Today, People For the American Way delivered to Senate Rules Committee Chairman Charles Schumer more than 25,000 petitions urging the Senate to consider and pass meaningful campaign finance disclosure legislation.

In July, and again in September, Senate Republicans unanimously blocked consideration of the House-passed DISCLOSE Act, which would have required groups that spend money on outside political advertising to disclose the major sources of their funding. The thousands of petitions urge the Senate to take up and pass the DISCLOSE Act without further delay.

“There is absolutely no good reason for Senate Republicans to be stalling the DISCLOSE Act,” said Michael Keegan, President of People For the American Way, “In the first election after Citizens United, Americans were bombarded with an unprecedented number of ads paid for by undisclosed donors, many of them making misleading or false claims. The DISCLOSE Act will simply allow Americans to hold political advertisers accountable for their claims and to hold candidates accountable for the ads aired on their behalves.

“Poll after poll has shown that Americans are fed up with secret influence-buying in elections, and want legislation to bring all campaign spending into the sunlight. The American people want this bill passed now. Senate Republicans can choose to listen to the American people and make our democracy stronger, or listen to corporate lobbyists and kick off another election cycle of shadowy campaign spending.”

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