The Stifle Speech Act of 2022 Democrats roll out the Disclose Act to intimidate donors.
It wouldn’t be an election cycle without a bill to limit political speech, and Democrats are right on time. On Monday New York Sen. Chuck Schumer brought back the Disclose Act to rid campaigns of the “evil scourge of dark money.”
The bill is sponsored by Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, which gives away that this is about squelching political opponents. It would require groups that talk about political issues to disclose donors who contribute more than $10,000 in a two-year cycle. Any group that does issue advocacy and mentions a candidate would be covered, and that would include any mention of a federal judicial nominee.
In remarks Tuesday supporting the bill, President Biden called out a mysterious “conservative activist who spent . . . decades working to put enough conservative justices on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade” and now has $1.6 billion to “restrict more freedoms.”
Mr. Biden is referring to Leonard Leo, former executive vice president of the Federalist Society who now runs the Marble Freedom Trust, which funds conservative groups. The donation was from Chicago businessman Barre Seid, but neither Mr. Leo nor the donation are secret. Conservative activism on judicial issues is no different than that of George Soros and any number of figures on the left who spend lavishly to influence politics.
The left-wing counterpart to Mr. Leo’s group is Arabella Advisors, which funds among many other groups Demand Justice, which lobbies for Democrats to pack the Supreme Court. Funny, Mr. Biden didn’t mention that.
Including judicial nominees in the Disclose Act is a favor to progressive groups like Ruth Sent Us and others for which donor intimidation is a political strategy. They scour donor lists for names and then broadcast them to social-media lists that make them political targets. Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich resigned after he was attacked for donating in support of a ban on same-sex marriage. The goal is to intimidate individuals and businesses from donating to conservative causes.
Using donor information for political intimidation isn’t new. In the Jim Crow South in the 1950s, Alabama’s attorney general sought the names of NAACP supporters. The civil-rights group declined to provide them and prevailed at the Supreme Court, which wrote that “compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute . . . a restraint on freedom of association” (NAACP v. Alabama, 1958).
ACLU senior legislative counsels Kate Ruane and Sonia Gill argued in the Washington Post last year that the disclosure of donors who give $10,000 to issues during an election cycle would “directly interfere with the ability of many to engage in political speech about causes that they care about” by “imposing onerous disclosure requirements on nonprofits committed to advancing those causes.”
Fewer people will participate in politics if the cost is protesters outside your home or being smeared on social media. For trade associations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the $10,000 amount will mean disclosure of many members that pay annual dues. For others the stakes could be even higher. Asking a 501(c)4 group that does political advocacy on China to disclose its donors puts the lives of donors and family members in China at risk.
The good news is that Senate Republicans blocked the Disclose Act from moving to a vote on Thursday. But Democrats will keep trying because limiting political speech has become a core principle of the party.
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