The White House is preparing an Executive Order which would over-rule the Supreme Court’s Citizens United case
From this article:
In what the White House calls a push for transparency, a pending executive order would require companies doing business with the federal government to disclose political contributions to independent groups, but would not place the same requirement on public employee unions or federal grant recipients that typically donate to Democrats.
This all stems from the infamous Citizens United Supreme Court decision which rendered parts of the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform law unconstitutional. Shortly after this decision Barack Obama used his State of the Union speech to publicly berate the Supreme Court, and the Democrats swiftly moved to circumvent this decision by introducing the DISCLOSE Act.
The DISCLOSE Act eventually failed in the Congress so now Barack Obama is looking to circumvent the system by imposing his will on the American people despite the Congress’ failure to implement policy using constitutional means by using an Executive Order to stifle corporations political donations, yet the unions would be exempted from the Executive Order. The left condemned the Supreme Court decision because it treated large corporations as if they were people, yet they had no problem with big unions speaking as individuals and if this Executive Order is signed big corporations will have their voices stifled while big unions will have free range of speech. And we are to believe that this is not politically motivated?
The Supreme Court has already ruled that corporations are protected under the first amendment but the president does not agree with this ruling and that is fine. But if he disagrees with that ruling the constitution sets up a procedure which must be followed in order to change it, and that procedure is called amending the constitution.
Barack Obama wants no part the lengthy amendment process so he is simply going to issue an Executive Order which nullifies the Supreme Court ruling and I do not care which side of the Citizens United case you fall on, you have to be concerned when a president of the United States feels he can so easily and arrogantly sidestep the Supreme Court.
America's Watchtower 
One year and seven months to go. Can we make it ? Government by decree ala Chavez. I am worried, Steve.
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So am I and I am not sure we will make it.
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Actually, amending the Constitution isn’t the only way the other two branches can address SCOTUS decisions with which they disagree. It’s long been understood that the Congress may limit the Court’s jurisdiction.
What’s happening here is simple – the President is the boss of the executive branch, and he’s not saying anything about how to handle federal contractors who contribute to political parties or third parties. All he’s saying is that since the third parties have become far more prevalent in today’s political environment, it’s not unreasonable to expect that some contractors, in an effort to sidestep federal legislation requiring reporting of political contributions to the two major parties, and candidates, might contribute to third parties. This is clearly an effort spread the accountability net to that the spirit of the federal law isn’t broken.
As to “exempting public sector unions,” etc., here’s a copy of the executive order: http://scr.bi/e89kID Even a cursory reading reveals that nobody’s exempted – existing law applies to contractors submitting bids, and that’s who this proposed Order applies to. Reference to public sector unions is just a deflection to keep people from considering this order on its own merits, which are oriented not to keep anyone from making contributions, but from letting taxpayers know if federal contractors are in bed with any particular group.
Take good care and may God bless us all!
TGY
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By the way, this proposed Executive Order (http://scr.bi/e89kID) doesn’t overrule Citizens United. It simply requires that federal contractors provide information about their political contributions. Why is it that when individuals make ridiculously small contributions, candidates must report them, but when corporations make large contributions to a candidate or a cause, and then want to do business with the government it’s trying to influence, some people seem to think that sort of information is beyond the right of the citizenry to know?
If XYZ Corp is making contributions to CAIR and is also bidding on federal contracts to protect American combat troops in garrison in Afghanistan (at 5 times what the troops are paid), isn’t it reasonable to let the American people know about those contributions?
TGY
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I have one major problem with this, it is retroactive for 2 years. You make some good points Georgia Yankee, but please don’t pretend like you can’t read between the lines, Obama’s intent is obvious, to try and expose some perceived malfeasance in GOP political donating, otherwise there would be no retroactive aspect necessary.
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Retroactive would mean that companies that have already submitted bids and reported on their conttributions to the 2 major parties and candidates would have to go back and amend their reports to include the third parties. That’s not the case because this proposed Order isn’t retroactive.
The order specifies that when a company bids on a federal contract, it need only supply information relative to its political contributions for the two years prior to the bid. Without the two-year information limit, companies would have to supply all their information since their inception. It’s not retroactivity, it’s a cap on information.
As to reading between the lines – I happen to think that with the proliferation of new cause-oriented groups since Citizens United, it’d be foolish to think that companies wouldn’t try to circumvent reporting requirements by contributing to the new groups. It’s a loophole, and the President is seeking to plug it not to keep companies from making those contributions, but to ensure that the American people know about them.
You’re not suggesting that it’s of no importance to the American people if a company bidding on a federal contract made contributions to People for the American Way or MoveOn? Or is the fact that the right is right now outspending the left enough to get you to toss public disclosure under the bus? The tables will turn, count on it, and if you’re successful now in keeping corporate political contributions to third-party organizations a secret, imagine how you’re going to feel down the road when it’s the libs in charge and keeping their contributions secret?
Fair’s fair and doesn’t belong to either party.
Take good care and may God bless us all!
TGY
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You make some strong assumptions based off my supposed “suggestions”, I especially like how I am tossing my principles under the bus because the right is outspending the left, nice one. The truth is, there are some mighty vague items in this Presidential order, and they trouble me. For example:
…will require all entities submitting offers for federal contracts to submit “certain” political contributions and expenditures
I see no further specificity for what certain info he needs, apparently the FAR council will figure it out later.
Perhaps I was wrong on the 2 year thingy, you seemed to explain it well, and perhaps I am guilty of distrusting everything Obama does (yeah, I am big time), but given the stink he made in his accusations against the right during the 2010 election cycle (unsubstantiated “foreign” money claims against the Chamber of Commerce, etc.), I am suspect of any so called attempt this “transparent” President is trying to enact.
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Fleeceme, like most laws, EOs don’t cross every “t” and dot every “i.” They leave that to the regulatory bodies. that’s what this EO does in Section 4, when it instructs the FAR to promulgate the rules and guidelines. If it were the first time an EO did such a thing, or if it were done only by Democratic presidents, I’d have a problem with it, but it’s standard practice, and it makes sense – if this thing were 150 pages or so, how could we discuss it rationally?
As to “certain,” I think if you check out subheadings a and b under Section 2, you get a good idea that “certain” means all the contributions that meet the qualifications set forth in those two subparagraphs.
Let me put it another way – if the Dems had not so foolishly lost control of the House, and it was lib groups outspending the cons through the artifice of the third-party contributions, you guys would be raising quite a ruckus about it – and you’d be right. The problem is one that I thought you’d recognize by now – when you make rules to your advantage, they’re going to wind up benefiting the other guy, and usually a lot sooner than you anticipated!
Take good care, and may God bless us all!
TGY
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When you dig down a read the key sections of the the EO you can clearly see what they’re trying to do here and it has nothing to with transparency. This is nothing more that the DISCLOSE Act wrapped up in EO. I pulled a few sections of the draft copy of the EO from the link Georgia Yankee provide. Read for yourself and tell me what you think.
Sec 2 Therefore in order to increase transparency and accountability to ensure an efficient and economical procurement every contracting department and agency shall require all entities submitting offers for federal contracts to disclose certain political contributions and expenditures that have been made within the two years prior to submission of their offer. Certification that disclosure of this information has been made in the manner established by the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council pursuit to sec 4 shall be required as a condition of award.
The disclosure shall include:
a) All contributions and expenditures to or on behalf of federal candidates, parties, or party committees made by the bidding entity its directors or officers or any affiliates or subsidiaries within its control and
b) Any contributions made to third party entities with the intention or reasonable expectation that parties would use those contributions to make independent expenditures or electioneering communications.
This disclosure shall be required whenever the aggregate amount of such contributions and expenditures made by the bidding entity, its officers and directors and its affiliates and subsidiaries exceed $5,000 to a given recipient during a given year.
Sec 3. All disclosed data shall be made publically available in a centralized, searchable, sortable, downloadable, and machine readable format on data.gov as soon as practicable up submission.
Georgia Yankee is correct by saying unions are not exempt from this, they don’t need to be because this EO doesn’t apply to them. Additionally take notice of the $5,000 contribution. In the Disclose Act the number was actually higher for individual contributions; $10,000. And finally sec 3 make public all these contributions and who they were made by in a centralized, searchable, sortable, donwloadable, and machine readable format on data.gov. A nice big neon sign that tells the union or any partisan organization to “LOOK HERE.” Now how many corporations who also have interests in other areas of the free market want their political contributions advertised for the activist entities? I can see the boycotts now. This is designed to limit their contributions, nothing more. It is as I said; the Disclosed Act wrapped up in an Executive Order.
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You make a great point John, I probably shouldn’t have written that the EO exempted unions but rather that it ignored them. The target of this EO is large corperations–because they likely contribute to Republicans–while big unions–who are likely to deonate to Democrats–are simply ignored?
This leads me to ask an interesting question: how many companies which are affected by the EO are union shops whose unions will be allowed to donate to Democrats under the radar?
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No, Steve, you’re missing the poit entirely, which is that bidders on federal contracts are already required to report on their political contributions.
As more of these “third-party” organizations spring up, those bidders are evading the spirit of the law by contributing to them. The EO fulfills the spirit of the law by adding contributions to the “third parties” to the list of reportable contributions.
Two things you should be aware of – first, large corporations may favor the GOP in their giving, but they don’t ignore the Democratic Party, not by a long shot. And unions reporting requirements are far more stringent than privately-held companies, and probably more stringent even than publicly-held corporations. They may be ignored by this EO because it specifically applies to companies bidding for new business with the executive department, but the DOL has boatloads of forms for unions to complete every time they conduct a 50-50 raffle to benefit the local’s PAC at a local union meeting.
It’s the information age – if you want to do business with the government, be prepared to disclose how you’ve done business with the policymakers. If you want to sell your stock to the public, be prepared to inform that same public – including your shareholders – how you’ve been spending their money. And if you want to represent America’s labor force and collect dues, sharpen your pencil and start laying out how you’ve been using those dues dollars away from the bargaining table.
Take good care and may God bless us all!
TGY
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Honestly, I’m not quite sure of the reason for lowering the number from $10k to $5k, because in the world of corporate funding of political campaigns, I cannot imagine that a corporation would make a contribution of $9999 to avoid reporting. I’m sure there’ll be the oddball contribution here and there, but I think these guys are going to be hitting for the fences this time around – there’s some savvy talk that the Dems might regain an awful lot of ground they stupidly lost in 2010.
As to the intimidation factor, well, tough – that’s the nature of American politics – we the people are the ones in charge of this more perfect union, and we most certainly deserve to know who’s spending big bucks to influence its decision-making process. The idea of financing a political campaign on the sly is repugnant to me and to most red-blooded, right-thinking Americans! If a company is afraid that activists like the Tea Party or MoveOn are going to publicize its political contributions (a fancy way of saying “tell the truth”), then I guess they really shouldn’t be making those contributions in the first place, should they? Wasn’t it a Dem who said “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen!”
Take good care and may God bless us all!
TGY
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Georgia Yankee, I appreciate your thoughts on this matter; however I do disagree with your interpretation of this EO. In today’s climate of civility and activism this is going to thwart corporations and individuals from participating in a key component of our political process. Yes you can call it intimidation, it’s something this administration uses very effectively and this EO is another example of it This EO just as the Disclose Act was crafted to undermine the Citizen United decision reached by the SCOTUS. They’re using the threat of not awarding government contracts and disclosing their information to the world to stifle free speech and limit their political activities. If you’re ok with these intimidation tactics that will ultimately stifle free speech, then I must say we have a different view of liberty and freedom.
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The EO specifically forbids the executive branch from denying contracts on the basis of legitimate political contributions.
As to the intimidation factor, you seem to be suggesting that we keep secret a crucial part of our political process for fear of perhaps some activists finding out the truth and publicizing it. They’re already able to learn the truth – FOIA doesn’t bar them from uncovering political contributions. I’m suggesting that the truth shall set us free, and easy access to the truth will make us freer. There are all sorts of information that are nobody’s business, but the identification of the sources of large contributions to partisans in the political process doesn’t fall under that umbrella.
The need for this EO is borne out by rjjrdq’s comment – there are contributions to Dems and liberals causes that just might be of interest to cons (although if foreign sources who allegedly contributed directly to the Obama campaign bid on a federal contract, they’re already required to disclose their contributions even absent this EO).
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I don’t suppose those foreign contributions to the Obama campaign in 2008 fall under this EO. Oh, just missed it. Two years have already passed.
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Funny how that works!
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