Now this is how you report on the Chamber of Commerce and secret donors.
The New York Times this morning has a major page one piece on the Chamber of Commerce’s fundraising activities.
Basically, the Chamber of Commerce is serving as a front for companies that want to push certain agendas but don’t want to put their mouth where their money is. The Times’s Eric Lipton, Mike McIntire, and Don Van Natta Jr. report around the Chamber’s secrecy to find that, for instance, Prudential gave $2 million to the Chamber to help beat back financial reform. The company doesn’t seem too thrilled about being caught out:
Prudential Financial’s $2 million donation last year coincided with a chamber lobbying effort against elements of the financial regulation bill in Congress. A spokesman for Prudential, which opposed certain proposed restrictions on the use of financial instruments known as derivatives, said the donation was not earmarked for a specific issue.
But he acknowledged that most of the money was used by the chamber to lobby Congress.
“I am not suggesting it is a coincidence,” said the spokesman, Bob DeFillippo.
A couple of weeks ago, Obama latched onto an awfully thin ThinkProgress report to insinuate that the Chamber of Commerce was laundering money from foreigners to influence the November midterm elections. As I said in criticizing that story then:
The pity of this nonstory is that there are plenty of good reasons—and good journalistic ones—to question the role of corporate money in campaigns, especially this year, in the wake of the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. The opacity of the system allows corporations to flood money into political ads without their names attached. Disclosure is sorely needed, and the press ought to fight for it.
The New York Times today is on that track:
They suggest that the recent allegations from President Obama and others that foreign money has ended up in the chamber’s coffers miss a larger point: The chamber has had little trouble finding American companies eager to enlist it, anonymously, to fight their political battles and pay handsomely for its help.
Indeed.
The Times has more on the Chamber-as-front thing:
Another large foundation donor is a charity run by Maurice R. Greenberg, the former chairman of the insurance giant A.I.G. The charity has made loans and grants totaling $18 million since 2003. U.S. Chamber Watch, a union-backed group, filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service last month asserting that the chamber foundation violated tax laws by funneling the money into a chamber “tort reform” campaign favored by A.I.G. and Mr. Greenberg. The chamber denied any wrongdoing.
Goldman’s there with millions. As is Dow Chemical, which wants to lobby “against legislation requiring stronger measures to protect chemical plants from attack.”
Then there’s Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which has publicly given the Chamber a million dollars to support Republicans. Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, which coincidentally, has a page-one story on campaign finance this morning shifting the focus from the Chamber to the unions, saying that “The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats.” It’s a legit story, but it looks relatively puny next to the Times’s work here. And it’s hardly as important: We know where the unions’ money comes from.
And thanks to the Times, we have a better understanding of where the Chamber’s secret money comes from.
These records show that while the chamber boasts of representing more than three million businesses, and having approximately 300,000 members, nearly half of its $140 million in contributions in 2008 came from just 45 donors. Many of those large donations coincided with lobbying or political campaigns that potentially affected the donors.
That’s some good reporting:
tyop: "there mouth"
#1 Posted by Brad, CJR on Fri 22 Oct 2010 at 10:56 AM
@Ryan,
Isn't Murdoch Australian? How is it legal for him to be giving the Republicans two million dollars? Last I heard Australia was a "foreign" country. It's a serious question.
And before any of your trolls step forth, George Soros is a US citizen.
#2 Posted by James, CJR on Sat 23 Oct 2010 at 12:50 AM
hey, James. Murdoch is a naturalized US citizen. He became one in the 80s so he could buy some tv stations
#3 Posted by Ryan Chittum , CJR on Sat 23 Oct 2010 at 02:01 PM
Thanks for that info, @Ryan. I wasn't aware of that. Much appreciated.
#4 Posted by James, CJR on Sat 23 Oct 2010 at 03:48 PM
granted im interested in reading this, you say we know where union money comed from but not the chamber, but dont we all know that the chamber of commerce is all about corporate power?
#5 Posted by ian , CJR on Mon 25 Oct 2010 at 08:11 PM
One of the memes that illustrates the distance between journalists of a leftish bent and voters is the one of 'campaign finance/reform'. Voters don't so much care about the messenger as they do the message. Money spent on campaign ads is chump change, less than is spent on dog food. And the idea that money spent by private groups of people, secretly or not, is somehow less virtuous than pork spent out of public funds (the Cornhusker Kickback, the Louisiana Purchase) to make politicians look good in exchange for their votes, is not shared much by the public. It may be argued that the above money-for-votes deals were one of the main incentives for the 'Tea Party' movement and the beginning of the Democrats' decline in public support last year. But journalists keep obsessing about private citizens - the nerve of them, attempting to go around the political press to get their messages out! - who intervene in elections. A lot of the usual self-interest in this issue, framed of course in high-mindedness. The NY Times is a corporation, too, and it uses resources to help favored candidates. So is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. So is Columbia University. Spend more time on the messages and less on who paid for them.
#6 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Tue 26 Oct 2010 at 07:44 PM
That's not right, Mark.
WaPo/ABC poll:
"Eight in 10 poll respondents say they oppose the high court's Jan. 21 decision to allow unfettered corporate political spending, with 65 percent "strongly" opposed. Nearly as many backed congressional action to curb the ruling, with 72 percent in favor of reinstating limits.
The poll reveals relatively little difference of opinion on the issue among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling), Republicans (76 percent) and independents (81 percent).
#7 Posted by Ryan Chittum, CJR on Tue 26 Oct 2010 at 08:20 PM
Ryan, is that why all polls show a big victory ahead this year for the party portrayed as benefiting from the 'Citizens United' ruling, as opposed to the party opposite? My point was that the press spends a lot more resources on this issue than the priorities of the public upon entering the voting booth would warrant. Show me a survey that indicates campaign spending is a high priority for voters, or, for that matter, a study which empirically links the level of spending (from any source) to electoral outcomes - which is the stated rationale for the obsession.
I suspect the Post/ABC wording (not given in the story linked) framed the issue as 'campaign spending limits'. I also suspect the question did not mention that media corporations were exempt under McCain-Feingold from restrictions on using their resources to elect candidates and support referenda.
Re that matter, I'm still waiting for CJR to address squarely the issue of whether 'media' corporations should have First Amendment rights not available to non-media corporations - which was the basis for the Court's decision. Could it be that the press dislikes campaign advertising because the latter sometimes highlights issues that the press spikes in their political coverage? I always thought this was the real reason for the pee-pants reaction of the press to such ads as 'Willie Horton'.
#8 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Wed 27 Oct 2010 at 12:52 PM