Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) raised $25 million to win reelection in 2010 and once referred to then-candidate Barack Obama as a “light-skinned” African American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
But on the Senate floor on Monday, Reid railed against Republicans who funded Super PACs, saying “the day after the election, 17 angry old white men will wake up and realize they’ve just bought the country.”
Reid was speaking in support of the DISCLOSE Act, which would require independent political groups to disclose the names of all donors who contribute more than $10,000. The Act would chill free speech and allow wealthy donors to be targeted and intimidated. Some of those “angry old white men” Reid was referencing — like Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who has donated millions to Super PACs supporting Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney — are his constituents.
The legislation was eventually held up in the Senate later in the day by a 51-44 vote. The DISCLOSE Act needed 60 votes to move forward.
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