The Obama administration is attempting to bypass Congress and force publicly-traded companies to reveal their political donations through regulation.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporate Finance has begun the steps necessary to create a regulation that would in many ways mirror the DISCLOSE Act — a bill Senate Democrats have failed to pass through Congress.
Created in reaction to the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling that said corporations and unions could not have limits placed on their political expenditures, the Senate bill would require political organizations to publicly name their donors and the amounts they give.
The SEC regulation would do the reverse — force companies to disclose the political groups they support — and have a similar effect.
“The Division [of Corporate Finance] is considering whether to recommend that the Commission issue a proposed rule to require that public companies provide disclosure to shareholders regarding the use of corporate resources for political activities,” reads the proposal, as reported to the president’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
Reacting to news that the SEC is considering adopting a similar regulation without Congress, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell condemned the action as a “direct assault” on the First Amendment.
“Sen. McConnell believes that in this country, there are few rights more sacred than those protected by our First Amendment,” the spokesman told The Daily Caller in a statement. “This action would be a direct assault on those rights, which is one of the chief reasons Congress has defeated similar proposals multiple times.”
McConnell has been the most outspoken Republican to condemn the Obama administration’s efforts to reveal the names of donors who give to political groups, declaring that the president is attempting to “silence [his] critics.”
“This administration claims that the goal of this bill is transparency, but the enthusiasm with which it has embraced the thuggish tactics of the left suggest that its true goal is to silence critics,” McConnell said at a speech in June of 2012.
