McConnell Keeps The GOP Secrecy Going

What if Congress passed a bill that would have forced unlimited secret campaign spending out into the open? No more secret funding for politicians; no more secret deals. Total transparency. Cool idea, no?

It almost happened here in this country, until the bill was blocked by Republican leaders because, according to many Democrats, they see the "immediate financial advantage" that secret money is giving GOP candidates in the 2012 election.

And that GOP vote against the Disclose Act was a huge shift for many Republicans, who have long supported full disclosure of who gives what, and how much, as opposed to limiting campaign donations; in fact, it was such a turnaround for the GOP that 14 Republican senators who voted against the disclosure bill supported a nearly identical bill in 2000.

Why the change, GOP?

Democratic Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Jeff Merkley say they knew of several Republican colleagues who would have voted in favor of the disclosure bill until they were pressured by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

This is odd, because Mitchy was one of those GOP senators who favored a disclosure bill in the past, but nowadays he's taken to calling the bill a Democratic plot to limit free speech and intimidate donors from participating in the electoral process.

Um, not so much, Mitchy. The Democrats, and even some Republicans, aren't telling people they cannot express their choices, whether through words or checks, they are simply asking that the process be open and aboveboard. Is that so wrong?

See, McConnell sees it like this: if huge corporations--and let's be clear, Mittsy Romney, corporations are not people--donating vast sums of money to political groups, might stop the money train if they had to make their spending public to shareholders and customers.

So, how is that denying someone's Freedom of Speech. In fact, it seems to me to be just the opposite; it's requiring corporations to speak up and show where they are giving their money, and to whom.

For McConnell to suggest that transparency inhibits free speech is a ridiculous, and, well, let's just say it, stupid argument. But, isn't that McConnell, and isn't that the GOP?

Secretive.

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