AKPIRG quoted in the Anchorage Daily News
Published: March 8th, 2010
In today’s Anchorage Daily News story about a crucial campaign finance reform initiative in the state legislature, AKPIRG’s Matt Wallace is quoted as saying of the Supreme Court’s disastrous January ruling in ‘Citizens United’:
“That decision didn’t invent the problem of big-money influence in politics — we all know that big money too often can buy access and influence in politics, and that, in a large part, explains a lot of the cynicism that many citizens feel toward politics in general,” Wallace said. But the decision “did make the problem much, much worse,” he said.
The bill in question, SB 284 (and it’s counterpart in the house HB 409), would add common sense disclosure requirements for corporate and union spending in elections. What’s more, the bill would require that disclaimers be added to campaign adds revealing the true sources of a groups funding. This would help mitigate the problem of vitriolic attack adds from front groups with names like “Americans for Truth and Justice”, when they’re really being paid for by big corporations with a vested interest in the result of the election.
