Van Hollen to Shadowy Groups: Who is Bankrolling You?

Press Release

Tonight, Maryland Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Assistant to the Speaker, was on MSNBC's Hardball discussing the deluge of secret spending by shadowy third party groups, and the need for transparency that the DISCLOSE Act would have provided. Instead -- because of opposition by Washington Republicans and groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- powerful special interests, some whom receive contributions from foreign-owned companies, are mounting a furious effort to influence the upcoming election and keep the American people in the dark. The House-passed DISCLOSE Act, which was authored by Congressman Van Hollen and Republican Congressman Mike Castle, would have required stealth groups on both the right and the left to disclose their funders. Watch it here.

Here are some key highlights:

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"Here's what we know: We know that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce bitterly fought our efforts to take away taxpayer subsidies -- loopholes -- that went to companies that ship jobs overseas, that outsource American jobs. We got that passed over their vigorous opposition. And the fact of the matter is, their position has been one serves the interest of overseas profits of multinational corporations over American workers and American jobs. So it's not surprising to see them taking these actions in American elections. But what we're seeing is the potential now -- that out of this big, general fund -- they are using the foreign contributions as part of it. So, we need to get to the bottom of it and the easiest way to do it is for the Chamber to disclose and just tell the voters who is putting the money in."
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"Look, this is a moment of truth for the American voter. Are they going to demand -- is the voter going to demand -- that these third party groups that are dumping millions of dollars of secret money -- we don't know exactly where it comes from -- into campaigns, are they going to come clean and tell us who is bankrolling them. Whose interests are they serving?"
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"We know, in this case, that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce worked hard to stop legislation that would end these taxpayer rewards for offshoring American jobs. But look -- 60 Plus is an organization, Chris, that is funded by the health insurance industry, which would make hundreds of millions -- if not billions -- of dollars from the Republican plan, which they voted on in their budget last year, to privatize Medicare. So voters have got to wake up and ask themselves the question, why are these outside interests secretly funding these candidates and what's their agenda? Because I can assure you it's not the agenda that serves the interest of the people in these districts."

Full Transcript:

Chris Matthews: Let's turn now to Chris Van Hollen, who is the Chairman of the Democratic Congressional campaign. Congressman what do you make of this charge that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is basically filtering money from overseas into the pockets of Republican campaigns against your candidates?

Congressman Van Hollen: Well it's a very troubling possibility here, because what you would have then is foreign controlled interests directly trying to influence U.S. elections by using the Chamber of Commerce as a conduit.

Here's what we know: We know that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce bitterly fought our efforts to take away taxpayer subsidies -- loopholes -- that went to companies that ship jobs overseas, that outsource American jobs. We got that passed over their vigorous opposition.

And the fact of the matter is, their position has been one serves the interest of overseas profits of multinational corporations over American workers and American jobs. So it's not surprising to see them taking these actions in American elections. But what we're seeing is the potential now -- that out of this big, general fund -- they are using the foreign contributions as part of it. So, we need to get to the bottom of it and the easiest way to do it is for the Chamber to disclose and just tell the voters who is putting the money in.

Chris Matthews: Here's the scary part. You work for an American car company in this country; you work for an American steel company up in Pittsburgh. You're trying to fight for your job and you find out that somewhere in Japan, or somewhere in Brussels, or somewhere, there's some guy with a lot of money sending money over to defeat your Democratic pro-job Senate candidate or House candidate. In other words, they're against free trade; they are against some sort of trade deal -- this foreign government that wants that trade deal, that way to open the market in the United States or beat us in some market situation. They're trying to defeat your Congressperson. Doesn't that scare you?

Congressman Van Hollen: It does scare me. Look, this is a moment of truth for the American voter. Are they going to demand -- is the voter going to demand -- that these third party groups that are dumping millions of dollars of secret money -- we don't know exactly where it comes from -- into campaigns, are they going to come clean and tell us who is bankrolling them. Whose interests are they serving?

We know, in this case, that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce worked hard to stop legislation that would end these taxpayer rewards for offshoring American jobs. But look -- 60 Plus is an organization, Chris, that is funded by the health insurance industry, which would make hundreds of millions -- if not billions -- of dollars from the Republican plan, which they voted on in their budget last year, to privatize Medicare.

So voters have got to wake up and ask themselves the question, why are these outside interests secretly funding these candidates and what's their agenda? Because I can assure you it's not the agenda that serves the interest of the people in these districts.

Chris Matthews: How do you get regular people in this country, not far-left people or far-right people -- they'll probably vote. How do you get people who are sort of center left or down the middle voters if you are a Democrat to get up on the morning of November 2nd and make an effort to vote when they don't have a lot of visceral anger out there? I know the angry people always manage to get to the polling place, but regular people who say I think Barack's done a pretty good job; I like the health care thing, let's see how it works; I don't like the tax breaks going only to the rich. They agree with your party, but they do with less passion than the other side -- the haters -- do. How do you get them to vote?

Congressman Van Hollen: Well, look, they need to be reminded about the fact that the day that Barack Obama took office we were losing 700,000 jobs every month. We've made significant process since then. We are not where we want to be, but we are making progress.

Why in the world would we want to return to a set of policies that serves some narrow special interests and took the economy into the ditch? And what we're seeing now is all these outside groups -- whether it's Americans for Prosperity, 60 Plus, or now the U.S. Chamber ads that are coming in. They were very well served by the Bush economic agenda. That agenda didn't serve the vast majority of people in this country. Those groups are fighting hard to take us back and this is a wake-up call, Chris, to people who don't want to go back. This latest issue about foreign-controlled interests trying to influence the outcome of American elections should send a little shock wave through the electorate.

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