Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has some oddly incongruous views on the democratic process for a man who has spent so much of his life running for or holding elected office. For more than two decades he has sought (and often gained) the support of rank-and-file voters, as he jumped from political perch to political perch, but other manifestations of democracy clearly rub Whitehouse the wrong way, revealing a strong elitist (or exclusionist) streak.
After years of trying to starve grassroots organizations of funding, by denouncing and combating the influence “dark money” allegedly wields in American politics, Whitehouse is taking a new tack in his assault on donor privacy, by introducing legislation that would force any group filing an amicus brief in a federal court case to disclose its donors.
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