video: NEW: Hinckley Rips Whitehouse for Leaving DISCLOSE Act Debate
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Republican Senate candidate Barry Hinckley today called out Senator Sheldon Whitehouse for leaving the Senate floor during a debate over a campaign finance bill he is sponsoring to attend a fundraiser for a nonprofit healthcare advocacy organization.
At a press conference outside Whitehouse's Providence office, Hinckley criticized the incumbent for focusing on legislation that people in Rhode Island don’t care about and questioned what he is doing to get Rhode Islanders back to work.
“I’ve never been asked about campaign finance reform,” Hinckley said.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTWhitehouse’s legislation, known as the DISCLOSE Act, requires any organization that spends $10,000 or more during an election cycle to file a report within 24 hours, identifying any donors who gave $10,000 or more. It will require political groups posing as social welfare organizations to disclose their donors and will prevent corporations and other wealthy interests from using shell corporations to funnel secret money to super PACs.
Hinckley said he supports parts of the bill but is against exemptions for unions. Whitehouse has contended that unions are not exempt in the legislation.
The Republican said it’s time to focus on job creation and called the campaign finance legislation a distraction.
“We’ve got a state that’s hurting, we need jobs,” he said. “We don’t need to be distracted with things like this now. We need to get Rhode Islanders back to work. The bill is not going to help one Rhode Island today.”
