Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has been meeting with Democratic colleagues to discuss legislation to require disclosure for outside group political spending, he told The Hill yesterday.

“I’ve been having discussions with Sen. [Sheldon] Whitehouse [D-R.I.] and a couple others on the issue,” the one-time campaign finance reform advocate said, noting talks have been ongoing for a couple of months and that he wants any legislation to be “balanced and address the issue of union contributions as well as other outside contributions.”

McCain, who famously co-authored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 with then-Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), has been noticeably AWOL on these issues since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling.

In 2010, after the high court ruled, McCain declared campaign finance reform dead and essentially washed his hands of the cause, telling CBS’s Bob Schieffer, “I don’t think there’s much that can be done.”

Without McCain’s help, Democrats created the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act. The bill — which sought to ban campaign expenditures by foreign-owned corporations and to require disclosure of the true sources of the money behind independent expenditures and electioneering communications — passed the House in June of 2010. When the bill came to the Senate, McCain refused to back the measure. Decrying provisions in it as “a bailout for the unions,” McCain attacked the bill as tougher on corporations than unions.

McCain joined a filibuster and the bill failed to achieve cloture by a single vote. Rather than offering amendments to the bill or working behind the scenes with sponsors to reach an agreement, McCain was the deciding vote to kill the bill without even allowing an up-or-down vote.

Now, with an even more closely-divided Senate and Speaker John Boehner running the House, the climb for any disclosure legislation will be steep.

If McCain is serious about rejoining the campaign finance reform fight, it is welcome news. But thanks to his earlier obstruction, he may find his efforts to be too little, too late.

A new Super PAC registered with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) yesterday with a name that conveys its unusual mission: America’s Super PAC For The Permanent Elimination of America’s Super PACs (ASPFTPEASP).

Since the 2010 Citizens United and SpeechNow.org ruling created the independent-expenditure-only “Super PAC,” hundreds of such committees have registered. About a quarter of those Super PACs have reported making any independent expenditures, to date — supporting and/or opposing federal candidates.

But ASPFTPEASP appears to be the first committee formed with the mission of self-annihilation. The group’s website lists a two-pronged mission:

America’s Super PACs For the Permanent Elimination of America’s Super PACs will seek to raise awareness of the usage of Super PACs during elections and advise citizens on how to demand (from their respective representatives) that Super PACs be removed from politics.

America’s Super PAC For The Permanent Elimination of America’s Super PACs seeks to call for a constitutional convention where an amendment will be proposed to ensure that corporations are never considered to be people. Why? They’re not. Plain and simple.

Jonathan Rachowicz, who is listed on the group’s official filings as “High Treasurer,” told ThinkProgress that while his group its taking a comical approach, it intends to be a serious effort:

We’re going to fight fire with fire. If we can create a Super PAC with a ridiculous name that creates ridiculous ads, we can show people just how absurd the idea of a Super PAC really is. Once that happens we can really get some change.

Rachowicz said the group hopes to enlist a “high number of people” to compete with the rich who “have a high number of dollars.” Unlike other Super PACs which principally focus on the election or defeat of federal candidates, he says their top issue is “the way in which federal candidates are supported by unlimited funds, which can lead to corruption.”

With Super PACs already roundly despised — and polling showing more America’s believe in witchcraft than agree with the Citizens United ruling — this may be the one Super PAC with whom the vast majority of Americans can agree.

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) could be out of a job soon as the Government Accountability Board ordered a recall election this week after more than 900,000 Wisconsinites submitted signatures to hold a recall election this summer. With the election just two months away, outside spending groups are already scrambling to pour money into ads both for and against Walker. However, because of a quirk in Wisconsin campaign law, these groups can spend unlimited funds without disclosing where their money is coming from.

ThinkProgress spoke with attendees last weekend at the Americans For Prosperity Defending the American Dream Summit in Milwaukee. Though all of them were Walker supporters, whose Republican Party has typically fought efforts to bring more transparency into campaign funding, the attendees were unanimous in their desire to require outside spending groups disclose where they get their funding. Watch a short compilation of their responses:

In a panel yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) called the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling “a combination of arrogance, naivete, and stupidity, the likes of which I have never seen.” And he predicted scandals would come from the combination of unlimited corporate contributions and lack of disclosure for many independent expenditures:

McCain: I promise you this. I promise you there will be huge scandals… because there’s too much money washing around, too much of it… we don’t know who, who contributed it, and there is too much corruption associated with that kind of money. There will be major scanadals.
Moderator: John McCain never gives up. That’s the legend. Are you gonna give up on this?
McCain: No. But I’ve got to wait until we think that can pass legislation. And I’m not sure right now, frankly, that we could get it passed.

Watch the video:

With a Republican House largely unconcerned about the issue and a Republican minority able to block legislation through filibuster, McCain is probably correct in his assessment of the prospects of a legislative fix in the current Congress.

But McCain deserves a large share of the blame for the secret money in our political system.

In 2010, after the high court ruled, McCain declared campaign finance reform dead and essentially washed his hands of the cause, telling CBS’s Bob Schieffer, “I don’t think there’s much that can be done.”

Without McCain’s help, Democrats created the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act. The bill — which sought to ban campaign expenditures by foreign-owned corporations and to require disclosure of the true sources of the money behind independent expenditures and electioneering communications — passed the House in June of 2010.

When the bill came to the Senate, McCain refused to back the measure. Decrying provisions in it as “a bailout for the unions,” McCain attacked the bill as tougher on corporations than unions.

On September 24, Democratic efforts to end a Republican filibuster of the measure failed by a single vote. All 59 Senate Democrats voted to end debate, McCain voted no. Rather than offering amendments to the bill or working behind the scenes with sponsors to reach an agreement, McCain was the deciding vote to kill the bill without even allowing an up-or-down vote.

Perhaps he feared a tough 2010 primary, but when there was a chance to do something about disclosure, McCain opted to stand with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and the Chamber of Commerce rather than Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and the campaign finance reform movement. He has not even co-sponsored the disclosure-only DISCLOSE Act of 2012 introduced last week.

McCain’s grumbling comes as too little, too late and should be seen as what it is — little more than grandstanding.

ThinkProgress intern Zach Bernstein contributed to this report.

After the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in the Citizens United v. FEC that corporations could spend unlimited funds from their corporate treasuries on independent political expenditures, some in Congress sought to give shareholders a say in deciding what what expenditures to make. While the Shareholder Protection Act of 2010, a bill by Rep. Mike Capuano (D-MA) to give corporate shareholders the right to vote on political expenditures, was endorsed by the House Financial Services Committee, it never came up for a vote on the House floor. Now, with Republicans in the majority in the House and able to filibuster any reform efforts in the Senate, some reformers have turned their focus to state legislatures.

A Connecticut legislative committee is currently considering a bill that could put the Nutmeg State at the forefront on the issue. A provision of House Bill 5528 would require a shareholder majority approve political spending. The bill would require:

Notwithstanding any provision of the general statutes, for corporations incorporated in this state, shareholders shall annually authorize a political activities budget for the corporation by a majority of votes representing all outstanding shares. For corporations not incorporated in this state, but registered to do business in the state or with shareholders residing in the state, shareholders in the state shall authorize spending related to the state’s elections. Fiduciaries voting on behalf of investors shall disclose such vote to investors.

Another provision in the draft bill would require that the corporations’ boards of directors approve each expenditure over $10,000.

The Connecticut Business & Industry Association, predictably, has opposed these rules, calling them “an intrusion into a corporation’s constitutionally protected right to free speech” and warning that the “regulatory hurdles” of allowing the people who actually own a corporation to have a say in the political speech of that business would “will not make Connecticut appealing as a place to do business.”

But as Ciara Torres-Spelliscy, a professor at Stetson University College of Law and an expert on election law, noted in her committee testimony, “though the Supreme Court majority in Citizens United conceptualized corporations as collections of individuals with joint First Amendment rights, it is unclear how shareholders can voice their opinions collectively without a consent process.” By passing this bill, she says, “Connecticut can be the mouse that roars, exhibiting national leadership in this post-Citizens United America.”

If corporate political expenditures are really about protecting free speech, as the 5-4 Supreme Court majority said, measures like this could make sure that the people who actually make up the corporation are the ones deciding whether to speak, how much to speak, and what to say.

Justice Anthony Kennedy’s controversial 5-4 majority opinion in the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case specifically endorsed the idea of campaign finance disclosure. “Disclosure is the less-restrictive alternative to more comprehensive speech regulations,” he wrote, adding that they ensure voters are informed enough about who is speaking to fully assess the content of the political message. But with a bitterly divided Federal Election Commission unable to issue regulations to enforce those principles, many political organizations have kept secret the names of the individuals and corporations funding their advertisements.

In 2010, a bill to expand disclosure passed the Democratic-controlled house of representatives, but failed by a single vote in the Senate as Republicans unified to filibuster the measure. That bill — the Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections (DISCLOSE) Act also contained provisions restricting
government contractors and foreign companies from political advertising.

Today, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and some of his Democratic colleagues unveiled a new attempt — the DISCLOSE Act of 2012 — focusing just on disclosure provisions. According to a fact sheet provided by Whitehouse’s office, the bill would require the following:

Any covered organization that spends $10,000 or more on campaign-related disbursements during an election cycle [must] file a disclosure report with the Federal Election Commission within 24 hours, and [must] file a new report for each additional $10,000 or more that is spent, detailing the amount and nature of each expenditure over $1,000 and the names of all of its donors who gave $10,000 or more.

Covered organizations include super PACs and tax-exempt 501(c)(4) organizations. Additionally, the ads would have to list the top donors behind the message.

With outside groups spending millions and hugely unpopular, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) says Democrats are hopeful that even in a more Republican congress, the bill might attract bipartisan support. The Senate’s rules committee, which Schumer chairs, will begin considering the bill at a hearing next week.

Like many of his Republican colleagues, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has indicated many times that he believes campaign finance disclosure — not limits — is the best way to ensure a just political system. With this new DISCLOSE Act, they will once again be forced to show whether they actually believe it.

No one has benefited more from wealthy donors seeking to influence the 2012 presidential race than Mitt Romney. As of last August, Romney received more lobbyist contributions than the rest of the GOP field combined. His largest single source of campaign revenue is Wall Street bankers, and a massive 10 percent of all American billionaires donated to Romney’s campaign. So it should come as little surprise that Romney is a big supporter of allowing the rich and the powerful to buy and sell democracy — Romney recently pledged to appoint more justices like the ones who joined the egregious Citizens United decision.

As with so many of Romney’s positions, however, he didn’t always feel the same way. Back in 1994, Romney delivered a speech — to a group of business leaders nonetheless — calling for much stricter campaign finance laws:

I am personally of the belief that money plays a much more important role in what is done in Washington than we believe. I personally believe that when campaigns spend the kind of money they’re now spending — this race, I understand, Ted Kennedy will spend about ten million dollars to be reelected. He’s been in 32 years. 10 million dollars — I think that’s wrong. And that’s not his own money, that’s all from other people, and to get that kind of money, as an incumbent you’ve got to cozy up to other people — all of the special interest groups that can go out there and raise money for you from their members — and that kind of relationship has an influence on the way that you’re going to vote. [...]

These kinds of associations between money and politics, in my view, are wrong. And, for that reason, I would like to have campaign spending limits. [...] I also would abolish PACs.

Watch it:

The Mitt Romney of 17 years ago was exactly right. When a candidate accepts millions of dollars from wealthy individuals and special interest groups, that kind of relationship does influence how they will govern when they are elected. Indeed, that’s exactly why Wall Street and one in 10 billionaires are planning to get exactly what they paid for if Mitt Romney is elected president.

(HT: Andrew Kaczynski)

A 15-year-old law providing for public financing in the state of Maine may soon be undermined by Republican state lawmakers.

In 1996, Maine voters passed the Clean Elections Act, making it the first state in the country to have public financing for state elections. Since that time, state legislative and gubernatorial candidates have used public financing, as the Maine Public Broadcasting Network writes , to “discourage the use of special interest money out of state and, allow candidates to spend more time running for office instead of fundraising.” The system has been so successful that in 2010, “more than 80 percent of legislators used Clean Election money,” according to the Bangor Daily News.

Here’s how it works. Once candidates collect a certain number of $5 qualifying checks, they receive a set amount of funds – just under $5,500 for contested state representative races – to run their campaign. If their opponent or an outside group spends additional money, the “clean elections candidate” receives matching funds as well.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar matching funds provision in Arizona. As a result, Maine legislators agreed to revisit their state’s law and bring it into compliance.

However, Republicans are using the opportunity to try to undermine the state’s entire public financing system. Though a number of ideas have been proposed by the Maine Ethics Commission to bring the state’s program into compliance, Republicans rejected those proposals in a party-line vote yesterday. Instead, GOP lawmakers simply eliminated the matching funds provision without offering any alternatives to fill the void:

In a strict party line vote on Tuesday, Republican members of the Legislature’s Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee narrowly favored stripping the matching funds provision from the Maine Clean Election Act.

Maine lawmakers have been struggling since that court ruling with a way to address the elimination of matching funds and have debated two options put forth by the Maine Ethics Commission.

Under the first option, the state would pay candidates fixed amounts upfront — $7,716 for House candidates and $33,617 for Senate candidates, significantly more than the current allocations. Under the second, clean candidates could get extra payments by collecting additional $5 checks from private donors. In order to qualify for public funding in the first place, candidates need to collect a minimum number of such donations.

Republicans have rejected both.

State Rep. Diane Russell (D), one of the clean election law’s leading proponents, told ThinkProgress that the effort to roll back Maine’s public financing system could have national ramifications. “Maine is the model state,” said Russell. “If they kill public financing here, they put the stake in the heart nationally.”

The full legislature will take up the issue in January.