Shareholders Demand To Know If The Chamber of Commerce Is Using Their Money To Buy Elections

[katty]

more: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/11/05/shareholders-demand-disclosure/

Shareholders Demand To Know If The Chamber of Commerce Is Using Their Money To Buy Elections

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as ThinkProgress has repeatedly noted, does not disclose the donors to its aggressive political activities. Insiders have revealed certain contributions — like the lobbyists who revealed that health insurance companies pumped money into ads to defeat health care reform — and reporters can sometimes use tax filings and other public records to deduce some contributions, but the Chamber by and large remains a black box — unnamed corporate money comes in, and political attack ads come out.

The Chamber’s finances are so opaque, in fact, that shareholders in companies that are known to contribute to the Chamber don’t actually know if their money is being used to attack political candidates. But following an election season where the Chamber contributed $32.1 million to defeating mostly Democratic candidates — with a high degree of success — some shareholders are demanding disclosure. Walden Asset Management in Boston and Domini Social Investments in New York said this week they filed resolutions calling for independent directors to review political spending at Pfizer and Pepsi, along with IBM and Accenture.

[napi21]

1. IF anyone can get this disclosed, it's the stockholders!

Believe me, I worked for two public companies and even the officers shudder when the stockholders speak!

[Demeter]

2. This is very promising

Now THAT"S Hope and Change I could support.

[Kolesar]

3. Business leaders who believe in climate protection better wise up fast

The CoC are infamous climate change deniers.