THE NRA is pushing to derail the DISCLOSE Act, the attempt to push back ever so slightly against the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision by requiring corporations and organisations to at least say who they are when they exercise their now-unlimited ability to spend on political advertising. And it may be succeeding, writes the Washington Independent's Elana Schor.

Generally speaking, the principle of disclosure has broad support on the Hill and from the Supreme Court. While the justices voted 5-4 in favor of letting corporations go beyond political action committees (PACs) to pay for electioneering ads out of their general treasuries, they released a separate but less well-known 8-1 ruling in the Citizens United case that affirmed the constitutionality of campaign-finance disclosure requirements. But the prospect of donor disclosure has proven unpalatable to the NRA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Right to Life Committee, all of which fired off blistering critiques late last week in a bid to push the DISCLOSE measure from the House calendar.

It's not surprising that the DISCLOSE Act is facing opposition from conservative political groups. And it's not surprising that one of those leading the opposition is the US Chamber of Commerce. What is surprising is that the NRA and the NRLC are, too. It's logical that businesses would want to be able to conceal their sponsorship of political advertisements, since knowing the sponsor has a financial interest in an issue makes the advertising less convincing. But the NRA and the NRLC are broad-based citizens' groups who represent the principled positions of millions of supporters and individual members. They have nothing to hide; they're part of the great tapestry of American civic life. Why should they want to conceal their sponsorship when advocating their positions?

Here, I think, is part of the explanation.

In a May 27 letter to lawmakers, the NRA charged that the legislation would force it “to turn our membership and donor lists over to the government” and decried the bill's “byzantine disclosure requirements that have the obvious effect of intimidating speech.”

This is slightly paranoid. What is it implying the government will do with those donor lists? More importantly, it's meaningless. The government already knows who contributes to the NRA. The NRA is a 501(c)(4) non-partison, non-profit organisation, which means contributions are tax-deductible. Anyone who donates, unless they failed to deduct the donations from their tax returns, has told the IRS about it. (Mysteriously, NRA members have yet to be rounded up by jackbooted government thugs.)*

But finally, the main point here is that the NRA's mindset on this issue makes transparency in democratic politics impossible. The DISCLOSE Act says that if you're going to spend large amounts of money on political advertising, you should have to tell the public who you are. The NRA's position replaces the word "public" with "government", attempting to shift the frame from the civic town hall to the totalitarian panopticon. But there's no way to tell the public who you are without telling it to the government.

In the wave of superhero movies that's washed over America over the past 15 years, we've gotten used to plotlines in which mobs of resentful citizens and demagogic politicians pass laws forcing the noble caped crusaders to shed their masks. But corporations and advocacy organisations aren't superheroes, and no arch-villains will hunt them down if they reveal their secret identities. In America's town-hall civic democratic tradition, when people stand up to argue their political case, they don't wear masks (with rare exceptions, and let's not even go there); they show everyone who they are. Corporations and non-profits should do the same.

* Whoops, commenters point out that 501(c)(4)s are tax-exempt but that donations aren't tax-deductible, so they don't have to disclose donor lists. My mistake.