Disclose Act of 2012--Motion to Proceed--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. SCHUMER. First, I would just like to make one preliminary comment, and then I would like to address what my colleague from Alaska has said and this bill.

FISCAL POLICY

On another issue, I just heard that Vice President Cheney came to address the Republican caucus on our fiscal cliff. I would suggest that the man who said deficits do not matter is not a very good teacher for the Republican caucus when it comes to deficit reduction and the fiscal cliff. They could get better teachers than that.

As for this issue, first, I wish to thank my colleague from Alaska for her heartfelt comments. She is what we need, somebody who cares about this issue, somebody who has great reach across the aisle, and somebody who is willing to work with us.

It is true, it is obvious we will not have the votes to win the DISCLOSE Act. It is simple disclosure. We tried to make it--under the leadership of Senator Whitehouse; I will address that in 1 minute--we tried to make it as narrow as possible. We tried to deal with all the objections we heard about labor unions and others. That is why there is a $10,000 amount--far beyond the labor union dues of any union I am aware of. We tried to make it as down the middle as possible for simple disclosure.

But I understand where my colleague from Alaska is coming from. I respect it, and I look forward to working with her. She might be the bridge we need because, mark my words, if we do not do something about this, we will not have the Republic we know in 5 years. It is that simple. This great country we all love has been dramatically changed by Citizens United. The failure to correct its huge deficiencies, to have such a small number of people have such a huge influence on our body politic--we have never seen it before. Oh, yes, we have read about our history, and we know there were small groups that were powerful in the past, the robber barons, et cetera. But never, never, never have a handful of people had such awesome tools to influence our political system in a way they choose without any accountability--never.

The robber barons were more accountable and more diffuse. The small group that led America, supposedly, in the 1920s was more accountable and more diffuse. The military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned about was far broader and more diffuse. To have a small number of people--most of them angry people, most of them people who do not even give any attention to someone who does not agree with them--to give them such awesome power, which is the power to run negative political ads over and over and have no accountability as to who is running them, that is a true danger to the Republic.

It befuddles me that our U.S. Supreme Court does not see it. We want our courts to be insulated from the vicissitudes of politics. But to have a Court that is so insulated that it does not see, smell, hear, touch what is going on in this Republic does not speak well of that Court. I think it is the main reason its popularity has declined. I hope our Justices will wake and realize what they are doing.

I would say again--first, I wish to thank Senator Whitehouse. He has been a great leader on this issue. I wish to thank all my colleagues. We have been debating this bill for 10 hours--more than 10 hours, I believe--and there has not been one quorum call, which means there has been speaking time from about 6 last night until 1 in the morning----

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