ThinkProgress breaks a fascinating story: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which plans to spend $75 million this year promoting Republican candidates, spends its political money out of its general fund, which openly solicits foreign donors.
When challenged, the Chamber replies that it has careful controls in place (which of course it doesn’t specify; the contributions are secret). Speaking of the American Chambers of Commerce (AmChams), its overseas arms – whose members submit their dues payments directly to the Chamber’s general fund, out of which it buys political ads, a Chamber spokesman says:
AmChams are independent organizations and they do not fund political programs in the United States. We have a system in place for ensuring that they are not government-controlled entities.
Note that the “system” ensures that the AmChams themselves are not “government-controlled,” not that they do not solicit money from government-controlled firms: money that goes directly to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce general fund, which then buys political ads.
Under the wonderful system created by the Citizens United decision, firms owned by the Russian and Chinese and Saudi governments can help fund campaigns that shape the American political process. Sometimes I’m surprised that those American flag pins don’t jump off Republican politicians’ lapels.
SP says
But Al Gore phone monks controlling authority global warming fat!
Allen K. says
$75 = $75 million
Mark Kleiman says
Cheap SOBs, aren't they?
Corrected.
Eli says
If campaign finance is free speech, then any money foreign lobbyists pay (invest?) is also free speech, right? Oh, what a tangled web.
paul says
I sure hope they hav their foreign-agent registrations up to date…
Brett Bellmore says
That's a pretty lame accusation, isn't it? As I understand it, somewhere between 0.1% and 0.05% of the Chamber's funds come from overseas. Obama himself probably had a larger fraction of his campaign funding from overseas sources, illegally, given the way he had the security features disabled on his online donation system to avoid noticing if a donor wasn't in the US.
I think it's quite possible the President will regret bringing the subject of foreign donations up…