Democrat 'dark money' hypocrisy

Washington Examiner Editorial:

Many liberals have an almost-religious faith in the ability of campaign finance laws to clean up politics. In the real world, however, political money always finds the loopholes. And in this regard, well-greased backers of campaign finance reform are among the best models. On Wednesday, Senate Rules Chairman Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., will hold a hearing on the Disclose Act, which aims to force nonprofit advocacy organizations to publish the names of their member-donors. (It's important to keep in mind this distinction: Presently, neither 501(c)(3) nor (c)(4) non-profits have to disclose donor identity. Under Disclose, (c)(4) donors would be disclosed.)

Such disclosure helps Democrats use the bully pulpit and even the Internal Revenue Service to persecute donors to causes of which they disapprove. But it will not remove secret money from politics. For a model of how dark money will work in a Disclose world, donors need only look at one of the bill's sources of support -- the Democracy Alliance, a big-money liberal group that does not disclose its donor-members.

Democracy Alliance was formed as a taxable nonprofit group, so it would not be affected by Disclose -- even though some of its financial beneficiaries will testify in favor of the bill. Democracy Alliance's aim is to coordinate the efforts of wealthy liberals by directing them to a network of more than 100 preferred organizations, most of which officially or unofficially support the aims of theDemocratic Party.

The Democracy Alliance explained in an April memo why it does not disclose its membership. “Many of our donors choose not to participate publicly, and we respect that,” the memo said. “The DA exists to provide a comfortable environment for our partners to collectively make a real impact.”
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The Disclose act should be more accurately described as the Democrats' Donor Stalking Bill.  They want to use the law to demonize and attack donors to conservative organizations.  It is what they have been doing with the Koch brothers and other conservative donors and groups.  They want to use the act to facilitate their attacks on the First Amendment.