Congress demands disclosure of who funds political ads and judicial campaigns
H.R. 7802 — DISCLOSE Act of 2026 · Filed by Chris Pappas (D-NH) · 189 cosponsors · Introduced Mar 4, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
The DISCLOSE Act of 2026 requires corporations, labor unions, Super PACs, and other organizations to publicly report who funds their political spending and how much they spend on elections and judicial nominations. It closes loopholes that allow foreign money to flow into U.S. elections through shell companies, requires ads to identify their funders, and establishes new rules for judicial nomination spending. The bill aims to let voters know who is actually paying for political messages.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is mandatory disclosure of political spending sources and beneficial ownership, combined with enforcement of existing foreign-money prohibitions. It is fundamentally a transparency and anti-corruption measure, not a spending restriction or subsidy.
What the text implies
- Judicial nomination spending disclosure may chill legitimate advocacy on judicial selection, as donors face public identification for the first time.
- The $10,000 threshold for initial disclosure and $1,000 per-disbursement reporting creates a significant compliance burden for grassroots organizations and small nonprofits, potentially favoring well-resourced groups.
- Beneficial-owner disclosure requirements may expose individual activists and donors to harassment or targeting, despite the bill's narrow harassment exemption.
- Foreign-money ban expansion to state and local ballot initiatives may be difficult to enforce and could criminalize inadvertent violations by small organizations.
- Coordination with FinCEN (Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) creates a new data-sharing pipeline between financial intelligence and election enforcement, with unclear privacy safeguards.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Ordinary citizens gain transparency about who funds political spending and judicial nomination campaigns, enabling informed voting and accountability. The bill restricts foreign money in elections and requires disclosure of beneficial owners of shell entities—both protections for the integrity of democratic processes. While compliance costs may be passed to some organizations, the public benefit of knowing funding sources outweighs private-sector friction.
Named in the bill
Federal Election Commission (FEC), Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), Department of the Treasury, Super PACs, 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, 501(c)(6) business leagues, Labor organizations, Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
Where it stands
189 cosponsors: 189 Democrats.
- Mar 4, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Mar 4, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary and House Committee on Ways and Means · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on House Administration, and in addition to the Committees on Ways and Means, and…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
3 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $139,577 in lobbying spend. A filing names 8 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 61% of bills with at least one filing.
Chris Pappas, the sponsor, reported $1,125,432 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Public Citizen — $99,577 on 1 filing
- Defend the Vote Action Fund — $20,000 on 1 filing
- Southern Policy Law Center, Inc. — $20,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (50,012 characters) on Jul 25, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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