CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Super PACs
Interview
Today on CNN's Newsroom with Carol Costello, Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen discussed the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United v. FEC and the DISCLOSE Act 2012. A transcript of the interview is below, and you can watch the video here:
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN: Welcome, Congressman.
REP. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Good to be with you.
COSTELLO: So you're going to convene a Congressional Forum to look into these Super PACs. What do you want to find out?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, Carol, we just had a forum yesterday to investigate these PACs and what we found out should trouble all Americans, which is tens of millions of dollars of secret money are now flowing into various campaign efforts, and our view is that voters have a right to know who's spending all this money. We shouldn't have secret money in these campaigns, and so I have a piece of legislation called the DISCLOSE bill that very simply says that when you're spending gobs of money to try and influence voters, you should tell the voters who you are, who is spending it -- very simple idea, used to be a bipartisan idea. Senator Mitch McConnell and others had always said we need more disclosure. Unfortunately, at least as of right now they're not supporting this bill. I hope they'll change their minds.
COSTELLO: You spoke in the spirit of bipartisanship but I'm going to ask you a partisan question. We know the Republican Super PACs have raised tens of millions of dollars, more than that, but Democratic Super PACs haven't raised as much. So, would you have a problem if the numbers were reversed?
VAN HOLLEN: I would. I have a problem with secret money regardless of whether you're talking about a Republican-leaning organization, a Democrat-leaning organization, or some independent organization.
There are two issues with Super PACs. One is the volume of money that's flowing in. The other issue is the secret money. Now, technically, Super PACs do have to disclose their donors, but what you're finding is many of these PACs are then partnering with these other organizations. For example, Karl Rove has Crossroads GPS which actively solicits this secret money. And I don't care whether it's Karl Rove's group or some group on the left, my view is that voters have a right to know who is funneling all these monies into campaigns to try and elect candidates of their choice, to try and influence the legislative process. It's as simple as that.
COSTELLO: I think many voters would agree that they want to know who is donating all of this money, but every time campaign finance reform of any kind comes up in Congress, it doesn't really go that far. So what makes you think that your idea will work this time?
VAN HOLLEN: Well Carol, there are two issues. One is campaign finance reform, which is to try and put some limits on the amount of money people can give to candidates specifically, but now there's this whole "Wild West" outside of giving to candidates and campaigns, that was opened up by the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United, which says we're now going to treat corporations just like individuals. They're going to have the same rights, for the purposes of spending money in campaigns, as individuals, which means that major corporations can now spend millions, or if they choose billions, in these campaigns.
And what we're saying is -- I think that's a problem in and of itself, but at the very least, let's make sure they can't do it secretly. Let's make sure a corporation cannot give to some organization to essentially launder their money so that nobody knows where it's coming from. Transparency and sunshine are good for the democratic process. That's what we're asking for.
COSTELLO: Okay. We'll keep an eye on what comes out of the forum.
VAN HOLLEN: I should say, I wanted to have a hearing, a full hearing. Unfortunately the Republican chairman of the Committee refuses to have a hearing on this issue, so we had to have a what we call a forum instead. We'd like to have a full hearing and that's what we're asking for.
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