**BUMPED UP**
More details: Senate Republicans Block DISCLOSE Act
**UPDATE 1pm PT: Cloture on DISCLOSE officially fails! 57-41. Congrats everyone!**
UPDATE Tues 10:40am PT: Susan Collins and Miss Lindsey both “No” votes, while Lieberman will miss the vote entirely.
UPDATE 3:45pm PT: Politico–DISCLOSE Act still a few votes shy
Posting this at 2pm PT: Here’s the latest. You still have time to act.
From Tea Party Patriots:
The Democrats are running scared, fearful of the impact grassroots activists will have in November. With the DISCLOSE Act, which will go into effect almost immediately, in time for the November elections, they will be able to effectively and legally shut us down. The effort to silence us before the elections is tantamount to a witch hunt. Read this email carefully for more information about this bill and then please make some phone calls NOW and tell them to VOTE NO!!
From our friends at Freedom Action about this speech violating bill:
Even if somehow the speech restrictions in this bill were constitutional, their uneven application would be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection under the law. Even the left-leaning Sierra Club has labeled the DISCLOSE Act a two-tiered system that is “unfair and undemocratic” and that smaller grass-roots organizations would be disadvantaged because they lack the resources to cope with “the additional disclosure burdens.” The unions and the big non-profit groups get to keep their free speech given to them in the January Supreme Court decision, but the corporations and small non-profits lose theirs under DISCLOSE.
Also, President Obama and some Democrats are dishonestly stating that the Court’s decision would “open the floodgates for special interest, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections.” However, current federal law and Federal Election Commission regulations already ban foreign corporations from participating directly or indirectly in American elections. (see 2 U.S.C. § 441e and 2 U.S.C. 437g).
HOW THIS AFFECTS YOU
Exampleville, Ohio has two people running for U.S. Congress-Mr. A and Mr. B-in what promises to be a close race. Exampleville’s local Tea Party believes in Mr. B. The Tea Party wants to run ads highlighting Mr. B’s stance on cap and trade, federal spending, increased taxation, etc, but they don’t have enough money to fulfill the new highly complex reporting requirements from DISCLOSE. And DISCLOSE would force them to list their top donors, even if they are not necessarily the specific donors to the ads, in their ads. Besides, the disclaimers required could take up to 14 of a 30 second ad. The Tea Party gives up trying to run ads to support Mr. Republican.
In contrast, Mr. A has some well-funded unions who want to see Exampleville’s factories unionized, so the unions run ads against Mr. B and ads for Mr. A. Also, the Sierra Club and the ACLU (groups actually opposed to DISCLOSE) want Mr. A to support their issues, so they also run ads for Mr. A. None of these ads are subject to DISCLOSE’s requirements.
Guess who wins?
The DISCLOSE Act exempts unions and very large special interest groups!! And the little guy is left without a voice.
Senators to call:
Scott Brown (R-MA)
http://scottbrown.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contactme
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-4543, (F) (202) 228-2646Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe.Email
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-5344, Toll free (800) 432-1599, (F) (202) 224-1946Susan Collins (R-ME)
http://collins.senate.gov/public/continue.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorCollins.EmailIssue&CFID=42880122&CFTOKEN=39747274
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-2523, (F) (202) 224-2693Ben Nelson (D-NE)
http://bennelson.senate.gov/email-issues.cfm
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-6551, (F) (202) 228-0012Evan Bayh (D-IN)
http://bayh.senate.gov/contact/email/
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-5623, (F) (202) 228-1377Kent Conrad (D-ND)
https://conrad.senate.gov/contact/webform.cfm
Washington DC: (T) (202) 224-2043, (F) (202) 224-7776Additional coverage:
DISCLOSE Act’s fate uncertain (this story notes a vote for Tuesday, but it’s happening now).
Senate Dems Effort to Put Strings on Campaign Spending Likely to Fail
they can shut us down all they want. we’ll deal with that later.
what they cannot do is change our votes. oh, they’ll try all their dirty tricks, but we will prevail. they can stand at the voting place door with machetes. I WILL NOT BACK DOWN!
I am confused. In the example above, what happened the Mr. B and where did Mr. Republican come from. Another question: was Mr. B related to Aunt B of Mayberry?… or.. never mind, I digress.
This November, besides being a historic election of epic proportions, we are going to see a paradigm change in election campaigning ala the new media. The economic playing field for candidates has been leveled and media AD’s, once effective, cannot compete with the impact of personal instantaneous mass messaging. Example: Mrs. Palin and her ‘Death Panels’ Facebook posting… what did that cost her …. zippy. That fact that you are reading this right now proves my point. AD’s are soooo 5 minutes ago, so let them legislate.. it’s like making laws on what kind of wood is to be used in the construction of a horse carriage.
I digressed again (I blame Bush for my digressions).
I canceled my NRA membership a week or so ago and called Snowe and Kyle because the Disclose act is just stupid beyond belief.
Hi, Tammy. A little of topic but, I think you might be interested to know that the godling’s DeathCare Czar, Dr. Donald Berwick, has life-time healthcare. Byron York points out in his Washington examiner article that this creep, who wants to submit the “masses” to rationing of health care, will never be submitted to rationing himself.
Yes, that’s right, the
rationing ghoul himself“good” doctor and his old lady will have healthcare insurance coverage until they croak.[…] Warner Todd Huston, Tammy Bruce, and so many others have pointed out, the DISCLOSE Act is blatantly unconstitutional, violating, at […]
[…] Warner Todd Huston, Tammy Bruce, and so many others have pointed out, the DISCLOSE Act is blatantly unconstitutional, violating, at […]
I contacted Senator Brown’s office yesterday (among a few; my own Senator’s voice mail was full as usual), and found out the vote on the DISCLOSE Act is scheduled for today.
miss brown was busy octopi hunting on madame kerry’s yacht in a tax free zone far away from massachusetts …
I wonder if Evan Bayh was there; it’d explain nothing but full voice mail boxes (NOT!)