Chamber of Commerce Controversy

Several media outlets in recent days, including the NY Times, have reported on controversy surrounding the legislative and political activities of the US Chamber of Commerce.  In brief, the controversy includes the facts that 1) tens of millions of dollars are being spent on political issue campaign advertisements, mostly on behalf of Republican candidates, 2) a significant percentage of the Chamber’sfunds are coming from a handful of huge corporations, 3) the Chamber is not required to divulge its donors, so long as the donations are not specifically earmarked for ads aimed at a particular candidate, 4) the Chamber appears to be spending the money for purposes dictated by the corporations while doing back flips to ensure that the contributed funds have not been “earmarked;” 5) some of the donated funds are coming from overseas corporations and being intermingled with domestic contributions and spent on the advertising, in apparent contravention of US law.  The Times obtained details about corporate donations, not through the Chamber’s records, but by combing through the public financial documents, corporate filings,  and annual reports of some of the large donors.

TAK