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> From: "Jenifer Fuller" <jfuller@politicalworks.net>
> Date: March 16, 2010 11:21:53 AM EDT
> To: "Jenifer Fuller" <jfuller@politicalworks.net>
> Subject: U.S. Chamber of Commerce grows into a political force
>
>
>
>
> TO: The Democratic Attorneys General and Candidates
> FROM: The DAGA Staff
> DATE: March 15, 2010
> SUBJECT: U.S. Chamber of Commerce grows into a political force
>
>
> In an effort to help keep you informed, we wanted to forward along a
> recent article, which you will find below, from the Los Angeles
> Times to provide you some insight as to the activities of a major
> Republican funding source, the U.S Chamber of Commerce. As you know,
> in the past the chamber has raised and spent tremendous amounts of
> money in support of Republican candidates, including candidates for
> Attorney General, across the country in state and federal elections.
> By this report, the Chamber appears to be continuing their
> activities in earnest in 2010. The article provides some important
> information regarding recent and anticipated political activity by
> the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in this election year in light of
> recent changes to campaign finance law and the current political
> climate. We will continue to bring you the latest news and
> information about elections, races and politics throughout the year.
> In the meantime, for more information or if you have any questions,
> please feel free to contact us at 303.831.0100 or jfuller@politicalworks.net
> .
>
>
> U.S. Chamber of Commerce grows into a political force
>
> A swelling tide of money could put the business group in a better
> position to sway elections.
> Los Angeles Times - March 08, 2010|By Tom Hamburger
> Reporting from Washington — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is building
> a large-scale grass-roots political operation that has begun to
> rival those of the major political parties, funded by record-setting
> amounts of money raised from corporations and wealthy individuals.
>
> The chamber has signed up some 6 million individuals who are not
> chamber members and has begun asking them to help with lobbying and,
> soon, with get-out-the-vote efforts in upcoming congressional
> campaigns.
>
> The chamber's expansion into grass-roots organizing -- coupled with
> a large and growing fundraising apparatus that got a lift from
> Supreme Court rulings -- is part of a trend in which the traditional
> parties are losing ground to well-financed and increasingly
> assertive outside groups. The chamber is certainly better positioned
> than ever to be a major force on the issues and elections it focuses
> on each year, analysts think.
>
> The new grass-roots program, the brainchild of chamber political
> director Bill Miller, is concentrating on 22 states. Among them are
> Colorado, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is
> vulnerable; Arkansas, where Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces an
> uphill reelection battle; and Ohio, where the chamber sees
> opportunities in numerous House races and an open Senate seat.
>
> The network, called Friends of the U.S. Chamber, has been used to
> generate more than a million letters and e-mails to members of
> Congress, 700,000 of them in opposition to the Democratic healthcare
> plan. That is an increase from 40,000 congressional contacts
> generated in 2008.
>
> What makes the initiative possible is a swelling tide of money. The
> chamber spent more than $144 million on lobbying and grass-roots
> organizing last year, a 60% increase over 2008, and well beyond the
> spending of individual labor unions or the Democratic or Republican
> national committees.
>
> The chamber is expected to substantially exceed that spending level
> in 2010.
>
> The chamber's expanding influence is worrisome to top officials in
> the White House -- including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who has
> expressed concern about the chamber in the past, and senior advisor
> Valerie Jarrett, who tried to build direct contacts with company
> executives last fall when the chamber was fighting the
> administration's legislation to regulate carbon emissions.
>
> Several companies, including Pacific Gas & Electric and Apple, left
> the chamber over its stance on climate policies, but since then many
> more firms have joined and made substantial contributions, chamber
> President Tom Donohue said.
>
> Amassing cash
>
> Two major factors are driving the chamber's growing success in
> fundraising.
>
> First, President Obama and Democratic majorities in both houses of
> Congress have alarmed a widening circle of business leaders with
> their calls for greater government involvement in healthcare,
> tighter federal regulation of the financial industry and legislation
> to help unions organize workers, among other issues.
>
> Second, the recent Supreme Court ruling that corporations have a
> free-speech right to spend money to help elect or defeat candidates
> not only struck down a century of laws limiting such spending, but
> it also made many business executives feel more comfortable about
> using corporate money for political purposes.
>
> Industries that are the most directly affected by Washington
> policies and regulations -- pharmaceuticals, for example -- have
> always spent lavishly on lobbying and politics. But many others have
> held back, deterred by concern over violating the complex laws on
> campaign spending and by a general sense that putting money into
> politics might open companies to criticism.
>
> The Supreme Court decision appears to have allayed those concerns,
> according to corporate lawyers and others involved in the process.
>
> "In the past a lot of companies and wealthy individuals stood on the
> sidelines," said Robert Kelner, who heads the Election and Political
> Law Practice Group at Covington & Burling, one of Washington's most
> influential corporate law firms.
>
> "In just the last election, we had the spectacle of John McCain
> threatening to prosecute his own supporters if they spent their
> money on outside groups that ran advertising in the presidential race.
>
> "That cloud has been lifted," he said.
>
> Anonymity
>
> Using trade associations such as the chamber as the vehicle for
> spending corporate money on politics has an extra appeal: These
> groups can take large contributions from companies and wealthy
> individuals in ways that will probably avoid public disclosure
> requirements.
>
> The chamber has developed that into something of a specialty: Under
> a system pioneered by Donohue, corporations have contributed money
> to the chamber, which then produced issue ads targeting individual
> candidates without revealing the names of the businesses
> underwriting the ads.
>
> At the chamber, officials contend that rising donations are less the
> result of the recent Supreme Court ruling than they are of a 5-4
> decision in 2007 in which the court ruled it was unconstitutional to
> ban issue-related advertising close to an election.
>
> As a result of that ruling, the chamber was able to spend $1 million
> on so-called issue ads in the final days of the Massachusetts Senate
> race in January to help elect Scott Brown, the state's first
> Republican senator in decades.
>
> As ominous music played in the background of one of the ads, a
> moderator intoned: "Washington politicians continue to fail us. More
> spending and fewer jobs. Scott Brown . . . supports measures that
> hold spending and cut taxes. . . . Call Scott Brown. Thank him."
>
> Powerful as the effect of such advertising could be, the chamber and
> its allies expect the next big expansion of influence will come in
> street-level organizing and voter turnout operations.
>
> Miller, a former chief of staff to a GOP lawmaker and co-owner of a
> restaurant in Washington's tony Georgetown section, built up the
> chamber's grass-roots organization in 2008 and expanded it in 2009
> with the help of consulting firms.
>
> Studying magazine subscriptions, voter registration and consumer
> buying habits, the consultants built a list of potential allies in
> 122 key congressional districts.
>
> Individuals were invited to join the Friends of the U.S. Chamber
> initiative and were promised updates and special insights on
> Washington. They were then "activated," asked to write letters or
> call Congress on a particular issue or get involved in events in the
> districts.
>
> Miller said the so-called activation rate was "roughly equivalent"
> to the rate claimed by Organizing for America, the network known as
> Obama for America during the presidential campaign, which has twice
> as many members.
>
> The chamber has also given its staff, especially senior leaders,
> incentives to push fundraising. They are now working, in effect, on
> a commission system: the more money they bring in, the more they are
> compensated.
>
> Leaning right
>
> Officially, the chamber is a bipartisan nonprofit organization, but
> over the last decade it has tilted decidedly toward the Republicans.
> During 2008, 86% of the spending by the chamber's political action
> committee went to Republicans. Far more was spent on issue ads, most
> supporting GOP candidates.
>
> The chamber says it represents 3 million companies that pay dues to
> the national chamber or a local affiliate, though internal documents
> suggest the organization's treasury is filled in substantial part by
> contributions from a couple dozen major corporations most affected
> by Washington policymakers.
>
> Tax records from 2008 show that 19 companies or individuals paid
> between $1 million and $15.3 million, providing a third of the
> chamber's total revenue that year. Because the chamber is a
> nonprofit, it must disclose donations, but not necessarily the
> identity of the donors.
>
> The chamber insists that those donors remain anonymous.
>
> Some labor-backed organizations, such as Working America, which has
> 3 million nonunion members nationwide, have also declined to release
> details of its donors, which suggests a rocky road for legislation
> to require more transparency.
>
> tom.hamburger@ latimes.com
>
> Kim Geiger of the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
>
>
>
>