What Ted Cruz Doesn't Want You to Know

[Commentary] By now it seems pretty clear that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has a plan to occupy the White House. But he doesn't want people to know too much about it. And he definitely doesn't want you to know about the special interests that have already begun to bankroll his political ambitions. That's why the Texas senator's latest crusade targets the Federal Communications Commission -- and its efforts to better identify the funders of political ads.

While the Federal Elections Commission has a limited ability to identify the funders of the groups that emerged in the wake of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, the FCC has a clear legal path to transparency. Broadcasters are obliged by law to disclose who pays for political ads in exchange for using the airwaves. Free Press and our allies won a major victory in 2012 when the FCC ordered all television stations to post this information to an online database the agency manages. Now you can go to a single website and find important data on who is spending how much on political ads at major stations in the nation's 50 largest television markets. Communications law expert Andrew Schwartzman, who serves as a legal adviser to Free Press, has petitioned the FCC to enforce existing sponsor identification requirements and disclose the names of principal funders in the body of the ads themselves. And that scares Sen. Cruz and his supporters in groups like the Koch brothers funded-Americans for Prosperity, which raises millions of dollars from anonymous donors to run attack ads against their political foes.