Chris Van Hollen: “This is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill…”

“This is the final amendment to the bill, which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee. If adopted, the bill will immediately proceed to final passage, as amended, and as the motion indicated, it addresses secret money in elections. I am trying to make sure we end that secret money. It also deals with the issue of extending unemployment insurance, which my colleague from Michigan (Mr. Levin) will discuss in a minute. But I want to focus on this issue of secret money because this resolution, what we are asking our Republican colleagues to join us on, is to vote on a very simple statement: to say that nothing in this act shall limit, restrict, or prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury from issuing regulations requiring the disclosure of secret political donors. Our Republican colleagues all afternoon have said this is about the First Amendment. This is about protecting the right of people to express their views. That is not what their bill is about. Everyone is in favor of people being able to express their views. As I indicated earlier, you can form what is known as a 527 organization; and whether you are an individual or an organization in that form, you can spend millions of dollars to try to influence the outcome of elections. What we are saying is the voters have a right to know who is bankrolling these campaign efforts.…”