Progressives Mount Major Campaign to Intimidate Corporate Election Donors

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http://www.thenation.com/blog/166746/progressives-mount-major-campaign-intimidate-corporate-election-donors


The announcement of “Our Democracy Is Not For Sale” campaign this morning in Washington. Photo courtesy HCAN.

Short of an outright ban of corporate money from elections, disclosure is perhaps the best antidote to the political influence of big business. Notably, since Super PACs disclose donor information, only one-half of one percent of all contributions to the most active Super PACs this campaign season came from publicly traded corporations, which are naturally sensitive to coming under attack for political activities.

Business interests instead prefer the type of electioneering practiced by nonprofits like the US Chamber of Commerce, which is planning a $50 million campaign to influence House and Senate races coast to coast this fall—and they won’t have to disclose where a single dollar came from.

With that in mind, a coalition of public interest, labor and progressive groups announced today a major, fifty-state campaign to force disclosure by any means possible. It’s called “Our Democracy is Not For Sale.”

The headline-grabbing element of the plan is a $25,000 reward, offered by Americans United for Change, to the first employee who documents that his or her employer is using corporate funds to contribute to a non-profit that buys election ads and doesn’t disclose donors—such as Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS. But the groups plan to use a wide array of other tools to force disclosure, from shareholder actions to regulatory and legislative pressure.

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1. This should be a big campaign issue

"Are we going to let our political process be high jacked by big corporate interests?"