John Yarmuth: “First, in response to Chairman Walden--and I know that he shares my interest in creating effective disclosure of…”

“First, in response to Chairman Walden--and I know that he shares my interest in creating effective disclosure of campaign contributions and ads--this amendment does not mandate any particular form of machine- readable information. It only says that the Commission is not prohibited from requiring that certain parts of information are readable in machine format. I want to read a few quotes on disclosure: ``Disclosure requirements deter actual corruption and avoid the appearance of corruption by exposing large contributions and expenditures to the light of publicity.'' ``With modern technology, disclosure now offers a particularly effective means of arming the voting public with information.'' ``Today, given the Internet, disclosure offers much more robust protections against corruption.'' ``Because massive quantities of information can be accessed at the click of a mouse, disclosure is effective to a degree not possible at the time Buckley, or even McConnell, was decided.'' All of the quotes are from the majority opinion in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, written by Chief Justice Roberts. Now, I don't agree with the decision, but I sure do agree with his position that disclosure is critical to the integrity of our electoral system in the wake of this decision.…”