Democrats’ campaign-finance plan: Put the donors on camera

By Kim Geiger and Clement Tan

Senators led by Charles Schumer offer a proposal in which the chief executive of a corporation or group that is the primary financial sponsor of a political ad would have to claim responsibility for it by appearing on camera. GOP leader Mitch McConnell calls the idea ‘beyond suspicious.’

Reporting from Washington — If corporate and union officials want to pour money into election campaigns, they would have to disclose who they are — and perhaps appear in an ad — under legislation introduced in Congress on Thursday.

The bill is a response to a controversial U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited corporate and interest group spending on elections. In Citizens United vs. the Federal Elections Commission, the court in January struck down most federal limits on corporate spending as a violation of free speech.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), in an announcement at the steps of the Supreme Court, said the measure would “shine a light on the flood of spending unleashed by the Citizens United decision.”

He hopes to win passage of the bill by July 4, in time for any flow of corporate money into the 2010 midterm congressional elections.

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WaMu failed because of run on bank, former regulatory chief says

By Jim Puzzanghera and Clement Tan

John Reich, who was director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, tells a Senate panel that Washington Mutual’s 2008 collapse resulted from a drop in public confidence, not a failure by his agency.

Reporting from Washington — The former head of the chief banking regulatory agency that oversaw failed Washington Mutual told lawmakers Friday that the giant savings and loan collapsed because of a run on the bank, not failures by him or other regulators.

The testimony of John Reich, who served as head of the Office of Thrift Supervision from 2005 to 2009, came as a Senate subcommittee released the results of an 18-month investigation that blasted regulatory supervisors for doing little to halt risky practices at WaMu that bank examiners had identified as early as 2003.

The criticism was echoed by a report this week on WaMu’s collapse, the largest bank failure in U.S. history, by the inspectors general of the thrift agency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Reich said WaMu was seized by regulators on Sept. 25, 2008, because of a $16.4-billion run on deposits after the sharp decline in the economy throughout the year and the failure of Lehman Bros. and the bailout of American International Group Inc. just days earlier.

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Battle brews over Obama nominee for 9th Circuit Court of Appeals

Senate Democrats reject a Republican bid to postpone a hearing on Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu.

Reporting from Washington — Senate Democrats rejected on Tuesday a Republican demand that next week’s scheduled confirmation hearing on Goodwin Liu’s nomination to a federal appeals court be postponed, setting up an all-out partisan battle over the Berkeley law professor.

Senate Republicans, who complain that Liu had originally failed to respond adequately to numerous questions on a Judiciary Committee questionnaire, pledged to continue pressing for a new hearing date.

Liu, President Obama’s choice for the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, had been expected to testify March 24.

But in the aftermath of the March 21 healthcare vote, Senate Republicans forced a postponement by invoking a little-used procedural rule disallowing any committee hearings more than two hours after the start of a Senate session.

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