GOP doesn’t talk about disclosure anymore

Many GOP lawmakers used to argue that the best campaign-finance solution was to lift limits on donations but require immediate, full disclosure. But Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor at the Washington Post, noted that most Republicans don’t talk about disclosure anymore. Why? The U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has resulted in a flood of corporate money favoring Republicans, much of it undisclosed. “The playing field has tilted toward Republicans, and they’re in no hurry to tilt it back,” Hiatt wrote. One GOP lawmaker who is still raising alarms is Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. He called the Citizens United decision “misguided, naive, uninformed, egregious,” and he lamented the huge amounts of money that are now pouring into politics (some of which may originate overseas, he warned). “I just wish one of them had run for county sheriff,” McCain said of the Supreme Court justices. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., defended the lack of disclosure as protecting free speech, arguing that the government or activist groups on the right or left might use such disclosures to target and intimidate citizens.