech.”

Citing estimates that the required CEO stand-by-your-ad announcements could take up nearly half of a 30-second ad spot, Scalia said “that, in and of itself, literally is an abridgment of free speech rights. But the aim is not actually to have the CEOs make messages of that nature. It’s recognized instead that they will be deterred from supporting speech they would have supported in the past.” . . .

From Schumer's announcement of the bill:

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the sponsor of the Senate bill, acknowledged Thursday that part of his goal with the bill is to limit the campaign spending newly legalized by the high court.

“My view is that many CEOs of major organizations will [air ads] if they don’t have to disclose, but once they have to come up front and disclose, they will not do it,” Schumer said. “Anyone who wants to hide, will not do an ad after this legislation passes. And I think there are a lot of people who like to hide … so I think there’ll be many fewer of them.” . . .

As an aside, why not limit political advertising by unions that get government money?

The legislation includes provisions to limit political ad spending by companies that received government bailouts from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, as well as those with government contracts or that are more than 20 percent foreign owned. . . .