On the recordJune 24, 2010
This legislation, as we all know, by its terms says that if you're a foreign-controlled 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 they're 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 we're going to prevent foreign-controlled entities from spending money, it's a little surprising we would now say that U.S. citizens can't 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 you're going to spend money on TV or radio or whatever for political expenditure purposes, tell the voters who you are and who's paying for it. We've been hearing all day about how you don't want to impinge on the First Amendment, and what you do here is an outright bar on legal calls made. We're just saying when you make those calls, tell us who's paying for them, tell the voters who's paying for them. Whether you like the group or whether you don't like the group, the voter has a right to know. Finally, you've injected into this motion to recommit a provision with respect to how we would deal with challenges to D.C. voting rights.
