Biden to make remarks Tuesday on election transparency bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden will deliver remarks on Tuesday about a bill that would require super PACs and certain other groups to disclose donors who contributed $10,000 or more during an election cycle.

The bill is slated for a Senate vote this week, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said Monday, as Democrats seek to boost election transparency ahead of the November midterms after failing to pass more ambitious voting rights legislation earlier this year.

“There is no justification under heaven for keeping such massive contributions hidden from the public,” Schumer said.

The measure, known as the DISCLOSE Act, was initially included in Democrats’ voting rights bill that sought to counteract voting restrictions in Republican-led states. That package passed the House in January but died in the Senate due to stiff Republican opposition.

Proponents of the state measures said they were necessary to counter fraud, which Republican former President Donald Trump has falsely claimed led to his 2020 election defeat.

Democrats have accused Republicans at the state level of enacting policies to make it harder for racial minorities who tend to support Democratic candidates to cast ballots.

“In state after state, Republican state legislatures are engaged in an unprecedented effort to suppress the sacred right to vote and subvert the American bedrock of free and fair elections,” Biden said when Senate Republicans voted to block the broader voting rights effort in January.

Republicans in turn accuse Democrats of attempting a federal takeover of election laws.

The DISCLOSE ACT, if approved, would also require groups spending money on judicial nominees to disclose their donors.

The House of Representatives is separately considering a proposal by Republican Liz Cheney and Democrat Zoe Lofgren clarifying a 135 year-old law to show that the vice president’s role in certifying elections is purely symbollic.

The proposal is a response to the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, who were trying to stop certification of Joe Biden’s victory, and to pressure from Trump himself on Vice President Mike Pence to overturn Joe Biden’s election win by decertifying certain slates of electors.

Biden will make the remarks at 1:45 p.m. (1745 GMT) in the Roosevelt Room of the White House before heading to New York to participate in the United Nations General Assembly this week.

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