Date: 2010-06-24
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

I thank the chairman of the committee. This legislation. as we all know. by its terms says that if youre a foreigncontrolled entity in the United States. you can not be spending money to influence elections. The proposal put forward here actually prohibits U.S. citizens from contributing as theyre allowed to do under the Constitution. or from expending their own funds. It is blatantly constitutional. Given all the conversation we had and the resistance to the notion that were going to prevent foreigncontrolled entities from spending money. its a little surprising we would now say that U.S. citizens cant be either contributing or spending. number one. Number two. with respect to the ban on robocalls. what this legislation has been all about is disclosure. If youre going to spend money on TV or radio or whatever for political expenditure purposes. tell the voters who you are and whos paying for it. Weve been hearing all day about how you dont want to impinge on the First Amendment. and what you do here is an outright bar on legal calls made. Were just saying when you make those calls. tell us whos paying for them. tell the voters whos paying for them. Whether you like the group or whether you dont like the group. the voter has a right to know. Finally. youve injected into this motion to recommit a provision with respect to how we would deal with challenges to D.C. voting rights. As you well know. we have not even passed a piece of legislation out of this Congress on D.C. voting rights that has gone to the Presidents desk. and yet youve inserted that totally unrelated matter into this legislation. So its interesting. after all the comments we heard from the other side of the aisle about the time you had to consider the DISCLOSE Act. that we got 5 minutes to look at this. but 5 minutes was more than enough time to determine that its blatantly unconstitutional. Youre not just saying inform the voter. youre denying American citizens and voters the right to contribute to campaigns. to participate freely in campaigns. Youre saying that you cant exercise your legal rights with robocalls even if youre telling people who is spending it. And finally. youve injected a total spurious and unrelated provision with respect to D.C. voting rights. Lets give the voters the right to know. Lets make sure that we pass legislation so that foreign -controlled interests can not spend money in U.S. elections. whether its British Petroleum or any other organization. And lets make sure that. whether you like the group or dont like the group. that voters have the information when they see that television set with the nicesounding name like the Fund for a Greater America. that they have the right to get the information and judge for themselves about whos paying for it. So this is a blatant attempt to distract this effort at the last minute. Again. I point out that the League of Women Votersthats no political organizationCommon Cause. Public Citizen. all the organizations that have devoted themselves to clean campaigns and fair elections support this legislation. I urge the rejection of the motion to recommit and the passage of the bill.