Warren wants Obama to veto bill with dark money provision

She wants the White House to veto efforts by GOP to hide campaign funders:

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren on Thursday pressed the Obama administration to pledge to veto any annual budget measure that includes a Republican-backed, anti-transparency provision. In an interview with International Business Times, the Massachusetts Democrat said the White House should take a hard line against the provision, if the rider makes it into a year-end budget bill to fund the government.

The rider — which would ban regulators from forcing companies to disclose their political spending — was inserted by GOP leaders into a temporary budget measure that will keep the government running until after the November election.

“Obviously this one is now done — we’ve got a continuing resolution that is going to hold up until the lame duck,” she told IBT. “But I would like to see the White House much more actively involved in the negotiations and tell the Republicans directly that the president will not sign a budget that includes a provision to protect dark money.”

Warren’s veto demand comes as cash floods into groups that do not have to disclose their donors. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reports that more than $73 million of such “dark money” has been spent during the current election cycle. A disclosure rule could force publicly traded companies to disclose how much dark money they are spending.

Last week, the Obama administration floated the possibility that the president could veto a budget bill because the GOP rider is in it — but the White House did not commit to such an action.