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Floor Speech

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Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I am here today as we close in on the vote on the DISCLOSE Act scheduled for tomorrow to urge my colleagues to vote yes on that measure. I have introduced the DISCLOSE Act in every Congress since Leader Schumer first unveiled it in 2010 on the heels of the wretched Citizens United decision.

Every Congress, just about every time I have set foot in Washington, I have sounded the alarm on the ever-growing tsunami of slime that Citizens United unleashed into our elections. I rise once more today to urge this Chamber to end the flood of dark money drowning our democracy.

This is not inevitable. As late as 2006, the amount of dark money sloshing around in our elections was only $5 million. In 2020, it had crossed the billion-dollar threshold. Big special interests don't spend a billion dollars without expecting return on investment, and that has damaged our democracy.

Voting to clean up that mess presents clear choices: whether or not billionaires and big corporations can purchase influence in secret, whether or not Americans deserve to know who is buying that influence, whether or not corruption has a place in our American democracy.

Twelve years after Citizens United, the evidence is in. Dark money powers up corporations and megadonors to pump billions into phony front groups. Those groups, often with soothing names like People for Puppies and Prosperity, then spew bile and slime into our elections. We often can't know exactly who paid for that bile and slime, but when corporations and the ultrarich keep getting what they want from a dark money-funded Congress, well, you see that over and over and over again; and Americans' suspicions grow. Their gut tells them the corporations and billionaires are behind the phony ads in an effort to rig our political system.

And Americans' instincts are right. Academic studies show that economic elites and business interests command huge influence in government policy while regular people have statistically little or none. Studies also show that politicians elected to Federal office with the support of dark money are more likely to support legislation aligned with big corporate interests. Regardless of what the American people want, the big donor interests win time after time.

Dark money isn't limited to elections either. I have come to the floor now 18 times to expose a decades-long, rightwing scheme to capture the Federal judiciary and its crown jewel, our Supreme Court. This scheme included a $580 million secretive campaign of dark money and phony front groups to pack the courts with judges selected to green-light donor-friendly policies, running multimillion-dollar ad campaigns to keep the confirmations of those judges and Justices on track.

Now, the result is the Court that dark money built is delivering big for its donor puppeteers. In a matter of days, the FedSoc Six on the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, manufactured new polluter- friendly legal doctrines, and threw out centuries-old gun safety regulations--all things big donors wanted; all things majorities of Americans did not want. What is more, one rightwing donor just dumped $1.6 billion to supercharge the dark money operation that captured the Court and cement that dark money network's hold over the Federal judiciary. And guess what. We wouldn't know who that donor is if someone hadn't tipped off the press--ProPublica and the New York Times. Think about that. We only know this because we get occasional little glimpses of these megadonors' covert schemes. That means this is only the tip of the iceberg. And where that $1.6 billion goes on its way out into our political system will be obscured in dark money channels.

No wonder Americans' trust in the government is cratering. Fifty- eight percent of voters say our government needs major reforms or a complete overhaul. Just a quarter of Americans say they have confidence in the Supreme Court. That is down 11 percent just from last year. Americans know something is deeply amiss in our democracy.

Mr. President, I believe to restore trust in government, we need to flush dark money out of government. Year after year, poll after poll, overwhelming majorities of Americans say: money in politics and wealthy political donors are the root of Washington's dysfunction. Election cycle after election cycle, even during COVID, voters listed political corruption among their most important issues. Americans no longer trust that their voices matter here, not as much as the dark money voices of big corporations and billionaires. And it is time to listen to them. It is time to rid our system of the corrupting influence of unlimited dark money.

Even the Citizens United Justices recognized that unlimited political spending without transparency would corrupt. Even the Justices who opened the floodgates of unlimited political spending knew that if it was not transparent, it would corrupt. They just wouldn't do anything about it.

The DISCLOSE Act hinges on a very simple idea: that Americans deserve to know who is spending to influence their vote. If you agree with that simple idea, vote for the DISCLOSE Act. If you believe that corporations and billionaires shouldn't hide behind phony front groups while spending gobs of money on elections, you should vote for the DISCLOSE Act. If you oppose corruption, you should vote for the DISCLOSE Act. It is time for every Member of this body to go on record about this poison in our system. And with any luck, with 10 Republicans joining us, we can return to a Congress that serves America again, and Americans deserve that.

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