Gary Franchi of Restore the Republic recently issued an “Action Alert” on HR 5175 – the DISCLOSE Act,
“A new bill is about the change the face of politics forever. The “Democracy is Strengthened by Casting Light on Spending in Elections Act” or the DISCLOSE Act, should be renamed the “Stifling Grassroots Political Support and Removing Political Privacy Bill”. This act affects ALL people and organizations. The bill, Sponsored by Maryland Representative Chris Van Hollen has moved out of committee and currently has 114 Cosponsors. It is on its way to the House floor for a vote.
HR 5175, is written to ensure freedom groups cannot rally their members in the upcoming elections by placing erroneous report in mandates on them and by forcing them to disclose their membership rosters and donor lists. These mandates apply to individuals and groups which make independent donations or promote their favored candidate outside the realm of the official campaigns, namely Grassroots activism.”
Members of Congress are adamant that the bill will only prohibit Corporate & foreign donations, but Downsize DC tells the truth.
The provisions of this bill (H.R. 5175 and S. 3295) would actually:
* Protect incumbents from competition by other candidates, and from criticism by citizens’ groups.
* Violate your First Amendment rights to free speech, free press, and assembly.
* Harm your First Amendment right to petition Congress for a redress of grievances.
* Crush your Ninth Amendment right to associate with others for peaceful purposes, such as defeating incumbent office holders and electing new representatives.The DISCLOSE Act would harm grassroots organizations in many ways, including the following:
If the group spends more than $10,000 on political communications during a calendar year they would have to report to the government, and to the general public, ALL donors who have given between $600 or $1,000, depending on the type of political communications.And that’s exactly what the DISCLOSE proponents want — they want to reduce political expression by groups that represent your anti-Statist ideals.
The DISCLOSE Act will also prohibit communications that could be interpreted as advocating a candidate’s election or defeat, even if the communication doesn’t specifically use those words. This is potentially the most dangerous provision of this legislation given that it is COMPLETELY SUBJECTIVE. No one will be able to know for sure if they are violating this law when they prepare an ad or other communication, so it will be safer to simply remain silent.
If you believe that you have a natural and Constitutionally protected right to free speech it is important that we fight to ensure this bill doesn’t become law. The Congress may try tricks to pass it such as including it as an amendment on a bill that is guaranteed to pass or they may pass it directly over the objection of the American people. After all, when was the last time Congress listened to “We the people”?