More About Chamber of Commerce Duplicity
Consumer advocate, Joan Claybrook, reports more about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s duplicity in concealing it’s political contributions in Public Citizen News (Nov-Dec 2006). I’ve previously written about the Chamber and their fraudulent political funding in support of big business. (Post of November 15th) The Chamber’s goal is to weaken the judiciary and laws which would put restraints on the activities of it’s supporters like Wal-Mart and other big corporate interests through "under the table" political funding. Public Citizen reports that once Congress passed the campaign finance reform law in 2002, special interest groups began to look for loopholes to get around the law. An investigation by Public Citizen showed that the U.S. Chamber used "shell" non profit corporations to hide their political contributions using a nonprofit corporation it had direct ties with, the Institute for Legal Reform, as it’s chief means of funneling money to get around the law. Ms Claybrook points out that the Chamber bragged that it planned to spend $40 million on congressional and other races, including judicial races, but then failed to report any of these contributions in it’s tax returns as required by law. As I reported previously, it also claims it doesn’t have to report the source of the funds either, since it funneled the money through phoney non profit corporations. Public Citizen has asked the IRS to investigate whether the Chamber has violated disclosure requirements under the law. . As Ms Claybrook says: "When nonprofit groups are used to deceive voters, the system is being rigged to aid a privileged few, and the public’s trust in democracy…is undermined."