captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2008 and poor people would participate in campaigns and run longer as they have this year in the republican primary and more would have chance to vote and lebs officials would spend a lot less time with people trying to give them money. >> thank you, senator alexander. still if you don't require disclosure of the super pacs there will be people who will

want to give for undisclosed. so you'll still have that ability to do it. but if you want to give $1 million to the candidate, you will have to disclose it. >> if you give to the president's super pac, you have to disclose that. >> so my only question just for clarification because he's put out an alternative is are you recommending that there be some kind of disclosure in the 501 c 4, c 6s, c 3s? >> if you're willing to remove the limits i'm willing to discuss with you what the disclosure definition ought to be. >> thanks. appreciate that. senator feinstein. >> i've been sitting here reflecting on the change in times. mr. keating mentioned that disclosure, sunlight knowledge was a radical idea and i was really taken aback by that because i don't see how it possibly can be.

this bill is modest. you can give under $10,000 without disclosure to a super pac. it's over $10,000. now, someone that contributes over $10,000 generally has some kind of motivation to contribute. the disclosure simply allows individuals to look at this and see who's supporting a candidate or a cause. what about this is such a radical idea, mr. keating? >> well senator it sounds like i may have been misinterpreted or i misspoke. i was talking about disclosure itself not the concept being a radical concept. perhaps the most radical is the government mandated disclaimer

that goes on for 20 seconds or more in many cases in a radio ad. this would cover all radio ads that mention the name of a congressman, something as simple and innocuous as a bill being for congress and it says call congressman smith and urge him to vote for the bill. you'd have to run an ad at least a minute long to even hope of getting your message across. you're going to drive up the cost of these ads. i don't understand why we need a disclaimer that goes on for 20 seconds when something as simple as paid for by americans for action for the environment does the trick. to me that's a radical approach. require to state a bunch of bureaucratic nonsense in a disclaimer that drives up the cost of advertising by a tremendous amount. >> well, i'm running for reelection, big state, very

expensive for television and yet i should be responsible for the ads i put up on television. therefore the disclaimer is important because it says to people that the ad is speaking for me. and i take responsibility for it. what is radical about that? >> i think what's radical is the bill specifies something that goes on forever when it can be said in far fewer words. >> mr. werthheimer? >> let's move to the tv ads. they require the head of the agency to take responsibility for the ad the same way you have to take responsibility for your ad. the tv ads also require the ad

to list the top five donors but that can be done in a crawl and would take up no time from the content of the ads. with respect to the radio ads, there were provisions added last time that are still in this bill that give the fec the power through regulation to exempt the kinds of ads that mr. keating is -- >> that's incorrect. >> no it's not. >> for radio? >> it's not correct. it only exempt the major donor listing, not the rest of the exclaimer. ask >> there's a hardship exception which can be used. you're correct. >> if the disclosure is too long or burdensome. it says eight seconds.

if you say it very slowly you can stretch it out to 20 if you want to. it takes eight. there's a hardship exception. >> as a fellow californian, we have rules very much like this, we hear political ads on the radio all the time, they mention the top two funders. it's really not a burden. you can get your message out and everyone does. >> i was -- my time is only -- >> you have an extra couple of minutes because -- >> i was just reading about the pg & e case where -- oh, i wish i had it in front of me. i put it down somewhere. oh here it is. that the pac raised approximately $46.2 million all of which was donated by pg&e. now pg&e is a good company. it's fallen on very hard time for certain things, i don't want to get into this. at one point it donated $9

million in one day. there is a consumer group called turn the utility reform network, they were able to raise $33 million. the pac outspent 500 to 1, which amounts to approximately $25 per vote. and they lost. i think the reason they lost this is my city is because of the disclaimer and then everybody was able to come to the conclusion this is not fair, this is the company about which this initiative is and it is not fair. now the company is not an individual speaking it's a group, it's a kind of oligarchy if you will, it's a board of directors, i would assume that makes that decision but it seems

to me that this is a very good example of disclosure. in other words the person -- the entity that does the super pac without disclosure has a very unfair position on the ballot. you would disagree with that, mr. keating, would you? >> well i'm not familiar with the details of california law but if it worked there, then great. i have no problem with that. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> just two points. i believe our law is quite the same as california. and, second, the hardship i mentioned, if the gentleman's name, if it takes 20 seconds to say their name, the hardship exception is on page 21 lines 5 through 14. >> is the hardship you're

talking about if it takes more than eight seconds? >> i'll read it. if the communication is transmitted through radio and is paid for in whole or in part with a payment which is treated as a campaign related disbursement under 324 the top two funders list in applicable unless on the basis of criteria established in regulations by the commission the communication is of such short duration, perhaps a 30-second ad that including the top two funders list in the communication would constitute a hardship to the person paying for the communication by requiring a disproportionate a content of the communication to consist of the top two funders. if you had a 30-second ad, with the top two funders that would be a hardship. >> let me be sure i understood.

you said earlier under disclosure the statute currently required disclosure but the fec has gutted the disclosure. >> the contribution disclosure. >> how has the fec gutted the contribution disclosure? >> by defining the only contributions required to be disclosed as the contributions that were given for the specific purpose of making campaign-related expenditures. >> and these would be contributions to these various groups like the sierra club or democracy 21 or whatever other group might spend money for that purpose? >> yeah. >> okay. do you think we should be having a hearing on the -- enforcing the statute? >> i think you ought to have a separate hearing on fundamentally reforming the federal election commission, but i don't think a hearing on enforcing a statute on this

regulation is going to get us to solve the problem of disclosure. >> but the statute you said required disclosure? >> under the current regular rules of the statute that resulted in $130 million not being disclosed. >> mr. keating made a statement that groups like the sierra club should be able to run ads out of their own budget. is that a fair -- >> yes. >> and do you all agree with that that groups like the sierra club should be able to run ads out of their own budget? just kind of a yes or no i guess. >> yes. and the statute accounts for that. >> and mr. hanson? >> yes, i think so long as they apply with the applicable disclosure rules, sure. >> what would those be mr. keating, the applicable disclosure rules for running ads

out of your own budget? >> well, if it's an independent expenditure, you must list the independent expenditure to the fec within 48 or 24 hours, depending when it was run. if it's an election year and communication you need to disclose the expenditure. if money was given for the independent expenditure and this is where i alluded to the confusion both from the statute and the regulations different people take different interpretations of what that means. i can tell you when i worked at club for growth, we interpreted that to mean that if you raised money just generally for an independent expenditure, the donor would have to be disclosed. now, other people may take a different view of that. so that's how our group took the view. so when we ran independent expenditures, we only did it from our general funds. we never asked anyone for money for independent expenditures. >> from your general funds you didn't disclose all the donors

to club for growth on any report anywhere? >> that's correct. because no money was given for independent expenditures. now club for growth today has a super pac, club for growth action, and it uses that entity to raise money for independent expenditures and all the donors to that organization are disclosed. >> so the super pac donors for club for growth are disclosed but the regular donors for club for growth are the sierra club, the two examples we've used so far aren't disclosed? >> correct. now, if a group did raise money for independent expenditures, you know, it's my view that that would have to be disclosed under the current law. other people feel differently and may not be disclosing. >> under the law we're talking about today, is it accurate that a member of the house or senate, that some groups -- which groups can't mention their name for the

year -- the entire year of the election? >> well any group unless it would want to -- if we're talking about this bill becoming law, any group that wanted to run an ad during an entire election year, if they spend more than $10,000 would have to meet the requirements of this. >> and how would you mention the name of a house member or senator? >> you could not unless you complied with all the provisions in this bill. >> do you want to say something? >> there are no restrictions in this bill. there are disclosure requirement. >> are there restrictions that say you can't mention somebody's name from january 1 until the election. that seems pretty big -- >> that's not a restriction in the bill. the bill does not have restrictions. the bill has disclosure requirements if you run ads. >> the bill provides a definition of an election year consideration which already exists in the law and extends it. but if something triggers election year consideration all this does is provide for

disclosure of information. it doesn't prevent anyone. there were limits before in the mccain law that was were struck down. >> so we take the 60 or 90 days that were 30 or 60 days in the law now and we take that same principal and expand it for an entire year? >> as for disclosure to the election year. i would think that members of the house or senate would like that, that they couldn't have their name mentioned without these restrictions for the entire -- that's half a house term and 1/6 of a senate term and the 1/6 of the senate term you're runing for election. i think i'm out of time. >> if i might add one other observation, there's no limiting principle to this. why couldn't it be both years? why couldn't it be at all times? i don't see any limiting

principles here. >> mr. udall. >> have they ran ads were donors were not disclosed until after the primary? if so, wasn't that a problem and how do we deal with it? >> i think it was a big problem in this election. the iowa caucuses, new hampshire and south carolina primary were all run and over with before we had the first disclosures of the super packs of who their funders were. that was because the way the law currently functions in an off election year pack only discloses semi-and newlyly and at the end of the year. so all of the money raised in the last six months of 2011 there was no disclosure of the donors until january 31st. the bill fixes that by basically

requiring disclosure to be made when the expenditures are made, then you have to disclose the correctors as well. so it does solve the problem of that serious disclosure problem for super pacs that existed in this election. >> now, the 2010 elections and i didn't look at all of these but i notice and i think senator schumer, chairman schumer will remember this, i believe senator bennett, our friend out in colorado, told us that the combined expenditures total independent expenditures, far overwhelmed both the totals for both candidates both democrat and republican. do you -- do you see when we're moving down the road where as we get into 2012 and 2014 where we have elections where the

combined spending of super pacs and independent expenditures are well beyond what the candidate is spending. is this a good trend? is it something that better was in the voters what candidates' positions are? do you think this is good for democracy? mr. werthheimer? >> no. and nor do i think the solution is to remove the contribution limb pits the studies have shown almost all of ut super pac ads are negative attack ads. but we believe that one of of the steps that should be taken and can be taken is to end the candidate-specific super pacs of the type we have seen in the presidential election.

those super pacs can be eliminated. when the supreme court ruled in citizens united that that corporate independent expenditures took place they also said they had to be independent of the candidate and they left to congress to define what's independent, what's coordination. once again we have very weak and problematic coordination rules. even under those rules we believe a number of the candidate-specific super pacs are operating illegally but we clearly feel that you could define super pacs in a way that they're not going to be run by close associates of the candidate and they're not going to be having their money raised by the candidates. these super pacs are not independent super packs. they are arms of the campaign and i think most people

recognize that and they are hiding behind their own views of what constitutes coordination under the law and also under a realization that the law is not going to be enforced against them by the fec. the supreme court when it talked about independent expenditures in the past was very clear. it had to be wholly independent fully independent, truly independent. these super packs are anything but those concepts. >> in -- and i know i only have a couple seconds here, it seems to me that the -- in reading about the super pacs in the presidential campaign, these are individuals who worked very closely with the candidate in many cases. it may have left the campaign recently or left the official

office recently or were the chief of staff within the last year, these are the kind of people that are running the super packs and april macing the money and putting them together, are they not? >> in one case it was the candidate's father who ran the super pac; is that correct? >> he was the overwhelming live major funder of it. >> i think this is a strange concept that somehow a father can corrupt the son through a donation. it just strikes me as this is another provision we have in the law of a husband can run and can't talk a donation from his wife because it would be corruption. there are some very strange provisions in it, things that are incredibly vague. we've heard the call for tax law

simplification. one of the things we need is election law simplification. mr. werthheimer is a student of this for many years and he's saying some things that i think are misleading. the idea that a campaign manager can go to a super pac, there is a provision of what an independent expenditure is. so there are restrictions. there's no evidence of these super pacs are illegally coordinating. of course people that know -- the final thing i'd like to observe is money is not everything. you look at the republican prime rip for president this time and you look at candidates that

soared during this primary and it was on the strength of their performance in the debates and a lot of people were watching these debates. s so there are other ways to get information out other than just money but money is very important. it's part of speech and i think the increased money we have in this primary we're see going on today is a good thing, turnout is up information is up there have been more front-runners and it's been a very competitive race. >> mr. werthheimer, would you like to respond to that just briefly? >> i think there's one example where a major fund-raiser for the romney campaign left the campaign and went to work for the super pac. if you think that's illegal maybe you would do something about it. but wait this has worked is that former close political associates of the candidates whether it's mitt romney or

president obama, have left or have set up these super pacs. in the case of president obama, two white house staff people left the white house and a few months later set up priorities usa action this has happened over and over again where the people who are running them are closely tied to the candidates. up you also have in the case of president obama and mitt romney, they are sending their top aides to these fund-raising events. they're claiming we're not there to solicit unlimited money for the super pacs, we're only here to ask for $5,000. but the reality of what's going on here is they're coordinating with the expenditures of those fund-raising events. i mean, i think that happens to

be blatant. so this is happening all over the place everyone is doing it. that's not good. that doesn't make it right. and in the end i think the highest priority here is to protect the interest of the american people, not the democratic party or democratic candidates or republican party or republican candidates. the american people have the bottom line stake here and they have a right to know who is putting up the money and who is spending it to influence their votes. >> well, i had hoped we could have a second round here of questions but they moved up the vote. it started at 11:15 so we're going to have to vote. i hope people will submit questions in writing. i hope we can move this bill to the floor in a relatively short period of time. i think it's a really important issue. i think that my worry, this is me speaking, i think that what's happened after citizens united is corroding the very essence of

our democracy and when a handful of people -- free speech is not an absolute. you can't scream fire in a crowded theater falsely, we have libel laws and when a handful of people can have a disproportionate effect, that corrodes our democracy and i worry about this country in terms of accountability. my view is we have to move forward. with that without objection the hearing record will remain open for ten business days for additional statements and documents submitted for the record. we also request that our witnesses respond in writing to additional written questions from committee members. i want to thank my colleagues for participating and i want to

thank our witnesses for a very illuminating discussion. with that the committee is adjourned. several live events to tell you about this morning. the senate judiciary committee committee holds a hearing on immigration laws. on c-span a hearing on the collapse of mf global. the senate banking committee is chaired by senator tim johnson

and the ranking member is senator richard shelby. michael carvin was an attorney who recently argued against the constitutionality of the health care law before the supreme court. representing the national federation of independent businesses. on friday he spoke to the national republican lawyers association. we'll show you as much of this as we can until our live coverage at 10:00 eastern. >> i hope everyone enjoyed the breakout sessions. we're going to go ahead and get started with our final speaker of the day before our reception and open bar. we're very happy to have mike carvin who focusses on constitutional appellate and civil rights and civil litigation against the federal government. he's argued numerous cases in the united states sport and

vrtually every appeals court obtaining the justice department from obtaining monetary relief from the tobacco company under rico limiting the justice department's ability to create majority/minority districts and upholding proposition's 209s ban on racial preferences in california. mike was one of the lead lawyers and argued on behalf of george w. bush in the florida recount controversy. heap has represented state government, financial institutions, telecommunication and energy companies in takings, first amendment, sichl rights and statutory challenges to federal actions. he's a graduate of george washington law school and earned his b.a. from tulane. he's served as deputy assistant attorney general civil rights difficult vision and special assistant to sis tant attorney general civil rights difficult vision and he knows a few things about obamacare,