Statement of Brady President Paul Helmke on Passage of Campaign Finance Bill

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."