The League joined 13 other civic organizations in solid opposition to S. 1100, the so-called “Keeping Politics Out of Federal Contracting Act.” The letter was sent to Senators Lieberman and Collins, the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
We are all aware that the huge amount of special interest money, particularly in federal races, has been a problem for years. We also know that these problems have been magnified by the Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case which unleashed corporate spending for supposedly independent campaign expenditures and which has resulted in millions and millions of dollars in secret contributions.
Campaign financing in our nation is corrupting our political system with secret money from special interests and large outside funders.
Tell your Senators that you want to clean up our political system.
The League joined civic organizations and investor groups calling on Congress to approve the DISCLOSE Act, HR 4010.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) made news this week when they announced that they were discontinuing their Public Safety and Elections Task Force. This Task Force was responsible for the promotion of ‘model’ voter identification and stand-your-ground legislation that has recently been in the news.
The League sent the following letter to the US Senate encouraging Senators to cosponsor the DISCLOSE Act of 2012, S. 2219. This bill restores transparenct to U.S. elections by requiring complete disclosure of spending on big-money advertising in candidate elections.
The League joined coalition partners in calling for the President to respond and take action on the effort to nominate new commissioners to the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The effort collected over 27,000 signatures through the "We the People" petition process on WhiteHouse.gov. Petitions are required to reach at 25,000 signature threshold in order to solicit a response from the Administration and the FEC petition hit that goal 2 months ago.
What a privilege it was for me to represent the League by joining President Obama, Vice President Biden, other good government group leaders, and Members of Congress for the signing of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act into law!
This morning, President Obama signed the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act into law and League Executive Director Nancy Tate got the opportunity to stand with the President as he did so. The STOCK Act makes it illegal for Members of Congress to invest or trade stocks based on nonpublic information they acquire on Capitol Hill.
Today, a Senate Committee takes up the issue of money in politics, specifically, whether we need disclosure of who is spending vast amounts of money in American elections. The League is deeply concerned about the current state of political financing in our nation.
