Top Dem: Surge in outside spending from secret donors ‘repugnant’

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) on Wednesday urged Congress to pass campaign finance reform in light of an estimate that outside spending in the 2014 election cycle was nearly twice as high as in 2010.

The Center for Responsive Politics estimates that outside groups will have poured in at least $554 million in the 2014 elections, up from $309 million in the last midterm cycle. Nearly 40 percent of that spending came from undisclosed donors.

{mosads}Such a figure is still dwarfed by the 2012 presidential election cycle, when outside groups spent a whopping $1 billion.

Van Hollen, who has sponsored campaign finance reform legislation called the DISCLOSE Act, said the 2010 Supreme Court decision allowing outside groups to spend unlimited amounts of money in elections had allowed campaign finance to spiral out of control.

“The surge of outside secret money spent in this midterm election is simply repugnant. This epidemic began with the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision and has only gotten worse,” Van Hollen said. “Congress must restore the integrity of our democratic process – the American people deserve a political system that is fair, transparent, and accountable.”

The DISCLOSE Act would require corporations and outside groups to explicitly endorse their own campaign ads, notify shareholders of campaign spending and report expenditures of $10,000 or more to the Federal Election Commission.