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Eric D. Schwerin
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Begin forwarded message:

> From: Beau <[email protected]>
> Date: March 16, 2010 11:37:45 AM EDT
> To: Snyder-Mackler Alex <[email protected]>, Kaufman Ted <[email protected]
> >, Toner Dennis <[email protected]>, Hunter Biden <[email protected]
> >, Eric Schwerin <[email protected]>
> Cc: Rogalsky Joe <[email protected]>
> Subject: Fwd: U.S. Chamber of Commerce grows into a political force
>

>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: "Jenifer Fuller" <[email protected]>
>> Date: March 16, 2010 11:21:53 AM EDT
>> To: "Jenifer Fuller" <[email protected]>
>> 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 [email protected].
>>
>>
>> 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 buildi
>> ng a large-scale grass-roots political operation that has begun to
>> rival those of the major political parties, funded by record-sett
>> ing amounts of money raised from corporations and wealthy individu
>> als.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>>