As the political season heats up, Americans are already being inundated with the usual phone calls, mailings, and TV ads from campaigns all across the country. But this summer, they’re also seeing a flood of attack ads run by shadowy groups with harmless-sounding names. We don’t know who’s behind these ads and we don’t know who’s paying for them.
随着政治热季渐渐升温，全美各地的人们已经淹没于各类惯常的竞选电话，邮件和广告中。但今年夏天，人们也看到了一股由起着听起来无恶意的名字的影子团体发布的攻击性广告的洪流。我们既不知道谁在背后运营这些广告也不知道谁为它们出资付款。
The reason this is happening is because of a decision by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case – a decision that now allows big corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence our elections. They can buy millions of dollars worth of TV ads – and worst of all, they don’t even have to reveal who is actually paying for them. You don’t know if it’s a foreign-controlled corporation. You don’t know if it’s BP. You don’t know if it’s a big insurance company or a Wall Street Bank. A group can hide behind a phony name like “Citizens for a Better Future,” even if a more accurate name would be “Corporations for Weaker Oversight.”
导致这些的原因就是最高法院关于公民联合案的裁决结果——该决定允许大的公司团体可以为了影响选举结果而不受限制进行资金投入。他们可以购买价值数百万美元的电视广告——更糟糕的是，他们甚至根本就不用透露谁最终为这些广告付钱。即使是外资控制的公司，你们也不会知道。即使是BP，你们也不会知道。即使是大保险公司或华尔街银行你们亦不会知道。这样的团体可以藏在像“美好未来公民联合”的虚假名字后面，即使更确切的名字可能是“更松散监管促进公司”。
We tried to fix this last month. There was a proposal supported by Democrats and Republicans that would’ve required corporate political advertisers to reveal who’s funding their activities. When special interests take to the airwaves, whoever is running and funding the ad would have to appear in the advertisement and take responsibility for it – like a company’s CEO or an organization’s biggest contributor. And foreign-controlled corporations and entities would be restricted from spending money to influence American elections – just as they were in the past.
我们上月尝试纠正这个问题。提出了一项民主党和共和党共同支持的提案，要求发布政治性广告的公司透露谁为他们的活动提供资金。当特殊利益团体发布广播电视广告时，无论是谁运营广告或为广告出资，都需要在广告中表明身份并为其负责——如同一个公司的CEO或一个组织的最大捐助人一样。而且外资控制的公司和团体出资影响美国选举的行为将受到限制——如同以往一样。
You would think that making these reforms would be a matter of common sense. You’d think that reducing corporate and even foreign influence over our elections wouldn’t be a partisan issue.
你可能认为做出这样的改革是个常识性的问题。你可能会认为降低公司甚至外资公司对我们选举的影响是个党派问题。
But the Republican leaders in Congress said no. In fact, they used their power to block the issue from even coming up for a vote.
但国会的共和党领导人们不这样认为。实际上，他们利用他们的权力阻止这项议题参与投票表决。
This can only mean that the leaders of the other party want to keep the public in the dark. They don’t want you to know which interests are paying for the ads. The only people who don’t want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide.
这只能意味着对方的领导人希望让公众处在黑暗之中。他们不想让你们知道哪个利益团体为这些广告出资。正是这些不想透露真相的人才是有事情需要掩盖的人。
