WASHINGTON - June 24 - Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, issued the following statement on passage of a bill by the U.S. House of Representatives to require disclosure of sources of funding in federal elections:

“This bill exempting the NRA, and only a handful of other wealthy groups, from having to follow the same rules as other advocacy groups involved in political campaigns is fundamentally flawed, likely can’t survive judicial scrutiny, and should be rejected by the United States Senate as currently written.

“When Democratic leaders in the House decided to exclude one of the groups that puts the most money into politics because a bloc of their members takes money, and direction, from this group, they abandoned the moral high ground on this issue. The result is a bad bill that has been harshly criticized from virtually all parts of the political spectrum.

“It’s hard to craft legislation that is passionately opposed by the Brady Campaign and Gun Owners of America, plus the Alliance for Justice and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. But that’s just what the authors of this legislation have done. This is a bad bill that should go no further in its present form. We will work with a broad coalition to continue fighting against it.”