Democracy 21 Challenges Attack by Senator Collins on Obama Administration’s Transparency Executive Order
Statement of Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer
In an op-ed article in The Washington Post today, Senator Susan Collins attacked the Obama Administration’s draft proposal for an Executive Order that would require government contractors to disclose their campaign finance activities.
Democracy 21 strongly disagrees with Senator Collins.
The draft Executive Order is supported by Democracy 21 and more than thirty organizations who wrote President Obama on May 4, 2011 urging him to promptly sign the order. The letter noted:
Transparency of campaign money in the government contracting process is nothing new at the state level. In response to numerous contracting scandals, more than a dozen states have imposed specific campaign finance disclosure requirements on government contractors.
At the federal level, many government contractors already are required to disclose some of their campaign finance activities as they are required to disclose their PAC contributions and expenditures. The executive order would also require government contractors to disclose their newly-permitted campaign finance activities that were authorized by the Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case.
The draft Executive Order is also supported by “business organizations together representing over 100,000 American businesses and entrepreneurs.”
In a May 12, 2011 letter supporting the Executive Order sent to the House Chairmen and Ranking Democrats who held a hearing on the Executive Order, the three business organizations representing these businesses and entrepreneurs said “Success in business should come from hard work, creativity and good customer service – not political influence.” The letter from the organizations stated:
Transparency is a Main Street value. Responsible business owners of all sizes recognize the importance of transparency and accountability in building a loyal customer base, establishing trust with partners and investors, building their brand, and positioning companies for long-term success.
In her op-ed article attacking the Executive Order, Senator Collins states:
If more transparency is truly the goal, why don’t these requirements apply to organizations receiving federal grants? Campaign contributions to candidates and political committees already are required to be reported to the Federal Election Commission and, with a click of a mouse, can be viewed on FEC.gov.
This is an interesting comment coming from Senator Collins, since she abandoned her past support for transparency last year and refused to provide the deciding 60th vote for the DISCLOSE Act. If the DISCLOSE Act had been enacted last year, we would today have full campaign finance disclosure for all groups, including organizations receiving government grants.
If Senator Collins thought that this government grants information was important information to have, her vote alone for the DISCLOSE Act last year would have made the difference in enacting the law and ensuring that the American people had this campaign finance information and all of the campaign finance information currently being hidden from the American people.
Furthermore, the statement by Senator Collins that campaign contributions can be viewed with “a click of a mouse” masks the fact that more than $135 million in secret donations to section 501 (c) tax-exempt groups were spent by those groups to influence the 2010 congressional races, including some $33 million spent by the Chamber of Commerce.
Not one penny of those hidden donations is viewable today by “a click of a mouse.” Under the Executive Order, which Senator Collins opposes, many of those donations would become available to citizens with “a click of a mouse.”
The secret donations being spent to influence federal elections by the Chamber of Commerce and others, in our view, is the principal reason why the Chamber led the opposition to the DISCLOSE Act last year and is leading the opposition to the draft Executive Order this year.
As for the claim made by Senator Collins that the Executive Order would politicize the contracting process, Senator Collins has this backwards. It is widely recognized that pay-to-play prohibitions and disclosure requirements protect the integrity of the contracting process. Absent disclosure, the donors and the recipients know who gave and who received the benefit of campaign funds. The only people who don’t know this information are the American people.
As for the constitutionality of requiring disclosure, the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case by an 8 to 1 majority held that disclosure was constitutional and necessary.
The Supreme Court noted the importance of disclosure for the new corporate campaign activities it was authorizing. With disclosure, the Court said:
Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests.
The Executive Order is a partial remedy but a necessary one. It would help to fill a gaping loophole in the nation’s campaign finance disclosure laws. In order to fully close this disclosure loophole, it would be helpful if Senator Collins joined with other Senators in a bipartisan effort to enact necessary, new campaign finance disclosure laws.
