Companies Start to Lift Veil on Political Spending
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum | Washington Post.com
May 14, 2008
Ever wonder how much companies really spend to influence government through trade associations? Well, a few corporations are coming clean, or at least cleaner.
The Center for Political Accountability, a nonpartisan group that promotes corporate political disclosure, has been gradually persuading companies to disclose more about their political activities. As a result, a few mysteries have been solved.
In 2006, for example, Chevron, the oil company, paid the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Industry PAC (BIPAC) $250,000 each to educate voters. Such spending has traditionally been kept secret because laws do not require disclosure, even though it is an important element in the assault on Washington. Now, shareholder pressure has changed a few minds in corporate boardrooms.
Rising oil prices have benefited producers of other forms of power as well, and Big Wind is among the sectors of the energy industry using some of their profits for self-promotion.
Aetna, the insurance company, has disclosed that it paid trade associations $3.4 million in 2006, the latest year for which information is available. That included $950,000 to America’s Health Insurance Plans, $925,000 to the Coalition for Affordable Quality Healthcare, $226,500 to the Business Roundtable and $100,000 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. In other words, a ton of dough.
But even with these disclosures, it’s still sometimes hard to know how much associations actually receive.
Hewlett-Packard, for instance, lists only the amount of its dues that trade associations put toward lobbying and political activities. The computer maker recently said that it paid the Information Technology Industry Council $73,060. But that is probably a fraction of the company’s full payments to those groups.
A survey earlier this year of 255 corporate directors commissioned by the foundation-backed center revealed that directors knew very little about disclosure laws and were not much involved in political advocacy.
In other words, boards may be willing to reveal more but they still have a long way to go before their companies are forthright about political spending. “We’re beginning to breach that wall,” said Bruce F. Freed, the center’s executive director. “But there’s much more to do.”
