Providing for Consideration of H.r. 1737, Reforming CFPB Indirect Auto Financing Guidance Act; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 511, Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act of 2015; and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member of the Rules Committee, who began the discussion here by pointing out that here we go again. We say there is new leadership in town on the Republican side, but it is the same old closed process: closed rule, limit democracy, don't allow a full debate, and don't allow the people's House to decide on important questions for the country. When you have a closed rule, you are starting to close down democracy; you are limiting the ability of this House to make decisions on behalf of all the American people.

So we have, as part of the previous question, if you defeat the previous question, a proposal to also improve transparency and openness in the full political process, because this is the people's House, and we would hope that it would do the people's business. But we also know that there are a lot of special interests out there that are spending millions and millions and millions of dollars trying to get their way and substitute their special interests for the public interests. They are spending millions of dollars to try to elect candidates who will do their bidding.

What this proposal does is just say we need to be transparent and open about who is spending all that money. People in those interests can continue to spend money to try and elect candidates, but don't do it secretly. Do it openly.

So what we are asking is for this House to take up what is called the Disclose Act. The Disclose Act simply says that voters have a right to know which special interests around the country are spending millions and millions of dollars to try to influence their voting decision, because we believe that sunlight and transparency helps build accountability and that accountability helps build a stronger democracy.

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So after the Citizens United decision, that terrible decision, what happened? Special interests were able to spend millions and millions of dollars at a time. They weren't constrained by any limits on what kind of contributions they could make. So we got a lot more money, but we also got something else. We got essentially a political underground in spending. We had this system now where people try and channel their moneys in secret ways to hide themselves from the public.

So if we get to vote on the Disclose Act, we will see where we stand on the simple question of whether this body supports transparency, because, honestly, if you have got nothing to hide, you have got nothing to fear.

Right now we have these commercials out there. They say, ``Paid for by Committee for a Better America,'' ``Paid for by mom and apple pie,'' but the people who are paying for them don't want the voters to know who they are. They want it to be a closed process. We are asking that they disclose their identity.

In fact, in the Citizens United case, eight of the nine Supreme Court Justices said they were for more disclosure. And, in fact, recently, Justice Kennedy, who was one of the five in the 5-4 majority, said that the disclosure that he thought would work is not working. But they said the legislature can always act on this issue and improve the transparency and disclosure of the political process. Even Justice Scalia said that would be good for the political process.

We want to know who is spending all that money to try and influence decisions of the people's House. What is wrong with a little sunshine? What is wrong with transparency? Doesn't that improve accountability, and doesn't that strengthen our democracy?

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I understand that we are going to continue to have these closed rules apparently that are not going to make this an open process here, but for goodness' sake, Mr. Speaker, let's at least allow the American people to know who is spending all that money to try to influence voting decisions and, ultimately, influence the kind of legislation that comes to the floor of this House, because we need to be focused on the people's business, not the business of secret special interests.

Let the sunshine in. Let's allow transparency. Let's defeat the previous question so that we can vote on the Disclose Act and give the voters the right to know that they deserve.

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