Subject: Fwd: U.S. Chamber of Commerce grows into a political force
From: "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:47:11 -0400

You sure you don't want to join the Chamber?

Eric D. Schwerin
[email-masked]

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Beau <[email-masked]>
> Date: March 16, 2010 11:37:45 AM EDT
> To: Snyder-Mackler Alex <[email-masked]>, Kaufman Ted <[email-masked] 
> >, Toner Dennis <[email-masked]>, Hunter Biden <[email-masked] 
> >, Eric Schwerin <[email-masked]>
> Cc: Rogalsky Joe <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Fwd: U.S. Chamber of Commerce grows into a political force
>

>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> From: "Jenifer Fuller" <[email-masked]>
>> Date: March 16, 2010 11:21:53 AM EDT
>> To: "Jenifer Fuller" <[email-masked]>
>> Subject: U.S. Chamber of Commerce grows into a political force
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> TO:                  The Democratic Attorneys General and Candidates
>> FROM:            The DAGA Staff
>> DATE:            March 15, 2010
>> SUBJECT:      U.S. Chamber of Commerce grows into a political force
>>
>>
>> In an effort to help keep you informed, we wanted to forward along  
>> a recent article, which you will find below, from the Los Angeles  
>> Times to provide you some insight as to the activities of a major  
>> Republican funding source, the U.S Chamber of Commerce. As you  
>> know, in the past the chamber has raised and spent tremendous  
>> amounts of money in support of Republican candidates, including  
>> candidates for Attorney General, across the country in state and  
>> federal elections. By this report, the Chamber appears to be  
>> continuing their activities in earnest in 2010. The article  
>> provides some important information regarding recent and  
>> anticipated political activity by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in  
>> this election year in light of recent changes to campaign finance  
>> law and the current political climate. We will continue to bring  
>> you the latest news and information about elections, races and  
>> politics throughout the year. In the meantime, for more information  
>> or if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at 303.831.0100 
>>  or [email-masked].
>>
>>
>> U.S. Chamber of Commerce grows into a political force
>>
>> A swelling tide of money could put the business group in a better  
>> position to sway elections.
>> Los Angeles Times - March 08, 2010|By Tom Hamburger
>> Reporting from Washington — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is buildi 
>> ng a large-scale grass-roots political operation that has begun to 
>>  rival those of the major political parties, funded by record-sett 
>> ing amounts of money raised from corporations and wealthy individu 
>> als.
>>
>> The chamber has signed up some 6 million individuals who are not  
>> chamber members and has begun asking them to help with lobbying  
>> and, soon, with get-out-the-vote efforts in upcoming congressional  
>> campaigns.
>>
>> The chamber's expansion into grass-roots organizing -- coupled with  
>> a large and growing fundraising apparatus that got a lift from  
>> Supreme Court rulings -- is part of a trend in which the  
>> traditional parties are losing ground to well-financed and  
>> increasingly assertive outside groups. The chamber is certainly  
>> better positioned than ever to be a major force on the issues and  
>> elections it focuses on each year, analysts think.
>>
>> The new grass-roots program, the brainchild of chamber political  
>> director Bill Miller, is concentrating on 22 states. Among them are  
>> Colorado, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet is  
>> vulnerable; Arkansas, where Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln faces  
>> an uphill reelection battle; and Ohio, where the chamber sees  
>> opportunities in numerous House races and an open Senate seat.
>>
>> The network, called Friends of the U.S. Chamber, has been used to  
>> generate more than a million letters and e-mails to members of  
>> Congress, 700,000 of them in opposition to the Democratic  
>> healthcare plan. That is an increase from 40,000 congressional  
>> contacts generated in 2008.
>>
>> What makes the initiative possible is a swelling tide of money. The  
>> chamber spent more than $144 million on lobbying and grass-roots  
>> organizing last year, a 60% increase over 2008, and well beyond the  
>> spending of individual labor unions or the Democratic or Republican  
>> national committees.
>>
>> The chamber is expected to substantially exceed that spending level  
>> in 2010.
>>
>> The chamber's expanding influence is worrisome to top officials in  
>> the White House -- including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who has  
>> expressed concern about the chamber in the past, and senior advisor  
>> Valerie Jarrett, who tried to build direct contacts with company  
>> executives last fall when the chamber was fighting the  
>> administration's legislation to regulate carbon emissions.
>>
>> Several companies, including Pacific Gas & Electric and Apple, left  
>> the chamber over its stance on climate policies, but since then  
>> many more firms have joined and made substantial contributions,  
>> chamber President Tom Donohue said.
>>
>> Amassing cash
>>
>> Two major factors are driving the chamber's growing success in  
>> fundraising.
>>
>> First, President Obama and Democratic majorities in both houses of  
>> Congress have alarmed a widening circle of business leaders with  
>> their calls for greater government involvement in healthcare,  
>> tighter federal regulation of the financial industry and  
>> legislation to help unions organize workers, among other issues.
>>
>> Second, the recent Supreme Court ruling that corporations have a  
>> free-speech right to spend money to help elect or defeat candidates  
>> not only struck down a century of laws limiting such spending, but  
>> it also made many business executives feel more comfortable about  
>> using corporate money for political purposes.
>>
>> Industries that are the most directly affected by Washington  
>> policies and regulations -- pharmaceuticals, for example -- have  
>> always spent lavishly on lobbying and politics. But many others  
>> have held back, deterred by concern over violating the complex laws  
>> on campaign spending and by a general sense that putting money into  
>> politics might open companies to criticism.
>>
>> The Supreme Court decision appears to have allayed those concerns,  
>> according to corporate lawyers and others involved in the process.
>>
>> "In the past a lot of companies and wealthy individuals stood on  
>> the sidelines," said Robert Kelner, who heads the Election and  
>> Political Law Practice Group at Covington & Burling, one of  
>> Washington's most influential corporate law firms.
>>
>> "In just the last election, we had the spectacle of John McCain  
>> threatening to prosecute his own supporters if they spent their  
>> money on outside groups that ran advertising in the presidential  
>> race.
>>
>> "That cloud has been lifted," he said.
>>
>> Anonymity
>>
>> Using trade associations such as the chamber as the vehicle for  
>> spending corporate money on politics has an extra appeal: These  
>> groups can take large contributions from companies and wealthy  
>> individuals in ways that will probably avoid public disclosure  
>> requirements.
>>
>> The chamber has developed that into something of a specialty: Under  
>> a system pioneered by Donohue, corporations have contributed money  
>> to the chamber, which then produced issue ads targeting individual  
>> candidates without revealing the names of the businesses  
>> underwriting the ads.
>>
>> At the chamber, officials contend that rising donations are less  
>> the result of the recent Supreme Court ruling than they are of a  
>> 5-4 decision in 2007 in which the court ruled it was  
>> unconstitutional to ban issue-related advertising close to an  
>> election.
>>
>> As a result of that ruling, the chamber was able to spend $1  
>> million on so-called issue ads in the final days of the  
>> Massachusetts Senate race in January to help elect Scott Brown, the  
>> state's first Republican senator in decades.
>>
>> As ominous music played in the background of one of the ads, a  
>> moderator intoned: "Washington politicians continue to fail us.  
>> More spending and fewer jobs. Scott Brown . . . supports measures  
>> that hold spending and cut taxes. . . . Call Scott Brown. Thank him."
>>
>> Powerful as the effect of such advertising could be, the chamber  
>> and its allies expect the next big expansion of influence will come  
>> in street-level organizing and voter turnout operations.
>>
>> Miller, a former chief of staff to a GOP lawmaker and co-owner of a  
>> restaurant in Washington's tony Georgetown section, built up the  
>> chamber's grass-roots organization in 2008 and expanded it in 2009  
>> with the help of consulting firms.
>>
>> Studying magazine subscriptions, voter registration and consumer  
>> buying habits, the consultants built a list of potential allies in  
>> 122 key congressional districts.
>>
>> Individuals were invited to join the Friends of the U.S. Chamber  
>> initiative and were promised updates and special insights on  
>> Washington. They were then "activated," asked to write letters or  
>> call Congress on a particular issue or get involved in events in  
>> the districts.
>>
>> Miller said the so-called activation rate was "roughly equivalent"  
>> to the rate claimed by Organizing for America, the network known as  
>> Obama for America during the presidential campaign, which has twice  
>> as many members.
>>
>> The chamber has also given its staff, especially senior leaders,  
>> incentives to push fundraising. They are now working, in effect, on  
>> a commission system: the more money they bring in, the more they  
>> are compensated.
>>
>> Leaning right
>>
>> Officially, the chamber is a bipartisan nonprofit organization, but  
>> over the last decade it has tilted decidedly toward the  
>> Republicans. During 2008, 86% of the spending by the chamber's  
>> political action committee went to Republicans. Far more was spent  
>> on issue ads, most supporting GOP candidates.
>>
>> The chamber says it represents 3 million companies that pay dues to  
>> the national chamber or a local affiliate, though internal  
>> documents suggest the organization's treasury is filled in  
>> substantial part by contributions from a couple dozen major  
>> corporations most affected by Washington policymakers.
>>
>> Tax records from 2008 show that 19 companies or individuals paid  
>> between $1 million and $15.3 million, providing a third of the  
>> chamber's total revenue that year. Because the chamber is a  
>> nonprofit, it must disclose donations, but not necessarily the  
>> identity of the donors.
>>
>> The chamber insists that those donors remain anonymous.
>>
>> Some labor-backed organizations, such as Working America, which has  
>> 3 million nonunion members nationwide, have also declined to  
>> release details of its donors, which suggests a rocky road for  
>> legislation to require more transparency.
>>
>> tom.hamburger@ latimes.com
>>
>> Kim Geiger of the Washington bureau contributed to this report.
>>
>>
>>
>>