Small Business Lending Fund Act Of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, even before the Supreme Court issued its disastrous opinion in Citizens United, the influence of large corporations and other powerful special interests in our electoral process was overwhelming. There is a reason why the middle class is disappearing and why poverty is increasing while the people on top are making out like bandits. One of the reasons is the enormous influence big money interests have over the political process and the way they are able to use that influence through campaign contributions and through lobbying efforts. They are all over the place. Whether it is Wall Street, the oil companies, the coal companies, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the military industrial complex, all these very powerful and wealthy special interests contribute huge amounts of money into the political process, making it harder and harder for the significant needs of working families to be heard outside the din and the power of big money.

So, in other words, before this Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, we already had a very bad situation. It was a situation in which it required enormous sums of money on the part of a candidate to run for office, a situation in which it became increasingly common for millionaires and billionaires to be the only candidates able to finance a Federal campaign without heavy reliance on contributions from corporate interests. It is no secret both political parties look very favorably on so-called self-funded candidates. They don't have to raise any money for those candidates because they are multimillionaires and they are billionaires; they can write their own checks--checks which are often very large--in order to run for the House of Representatives or especially the Senate.

So what we had before Citizens United, that disastrous Supreme Court decision, was already a very bad situation. But that decision made a horrendous situation even worse.

The Supreme Court decided, at the beginning of this year, that it was acceptable and legal for the largest corporations in our country to spend unlimited resources supporting candidates who represent their interests, elevating corporations to the status of flesh-and-blood persons for constitutional purposes. So let me make a very bold and radical statement right now. I know many corporations. I know who they are. Let me tell my colleagues: A corporation is not a person. A corporation is not a person. It is totally absurd to suggest that a corporation should have the first amendment rights of individual Americans.

What the Supreme Court decision has done is to turn our media during campaigns into even more of a circus and undermines State election laws across the country that provide some small buffer between wealth and power. They have unleashed the vast coffers of corporate America by allowing them to spend whatever they want--unlimited sums of money--from their general bank accounts, not just their PACs and not just on sham issue ads but on telling people outright which candidate to vote for, something this country has not seen since 1947.

Big money corporate interests from Wall Street to oil giants, from drug companies to the military industrial complex, already dominate the political process in Washington. It is inconceivable to me that not one Republican--not one Republican today--voted to minimize the horrendous Supreme Court decision which will allow corporations to put unlimited funds into campaign advertising with no disclosure whatsoever--no disclosure whatsoever.

I think the American people must be wondering this afternoon what, to our Republican friends, could be wrong with some simple checks on campaign spending such as the following: requiring the CEO of a corporation that spends on campaign-related activity to stand by the ad they have produced and say that he or she ``approves this message.'' If the Presiding Officer was running for office or I am running for office and we put an ad on television, that is what we have to say. I think it is a good idea. If you put something ugly on television, you say: I approved this message. If you put something dishonest on the air, people have a right to know that you are the person responsible for that ad. If you have to be responsible for that ad, if I have to be responsible for that ad, if every other candidate for the Senate has to be responsible for that ad, why should not the CEO of a large corporation that is paying for that ad also have to say that he or she approves this message?

It is no great secret that a lot of money from abroad is being invested in American corporations. In a situation where a company which has a lot of foreign money in it, why should we allow that company to get actively involved in American politics? What the legislation that we voted on today does, which I think makes a lot of sense, is it prohibits a corporation that is under the direction or control of a foreign entity from spending money on our elections. I don't think that is an unreasonable provision. I don't think we want our political process to be dominated by people who may not have the best interests of the people of the United States of America at heart.

Another provision requires disclosure of political spending by corporations and other entities to their shareholders and members and requires these groups to make their political spending public on their Web sites within 24 hours after filing with the FEC. Why should the people who actually own the stock in those companies not be able to know in a timely manner what the CEOs of these corporations are doing so they can say: Excuse me, you can't do that with my money. I don't like that. I think what you are doing is wrong.

Another provision in this legislation would ban coordination between a candidate and outside groups on ads that reference a candidate from the time period beginning 90 days before a primary and running through the general election.

Another provision would avoid the appearance of corruption and possible misuse of taxpayer funds by banning government contractors with a contract worth more than $10 million from spending money on elections.

I think these are simple, straightforward provisions. I think they are right. I have a very hard time understanding how we could not get one Republican vote in support of these provisions.

My hope is that the Democratic leadership will not give up on this issue. I think the American people, before Citizens United, were frustrated and disgusted with the role big money plays in the political process, disgusted with the power big money interests have on influencing legislation, and I think they are now even more disgusted as a result of the Citizens United decision. We have brought forth legislation which I think is straightforward, I think it is sensible, I think it needs to be passed, and I hope we will continue that effort to get it passed.

With that, I yield the floor, and I note the absence of a quorum.

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