On June 27, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman David Cicilline of Rhode Island sat down with PFAW Government by the People Campaign Manager Rio Tazewell, Liz Kennedy from the Center for American Progress, and Rachel Curley from Public Citizen to talk about the DISCLOSE Act, which has been recently reintroduced to the Senate and the House.

The DISCLOSE Act seeks to bring much needed transparency to the corporate and special interest money that allows the wealthy and powerful to dictate election results and the lives of all Americans. Since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, corporations have been able to spend freely to overpower the voice of the American people. The bill, first introduced in 2010 in response to Citizens United, would require groups airing election ads to disclose the source of the money. Americans deserve fair representation from their government, but the massive amounts of big money from corporate and wealthy special interests distort the policies of the government and silence the voices of everyday Americans.

Senator Whitehouse stressed that disclosure is important because people are losing faith in the democratic system and the government isn’t answering to them any longer; “it’s answering special interests.” The DISCLOSE Act would make it necessary for anyone who donated more than $10,000 to disclose their donation to the public. Sen. Whitehouse believes this would alleviate the pressure of dark money groups on politicians and would let the American people’s voice get heard.  “It will be like turning on the lights and the cockroaches scuttle for the shadows. There will be a lot less mischief once the lights are on.”

Congressman Cicilline said that the DISCLOSE Act would “help [people] understand who [the money] is working for, where the money is coming from, [and] who’s contributing.” He also underscored the powerful influence of dark money on politics saying “why do we pay high prices for prescription drugs? Because of the influence of big pharma’s money in Washington. Why do we still give billions of dollars in subsidies to fossil fuel companies? Big, dark, secret money.”

Cicilline finished by telling voters to ask whether their elected representatives support the DISCLOSE Act and that they should not vote for anyone for office who does not commit to fixing our broken democracy.