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For Immediate Release
January, 13 2012, 01:01pm EDT
Contact:
Liz Bartolomeo 202-742-1520 x226
Will Super PACs Determine the 2012 Election?
Nonprofit, Legal, Media Leaders to Discuss the Influence of Super PACs on Jan. 23
WASHINGTON
The Advisory Committee on Transparency (ACT), a project of the Sunlight Foundation, will host a panel discussion on the role of super PACs in the 2012 election on Monday, January 23. The event is the first of eight ACT is hosting throughout the year that will address important and wide-ranging transparency policy issues with those in Congress, think tanks, the media and other experts.
Since recent court rulings, including the Supreme Court's Citizens United v Federal Election Commission decision two years ago, a tidal wave of unlimited and often secret money has flooded our airwaves, phones and inboxes in an effort to influence congressional and presidential campaigns. Super PACs, especially, have fundamentally changed the relationship between money and politics, and all too often are misunderstood. These new vehicles for political advocacy have upended traditional political alliances, infused tremendous amounts of undisclosed (or partially disclosed) money into the political system, and kicked off controversies over what our 21st century democracy should look like.
Panelists -- who include the journalist who coined the term "super PAC," the lawyer for faux-TV pundit Stephen Colbert and campaign finance reform opponents and advocates -- will discuss what the public knows -- and should know -- about super PACs.
The event is open to the public and the media. Please register online at https://snlg.ht/RSVPSuperPAC.
The Advisory Committee on Transparency is a project of the Sunlight Foundation that educates policymakers and shares ideas with the Congressional Transparency Caucus. Visit https://transparencycaucus.org for more information.
WHAT: Advisory Committee on Transparency Panel Discussion on Super PACs
WHEN: Monday, January 23 from 2:15 to 4:15 pm
WHERE: Rayburn House Office Building, room 2203 on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC
WHO:
Eliza Newlin Carney -- Staff Writer for CQ Roll Call covering the issues of lobbying and influence
Allen Dickerson -- Legal Director and Interim Executive Director of the Center for Competitive Politics
Mimi Marziani -- Counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law
Trevor Potter -- Attorney leading Caplin & Drysdale's political law practice; attorney for Stephen Colbert; former Federal Election Commission Chairman
Daniel Schuman (moderator) -- Policy Counsel at the Sunlight Foundation and Director of the Advisory Committee on Transparency
RSVP: https://snlg.ht/RSVPSuperPAC
The Sunlight Foundation was co-founded in 2006 by Washington, DC businessman and lawyer Michael Klein and longtime Washington public interest advocate Ellen Miller with the non-partisan mission of using the revolutionary power of the Internet to make information about Congress and the federal government more meaningfully accessible to citizens.
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U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) not only highlighted those conditions in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday but also called out the fact that the worsening humanitarian crisis "gets very little discussion here in the nation's capital or in the halls of Congress," even though Israel has spent the past 19 months destroying Gaza with armed and diplomatic support from the United States.
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Noting that Israel's actions run afoul of U.S. and international law, Sanders said: "Starving children to death as a weapon of war is a clear violation of the Geneva Convention, the Foreign Assistance Act, and basic human decency. Civilized people do not starve children to death. What is going on in Gaza is a war crime, committed openly and in broad daylight, and continuing every single day."
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For months, U.S. President Donald Trump "has offered blanket support for Netanyahu," the senator said. "More than that, he has repeatedly said that the United States will actually take over Gaza after the war, that the Palestinian people will be driven—forcibly expelled—from their homeland, and the United States will redevelop it into what Trump calls 'the Riviera of the Middle East,' a playground for billionaires."
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US, Israel discuss possible US-led administration for Gaza Yes, cause the American occupation in Iraq famously went really well www.reuters.com/world/middle...
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— Nick Cunningham (@nickcunningham.bsky.social) May 7, 2025 at 11:55 AM
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