Trying to restore some sanity to US campaign financing.

Only in Washington, D.C. could a law designed to increase voter awareness and access to information actually be labeled an affront to democracy.

And yet that is the ridiculously asinine spectacle currently unfolding in Congress.

But don't get too eager about taking sides - for while this story involves a toxic cocktail of selfishness and greed, it is a bi-partisan one.

Full disclosure: back in January, the US Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited, as such restrictions violated the First Amendment's right to free speech.

I was, and remain, fiercely opposed to that ruling for the reasons outlined here. But I can accept reasonable people can disagree on that case and the outcome, as well as the public policy considerations behind it.

What is simply unfathomable to me are the current machinations on Capitol Hill relating to Sen. Charles Schumer's (pictured above) proposed DISCLOSE act.

In brief, while the Citizens United ruling allows for unrestrained spending by third party groups such as corporations or unions on political advertising, the DISCLOSE act would simply require exactly that: disclosure. Specifically, corporations, unions, and non-profit advocacy groups that spend money on political advertising to influence federal elections would face two requirements.

First, the leaders of these entities, such as the CEO of a corporation, would have to appear at the end of the advertisements and state that they "approved the message." Second, the top five contributors to the cost of the ads would have to listed.

That's it. All the law requires is that voters know who is paying for the ads, and that they have been approved by the leaders of the entities promoting them. It is simply designed to give voters information that they can then use to critically analyze the advertisements and make better decisions.

And yet, somehow, in the bizarro universe of politics and money, legislation designed to simply educate voters and assist them in making their own decisions, is under attack from all sides.

Predictably, Republican opposition was swift and intense, although in fairness, there are some GOP members now offering their support. They deserve praise. But new opposition includes an industry coalition that has given $45 million to members of Congress over the past two years and is actively working to unseat members supporting the Act. The irony is so thick you can practically cut it with a knife.

But this is not a partisan affair. While the bill's chief sponsors are Democrats, efforts to gut the bill are also coming from that same party.

As the NY Times reports today, House Democrats are actually attempting to implement a loophole in the bill that would excuse large organizations such as the National Rifle Association because they fear retribution in the upcoming November elections. Unbelievably, outrage over exempting the NRA actually resulted in efforts to expand the number of organizations exempted from the new requirements, virtually eviscerating the legislation.

Truly, we are through the looking-glass now.

If anyone needed a better example of the corrupting power of money and lobbyists on politics it is hard to imagine one. While some principled groups have fought back over these changes, they are few in number.

Just what are these organizations or their friends in Congress afraid of? That people might finally understand where these vast sums of money come from, and who's paying for the legions of political advertisements we see every year? Or that we might know why a particular member of Congress is so friendly to certain organizations?

To those few principled members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, who support this legislation, we all owe a deep gratitude. Whatever bill finally escapes Congress, it is one small step in what remains a long, gruesome battle ahead against entrenched interests and the power of money in our nation's politics.