Senate Democrats unveiled their version of the DISCLOSE Act today. (We wrote about the House bill, introduced last month, here.) Senator Whitehouse was joined by approximately 35 of his Democratic colleagues on legislation that has been described as a pure disclosure and disclaimer bill, with none of the controversial provisions that caused the DISCLOSE Act to fail in the Senate by one vote in 2010. The Senate’s laser-like focus on disclosure and disclaimer provisions mirrors Sunlight’s recommendations in our draft Stop Undisclosed Payments in Elections from Ruining Public Accountability Act (the SUPERPAC Act). By focusing on disclosure and disclaimer provisions only, with no carve outs for select groups or bans on certain types of contributions, the 2012 version of the DISCLOSE leaves opponents of the previous bill with little or nothing to object to--unless they believe our elections should continue to be paid for by dark money.

Specifically, the bill will create robust reporting requirements for Super PACs, corporations, unions and nonprofit organizations that decide to make campaign expenditures. It will also require ads to contain disclaimers by the top officials of such groups, similar to the stand by your ad mandates required of candidates.

Voters have been bombarded with campaign ads largely paid for by outside groups, with much of that money totally undisclosed. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, while touting the importance of disclosure, created a system in which money laundering could be used to funnel unlimited secret money into our political system. The DISCLOSE Act is a crucial step to address the corrupting influence of that money on our elections and our elected officials.

Senator Schumer has promised to hold a hearing on the bill in the Rules Committee next week. It will be interesting to see how his colleagues, including John McCain, Olympia Snowe, Lisa Murkowski and others who have expressed concern about the impact of the Citizens United decision, will react to this leaner version of DISCLOSE. We hope they recognize that the bill does nothing more, and nothing less, than lift the cloud that has been obscuring money in politics so that all citizens can know who is paying for our elections.

Lots of folks are starting to think about the transition to a new Administration.  We know of at least 2 dozen such efforts thus far.  And so we'll blog about them as they start to get released. 

POGO, the Project on Government Oversight, just released a list of recommendations of major reforms they believe the new presidential administration should adopt to make the federal government more effective, accountable, open, and honest. And we sure like their list! POGO sent their list to both the McCain and Obama transition teams.

As Mandy Smithberger writes at the POGO blog, they are advising the transition teams to making agency missions more modern and relevant, keeping government's role federalized, protecting whistleblowers, stopping the revolving door between government and private industry, strengthen the Freedom of Information Act and other transparency reforms, and other reforms to provide better government oversight.

Our friends at POGO say their recommendations, if implemented, will make the federal government work more efficiently, as well as shrink the cost of government. As the report states, "the initial costs of these reforms will be more than offset by the longterm savings for the taxpayer."

Mike Allen at The Politico reports that the Obama/Biden campaign is planning to use disclosure as a way to challenge the McCain/Palin claim to the change-maker mantle. The Democratic campaign announced it is releasing 10 years of Senator Biden's tax returns in an effort to pressure the McCain/Palin campaign to do the same.  Senator McCain has disclosed little about his family's finances, Allen reports. He files a separate tax return from his wife, and has only disclosed the last two years' returns. Sen. Obama has released each of his returns since 2000.

Reports that Gov. Palin collected almost $17,000 in per-diem travel payments from the State of Alaska (even when she was home and not traveling) have raised the question as to whether she reported the income on her tax returns. "Disclosure, or transparency, is a big way for a candidate to make that case (for change) during a campaign," Allen writes.

Sunlight has joined with seven other organizations in calling on the McCain and Obama campaigns to provide more details about their bundlers, the "mega-fundraisers" who are very skilled at using their business and personal contacts to raise large amounts of campaign cash for a specific candidate. By clicking on the following links, you can view the letters sent to John McCain and Barack Obama.

Bundlers are well-connected political players such as corporate executives and lobbyists collect far more money from friends, business associates and other contacts than they are allowed by law to give as an individual donor. Bundling is a big source of funds for the campaigns, earning the bundlers great access and power within a campaign and, for those fortunate to have chosen the right horse, great access and sway in the new administration. (Think Ambassadorships, appointments to regulatory commissions like the SEC, FCC, and other plumb positions.) McCain and Obama have voluntarily listed how much their bundlers have raised their campaign but in the most general terms.

Specifically, we are asking McCain and Obama to:

• report on their Web sites the exact amount bundlers have raised for the campaign;
• ask their party's national committee to track and disclose bundling funds coming to the party;
• to disclose bundler's locations by city and state, as well as their occupations and employers, matching FEC requirements for any donor contributing more than $200;
• and for individual contributors of $200 or less, we are asking the candidates to disclose the number of contributors and cumulative amounts by ZIP code and country (for those Americans living oversees).

Sunlight, in signing the letters joins the Campaign Finance Institute, Center for Responsive Politics, Common Cause, Democracy 21, League of Women Voters, Public Citizen, and U.S. PIRG.

In the letter, we acknowledged to the campaigns that we are asking for information presidential campaigns have not provided in the past. "But, to borrow a phrase," the letter says, "for those whom much private money has been contributed, much is required." Indeed.