Joe Biden failed to enact legislation to bolster transparency in campaign finance during his presidency.

As a 2020 presidential candidate, Biden promised to mandate funding disclosure for groups that advocate for or against candidates for federal office. He also urged the creation of a single website to disclose who paid for online ads and what audiences they were targeting.

These goals were included in a bill that passed the House in 2021, when the chamber was under Democratic control. H.R. 1 passed the House in March 2021 with only Democrats voting in favor. 

In a 50-50 vote in June 2021, the Senate version of the bill fell 10 votes short of the 60 required to move forward. Backers couldn't persuade the chamber to agree to a carve-out to the 60-vote threshold for election-related bills.

The House's flip to Republican control in the 2022 election further hindered legislation to increase transparency, and the proposal didn't progress further in the final two years of Biden's term.

We rate this a Promise Broken.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden pledged to target "dark money" by increasing transparency requirements in election spending.

Among the policies Biden promised are mandated disclosure of the funding for groups that advocate for or against candidates for federal office, and creation of a single website for online ads that discloses who paid for the ads and how they were targeted online.

These goals are addressed in the voting and elections bill known as H.R. 1, which passed the House with only Democrats voting in favor. These provisions remained in the bill after it moved to the Senate.

However, in June, the Senate voted 50-50 to proceed with debate on its version of the bill, falling 10 votes short of the 60 required to move forward. That vote effectively shelved the legislation in the Senate, unless Democratic leaders can convince holdouts within their conference, including Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to agree to a carve-out to the 60-vote threshold for election-related bills.

As is the case with other election-related promises that were passed by the House in H.R. 1 but are now blocked in the Senate, this promise is moving to Stalled.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden pledged to target "dark money" by increasing transparency requirements in election spending.

Among the policies Biden promised are mandated disclosure of the funding for groups that advocate for or against candidates for federal office, and creation of a single website for online ads that discloses who paid for the ads and how they were targeted online.

These goals are addressed in the voting and elections bill known as H.R. 1, which has passed the House with no Republican support and now faces a tough road in the Senate, where it would need to attract at least 10 Republicans to move to a final vote.

Among the bill's provisions are the following:

• It would require any group that spends $10,000 or more on federal campaign advocacy to disclose contributors that gave the group at least $10,000.

• It would require online political ads distributed through major digital platforms to be posted to public databases that include targeting and payment information.

One part of Biden's promise that isn't included in H.R. 1 is the posting of this disclosure information on a "new one-stop website, ethics.gov."

Instead, H.R. 1 would require each advertising platform, such as Facebook, to post to its own database of the political ads.

Much would have to happen before H.R. 1 becomes law, but its passage by the House means that a lot of what Biden promised is moving through Congress. We rate the promise In the Works.