Proposal to restrict super PACs fizzles after House passage in 2021

As a candidate, Joe Biden promised to ensure that super PACs — political action committees that can accept and spend unlimited amounts of money in elections — "are wholly independent of campaigns and political parties." 

But his efforts failed.

A bill that would have required this passed the House in 2021 when Democrats controlled the chamber. 

H.R. 1 passed the House in March 2021 with support only from Democrats. The bill included elements of the DISCLOSE Act, a measure that had been proposed for about a decade but that had not progressed since 2010, when it passed the House but failed to reach the 60-vote requirement to avoid a Senate filibuster.

Wide Republican opposition in the Senate led to a 50-50 vote in June 2021, and H.R. 1 fell 10 votes short of the 60 required to proceed. Backers couldn't persuade the chamber to carve out the measure to free it from the vote threshold.

The House's flip to Republican control in the 2022 election further hindered legislation to restrict how super PACs operate, and the proposal stalled in the final two years of Biden's term.

We rate this a Promise Broken.