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Floor Speech

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Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, when I was in grade school, I had basic civics education. We learned about the fact that the vision of America was based on individuals standing up for their ideas in the public square. They could say: Here is what I think should take us forward, and here are the arguments behind it.

And someone else could say: Not so quick. I don't think that is the right path. We should do something else.

But in the course of this debate, those people gathered in the square could decide which way to go, partly based on whether they admired the thinking and the ideas being presented by the individuals, perhaps also what they knew about the individuals who were making those comments. But this is a basic competition of ideas freely expressed by members of the community and debated openly.

Well, I thought that was a beautiful thing; and it really goes to the notion of freedom of speech and the power that flows up from the people because it is the people gathered and discussing ideas who are making decisions. And in a republic, like our Republic, those decisions also involved whom you vote for because of that set of ideas; and that person is sent to a State legislature or the House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate to fight for those ideas. Isn't that a beautiful concept of complete transparent debate?

You know who else agreed with this idea who is no longer with us? Antonin Scalia. Now, I don't know that I have ever quoted Antonin Scalia before, former Supreme Court Justice who passed away a few years ago. He had this to say about disclosure. He said:

Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.

And then he continued:

For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, [on which he sat] campaigns anonymously . . . hidden from public scrutiny and protected from the accountability of criticism. This [he said] does not resemble the Home of the Brave.

So here is a very conservative Justice saying that, without transparency, without public accountability, democracy is doomed.

I love the revolutionary idea that flows up from the people or, as Abraham Lincoln put it, that we are of the people, by the people, for the people.

Seven weeks from now, Americans are going to go to the polls, and they are going to cast their vote on initiatives and on individuals running for office based on what they have heard. And here is the challenge. A lot of what they have heard is not about people standing up in public with the courage of their convictions but about secret campaign spending where there is no accountability--the exact kind of influence that Antonin Scalia said dooms our democracy.

Citizens United, the decision in 2010, is something we talk about quite a bit. What it basically said is that if you don't give money directly to a candidate but instead run a campaign on their behalf, you can spend as much as you want. So unlimited spending--unlimited. This created super PACs that can collect unlimited spending from corporations, unlimited spending from individuals, and run unlimited campaigns on behalf of someone--super PACs.

But here is the thing, when they made that decision, the Court thought that perhaps Congress would act to make sure that all of those donations were disclosed. They weren't making a decision that they liked secrecy. After all, Antonin Scalia who voted for Citizens United said:

With secrecy, democracy is doomed.

Well, we haven't acted because we have a triple veto baked into the way the Senate acts that says you need a supermajority to get a bill to the floor, a supermajority to close debate on amendments, and a supermajority to go to a final vote on a bill.

Colleagues across the aisle have said: We wanted to protect that secret money because we think it helps us.

That secret money is all about not government of, by, and for the people; that secret money is about government of, by, and for the powerful. So they are using their veto for the powerful to corrupt our country, to corrupt the core vision of government of, by, and for the people. That is what this DISCLOSE Act is all about, to say that we only thrive if the money is legitimate in campaigns.

Let me explain this. There are two standards that my Republican colleagues have been fighting for: one standard for ordinary people and a completely different standard for the rich and powerful.

For ordinary people, they have supported public disclosure. So for ordinary people in America who spend $200 on a campaign, it is publicly disclosed. Everybody knows who you gave the money to.

But if a billionaire doesn't write a $200 check but writes a $200 million check on behalf of running a campaign for an individual, it is secret. It is secret--secrecy for the rich and powerful, disclosure for ordinary Americans.

This is all about the equivalent of a stadium sound system by the powerful that drowns out the voice of ordinary people. That drowning- out effort, as my colleague just pointed out, has gone higher and higher and higher. The sound system from the stadium has gotten louder and louder and louder, drowning out the voices of people. In 2010, it was some 60 million in dark money. In 2016, collectively over the years they had reached a billion dollars, and, in 2020, over a billion dollars in a single year.

And now we have Barre Seid, who donated his company, $1.6 billion, into the dark money network. This money, spent without accountability, is used to smear candidates.

There is a saying--a saying I heard as a little kid--and that saying was: The lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on. But in our social media world, it is more like the lie gets three times around the globe before the truth gets out the front door. The truth is being hammered constantly by the smear campaign from dark money.

So this is what we have: a vote coming up on whether you believe in secret money smear campaigns or you believe in public accountability and preserving the vision of government of, by, and for the people.

This is so important to our future. I wonder what Antonin Scalia, lying in his grave, might be thinking when he sees the outcome of Citizens United, an outcome he did not intend.

You know, I had the experience of being the target of one of these smear campaigns in 2014. The Koch brothers were bragging, and they held a meeting. They said: We are going to put a lot of money--millions of dollars--into an organization called Freedom Partners. And Freedom Partners, along with the network, is going to spend $200 million in the 2014 campaigns.

They came to Oregon, and the press reports said that they were putting $3.6 million into television ads attacking me.

Now, I was in a different position than many targets because the Koch brothers had bragged about this money. So they did not take advantage of the anonymity that they could have. I decided to call them out. I put up an ad and said: Where is this money from? It is out-of-State oil and coal billionaires who have come to our State who want to elect my opponent because they share an agenda, and here is the agenda they have advertised: great investment for them, terrible choice for Oregon.

That was my response. I was able to respond because, in that case, the Koch brothers had chosen to waive the secrecy. They wanted people to know what they were doing. They wanted people to tremble and fear over the fact that they could write a check for $3 million, or $5 million, or $10 million, or $50 million.

This is even more evil when it is secret because then you can't respond about the source and what they are all about.

We have seen some recent examples. The Elections Project--what is that dark money up to? That dark money is up to trying to override article I, section 4 of the Constitution. They want State legislatures, without any influence from Congress or from Governors, to be able to write election rules. That is not what the Constitution says.

In addition, they want State legislators to be able to ignore the vote in their State and reassign electors for President to whomever they want. That is what that dark money group is doing.

How about Heritage Action? Jessica Anderson, the executive director, was caught on video bragging about her organization's role in passing voter suppression laws in Georgia. That is what that dark money is up to. They are trying to stop Americans from voting. How un-American is that? How unpatriotic is that? How ``destroying the freedom and rights of Americans'' is that? That is what Heritage Action is up to in trying to destroy democracy here in the United States of America.

Then we had the dark money groups coming together and saying that they were going to have an under-the-dome-type strategy to stop the DISCLOSE Act. What does ``under the dome'' mean? It is a reference to the dome over the Capitol. ``Under the dome'' is about using the triple veto here in the Senate to stop the DISCLOSE Act.

We twice had 59 votes to try to hold a debate on the DISCLOSE Act, but not 60--1 vote short. Now they are trying to do it again, to use the Republican caucus under the Senate rules--an under-the-dome strategy to support the sleazy, terrible, dark money attacks corrupting elections in America.

I say ``corrupting'' because how can an individual, if they can't see who is donating the money, if they don't know what is true and what isn't, because the highest percentage of these ads are actually putting fake facts forward; they are putting lies forward--that is why I call them a smear campaign. If smear campaigns are inundating the airways, how can citizens make an informed judgment? They can't. That is why Antonin Scalia said this type of secrecy would destroy democracy, and on this, he was right.

Let's pass the DISCLOSE Act. Let's save the vision of government of, by, and for the people.

I yield to my colleague from Oregon.

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