special thanks to my colleague from rhode island, sheldon whitehouse, for gathering us here this evening. it's almost 8:30 washington time. the chamber is otherwise empty. a few members, senator stabenow of michigan, preparing to speak. this is not really a senate debate. that happens almost never in this body, which is unfortunate. i had hoped that perhaps some members on the other side would come and defend their position, but they haven't. it's their right to go home, and they've done it. we think it's worth a few minutes of our time to come even this late at night to talk about this issue. mr. president, lyndon johnson was a pretty famous senator and president, and he used to say back in the day that when he was looking for advisors, he wishes that he had someone near him who would run for sheriff. what lyndon was saying, president johnson was saying was that the practical experience of politics is somehow a lot different than what many people imagined. i thought of that when i reflected on this supreme court currently sitting, the same court that decided citizens united, and the fac

of people there testifying talking about taking our democracy back and i really liked what sheldon whitehouse had to say here take a listen. we had asked that young man to go to afghanistan and we've sent him down a road that had an improvised explosive device under it that blew both of his legs off if we can ask that young man to do that we can darn well ask the koch brothers to put up with some impolite blogging. i say hell yeah right i mean the reason they're fighting if the disclose act is they're worried that these big donors are going to be harassed out in the press and by the public who. now is absurd you know all or republicans in the beginning said oh you know we should do a limited campaign contributions because we would disclose the donors anyway then we get unlimited campaign contributions they say oh no we don't disclose their donors or we might hurt their feelings if we if you found out that they were bribing but think about that if you did something positive would you be embarrassed about it being exposed or disclose no you'd be happy about a year to charity whatever it might b

joining me is senator sheldon whitehouse. thank you for coming on the show.citizens united. tell us what it does, and then procedurally, when are we going to get this passed? >> the bill does something very very simple. it requires any personal organization that contributes over $10,000 towards a campaign expenditure, a purchase of tv, for instance, to report within 24 hours that they did it. so that instead of this onslaught of secret campaign money that is pouring in through 501 c 4s and through super pacs we actually have an idea of who is behind all this spending. as you know, that's important because people don't spend this kind of money without a motive. and if their motive is so bad that they want to keep it secret all the more reason why we should sign light into those corners. >> eliot: the famous statement is that sunshine is the best disinfectant. what we need to do is let the sunshine in so we know who is spending this money. citizens united said folks have a right to spend money. but they do not have a right to spend it in secret. your bill does

minority in the senate so now democrats in the senate are trying to begin on tuesday senator sheldon whitehouse and eight other senate democrats proposed a new very watered down disclose act hoping that the latest more corporate friendly legislation may attract some republican supporters but is this really a strategy progress it should be using to get corporate money out of politics or do we need to be bolder and push for a constitutional amendment that once and for all says corporations are not people and money is property not speech joining me now is progressive activists two thousand and four green party candidate for president of states and spokes person for my favorite montra or david david welcome thank you tom it's always a pleasure to be here with you thanks for thanks for joining us how goes move to amend it's getting larger stronger and better organized every day i'm on the road over half of my life we get larger and larger crowds coming out and the great unreported story is that we're winning we've got over three hundred resolutions passed at the local level seven jurisdictions we pu

sheldon whitehouse is sponsor of the act that the senate's voting on today which could require donors at least $10,000 to be identified. senator mccaskill is the cosponsor. we talk a lot about this very controversial proposal that people want to vote and they all should vote. have to have a photo government issued i.d. card where people don't even have cars. at the same time, we won't want identification of the wealthy people influences this campaign by the tens of millions of dollars. you're smiling. do republicans see the contrast in the way they look at regular working people and the way they look at rich people when it comes to identifying them? >> i think they have a lot of trouble with this one. both for the reasons that you mentioned, chris, and because so many of them for so many years, ten sitting republican senators, have been out in favor of transparency and disclosure in collecti election finance before. mitch mcconnell is actually being critiqued in his home state newspaper with editorials quoting from previous editorials he had written in favor of disclosure, so they've

. >> eliot: senator sheldon whitehouse of rhode island.ht. >> thank you and thank you for letting us reach out to the public who will ultimately decide this question. >> eliot: let's hope so, and hope that it >>the gavin newsom show is a search engine for solutions, and that's the focus. we want to focus on solutions and ways of bringing people together. that's the only way we're going to solve the world's great vexing problems. there she is ! hey, i got a leak ! yoo hoo ! wait a minute, come back ! um, miss ? up here! right. like 85% of us you have hard water stains and that cleaner's not gonna cut it. truth is, you need something powerful. you need lime-a-way. it's 4 times more effective at removing limescale than the leading bathroom cleaner. because lime-a-way is specially formulated to conquer hard water stains. for lime, calcium and rust... lime-a-way is a must. and everyone likes 50% more cash -- well, except her. no! but, i'm about to change that. ♪ every little baby wants 50% more cash... ♪ phhht! fine, you try. [ strings breaking

this is the bill's sponsor, sheldon whitehouse of rhode island. >> this disclose act will shun its lightn the sources of the secret money polluting our elections so we as citizens can make decisions and judgments about their motives. >> republican leader mitch mcconnell meanwhile of kentucky lambasting the disclose act on the conservative radio show "the race to" with mark levin. >> this is the most important issue nobody is talking about. that is the effort by the left to intimidate those who are contributing to outside groups who are opposed to the obama administration and -- into not contributing or shutting up or going away. what the democrats have done is conjure of a proposal to require the disclosure of contributions ,o what are called 501-c4's social organizations, many of which both the left and right are involved in politics. they have done it to get their names so they can intimidate them with the power of the government. the irs is investigating tea party groups all across the country. the sec has gone after corporations they think may be exercising their first amendment righ

host: senator sheldon whitehouse was a major sponsor of the legislation.ith on the house floor after the bill fell to two times. let's see what he tried -- when he had to say. but they remain great supporters of that provision. i hope we will be able to introduce it at another time, but we did not. that complaint should be closed off. some complain this is an attempt to influence this election. its effective date is a january 1, 2013. it will not, to the request of many, influence the selection. according to the former fec chairman, the disclosure act is a properly targeted, narrowly tailored, and desperately needed. i stand ready to work with any of my colleagues, democrats or republicans, who want to make this bill better. we cannot use on justified complaints as an excuse guest: when it was first the lead sponsor was senator schumer in new york and he made the statement that one of the purposes of this" was to deter people from speaking. tos clear who they wanted deter, that is constituencies that the democratic sponsors believe will be republican const

we will hear from democrats sherrod brown, sheldon whitehouse and carl levin thpresiding followed by republican johnak a thune need to extend middle-class tax cuts. we have a broad bipartisan consensus that middle-class families should not see their tax increases -- that their taxes increase on january 1. we know if congress does nothing, then taxes will increase for a whole lot of americans, for the broad middle class on that date. we have a broad bipartisan consensus that that should not happen. so we have this moment of agreement. we should act swiftly to extend tax cuts for 98% of american families -- tubal actually, actually brk actually about 99% of people in my state. but we won't. because special interests and their allies in congress are holding this hostage. why? it's the same old song, in order to protect billionaires and millionaires. it seems that the default button for so many people in this institution, certainly the majority in the house of representatives and far too many in the senate, is no matter what, you protect the interests of millionaires and protect the inte

collins, feinstein, rockefeller and i, in response to the bipartisan kyl-whitehouse -- that is sheldon whitehouse group -- recommendations to make it nonmandatory. but i think still significant. so this -- this bill has been aired and worked on and it's for action. but more -- more to the point, the senate needs to act. that's why it's so important that we adopt the motion to proceed, because this threat is real, dangerous and growing every day. third, this bill, 3414, is the result of bipartisan compromise. it's both bipartisan and it's the result of compromise. we cosponsors, as i mentioned, gave up some things that we thought were important that we had in our original bill, but given the cyber threat, we actually thought it was more important to move forward with a bill that will significantly strengthen our cyber security even though it doesn't do everything we wanted to do and thought should be done. we didn't want to lose the chance to pass cyber legislation this year that could prevent a cyber-9/11 attack against the united states before it happens. instead of rushing in the midst of mayhe