New Legislation Would Slam The Door On Foreign Influence Of Elections

New legislation from Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN) would shut down numerous loopholes that allow foreign nationals to sway American politics, according to election integrity experts. 

A bill introduced by Hagerty last week would ban foreign nationals from funding ballot initiative proposal campaigns, voter registration activity, ballot collection, voter identification, and other get-out-the-vote activity. Experts with Americans for Public Trust and the Honest Elections Project told The Daily Wire that Hagerty’s bill would provide much-needed guardrails for the American election system. 

Both groups for years have warned about a loophole in federal law that allows foreign nationals to fund state-level ballot measure campaigns, which include policy debates on issues from abortion to marijuana. At least nine states have closed the loophole at the state level, but no action has been taken at the federal level. 

Caitlin Sutherland, the executive director of Americans for Public Trust, said that the issue of foreigners impacting American politics goes beyond ballot campaigns. 

“It doesn’t just stop at ballot issues, but it goes a little bit further because everywhere we look, we see that foreign nationals are bankrolling these advocacy campaigns and policy fights in the United States,” she said. “They can give, and they can influence these whole host of other electoral tools that really matter up to and including on election day, like voter education drives, [get-out-the vote] campaigns, ballot issues.”

Recently, Americans for Public Trust put out a report documenting how five foreign charities have given around $2 billion to American climate groups engaged in policy fights, litigation, research, and lobbying. These groups include Quadrature Climate Foundation ($530 million), KR Foundation ($36 million), Oak Foundation ($750 million), Laudes Foundation ($20 million), and Children’s Investment Fund Foundation ($553 million).

For example, the British-based Quadrature Climate Foundation gave $147 million to the San Francisco-based Climate Works Foundation, including $6 million “for financial regulation advocacy to address climate risk,” according to the report. The Denmark-based KR Foundation gave almost $400,000 to the Conservation Law Foundation for “expanding climate accountability litigation,” the report found. 

Hagerty’s bill would also address the massive amounts of funding pumped by leftist Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss into American politics. Wyss has given $280 million to the SixteenThirty Fund, a leftist dark money fund that has pumped $130 million into ballot election issues. 

“Foreign nationals have no business playing any role in American elections and our lawmaking process,” Snead said. “But for years, Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has bankrolled ballot issue campaigns across the country through his prolific giving to the left-wing Sixteen Thirty Fund. And under current law, nothing prevents individuals from foreign adversaries like China, Russia, or Iran from doing the same thing.”