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Stories tagged with “Chamber of Commerce”

NEWS FLASH

Chamber To Spend Over $50 Million On 2012 Elections | According to USA Today reporter Susan Page, U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donahue announced this morning that his corporate lobbying group would spend even more than the $50 million previously reported to try to change the result of the 2012 election. The Chamber was one of the biggest exploiters of Citizens United during the 2010 cycle, and they recently filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to keep their ability to spend unlimited money influencing American elections intact.

Election

Pro-GOP Chamber Of Commerce Ad Extols Bipartisanship, Implies Obama Re-Election

By Josh Israel and Scott Keyes on May 11, 2012 at 5:23 pm

Former Gov. Linda Lingle (R-HI)

Former Gov. Linda Lingle (R-HI)

The Chamber of Commerce has released 21 new May 2012 “independent” political ads — 20 of which either attack Democrats or praise Republicans. But while most of the ads take partisan swipes at Democrats and Obamacare, the Chamber’s ads in solidly Democratic Hawaii improbably endorse bipartisanship.

The narration for the 30-second spot in support of former Gov. Linda Lingle (R-HI) reads:

Working together to create jobs will bring Hawaii’s economy back. That’s the independent record that Linda Lingle has built. Governor Lingle believes in a bipartisan plan for increasing tourism, working across the aisle with President Obama, finding solutions to boost our local economy for more opportunity. She understands tourism, will create jobs for Hawaii and our economy. Call Linda, tell her to keep supporting tourism and putting jobs above partisanship. Paid for by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 100 years standing up for American enterprise.

Watch the ad:

Another ad from the Chamber — which has defended Mitt Romney and frequently attacked President Obama’s legislative agenda — hits a Democratic candidate in Florida over the mere possibility that she might support Obamacare.

But in the Aloha State, the group abruptly takes a pro-compromise position.

Amusingly, Republic Report noted, the on-screen citation for the claim that Lingle is a bipartisan leader is a newspaper reprinting of a press release from Lingle’s own campaign.

More subtle is an implied concession to President Obama’s home state that Lingle and the Chamber believe Obama will be re-elected. Lingle, if elected in November, would take office in January 2012 — meaning that for her “bipartisan plan” for “working across the aisle with President Obama” to really work, President Obama too would have to win this November.

Or perhaps they simply wanted to inform voters that Lingle would diligently seek bipartisan solutions with President Obama for the 16 days between when she took office and Mitt Romney’s possible inauguration — but in that case, she had better be prepared to move very quickly indeed.

Justice

Mitch McConnell & The Chamber of Commerce Tell The Supreme Court To Double Down On Citizens United

By Ian Millhiser on May 2, 2012 at 9:50 am

The Supreme Court is currently considering whether to hear a case that will enable it to correct its error in Citizens United and overrule its indefensible decision to allow unlimited corporate and other wealthy donor money to influence elections. Neither the corporate lobby nor the Senate’s top Republican are eager to see this occur, however. Both of them filed briefs in the Supreme Court yesterday urging the justices to not only reaffirm Citizens United, but to do so without even hearing argument in the case.

Neither one of these briefs are surprising. The Chamber is one of the nation’s biggest spenders on elections, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has long been an opponent of campaign finance regulation. Before President Bush appointed Justice Alito, who became the fifth vote to tear down much of America’s checks on big money in politics, the seminal case upholding America’s ability to defend against such money was McConnell v. FEC. In that case, Sen. McConnell was the lead plaintiff who sued — mostly unsuccessfully — to toss out the McCain/Feingold campaign finance law.

Yet while the briefs are unsurprising, they demonstrate both the corporate lobby and the Republican Party’s commitment to keeping wealthy interest groups’ ability to buy and sell elections intact.

Climate Progress

Pro-Oil Outside Groups Spend More Than $16 Million On Energy Attack Ads Since January

By Rebecca Leber on Apr 12, 2012 at 9:44 am

A handful of outside groups, fueled by oil and coal dollars, are committing tens of millions to propel Big Oil to the forefront of the 2012 elections — outspending the Obama campaign on political energy ads by an overwhelming amount.

In the first three-and-a-half months of 2012, groups including Americans for Prosperity, American Petroleum Institute, Crossroads GPS, and American Energy Alliance have spent $16,750,000 on energy attack ads. The total amounts to more than $56 million, including the American Clean Coal Coalition’s pledge of $40 million on ads promoting coal.

According to a Think Progress analysis, there have been at least $16,750,000 worth in dirty energy ad buys since January:

American Petroleum Institute spent $4.3 million since January, reported by the Washington Post.

Crossroads GPS has spent a total $2.85 million since January, with three major ad buys. Crossroads spent $500,000 distorting the administration’s Solyndra record, $650,000 on gas prices, and $1.7 million promoting “drill, baby drill.”

American Energy Alliance bought $3.6 million of gas price ads for the “largest effort of its kind in AEA’s history.” The group is partially funded by Charles and David Koch.

Americans For Prosperity: $6 million on an ad distorting Obama’s Solyndra record, which ran in at least six states. This followed an earlier $2.4 million Solyndra ad in November, which was not included in the total count.

By comparison, the Obama campaign and his super PAC have spent at least $1.67 million defending the president’s energy record.

Other groups have pledged to spend millions more this election cycle, and will include ads focusing on promoting pro-oil and coal interests:

U.S. Chamber of Commerce has committed to spend more than $50 million this year on a range of issues. So far it has targeted several lawmakers, including Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who faced $2.5 million of ads against him for wanting to end oil subsidies. In February, it spent $200,000 ads promoting Rep. Rick Berg (R-ND) for his pro-oil stance.

American Coalition For Clean Coal Electricity: $40 million overall campaign to push coal interests to the forefront of the presidential campaign.

American Crossroads, whose donors include oil and gas executives, has a bankroll of more than $200 milllion for 2012.

Oil billionaires Charles and David Koch “plan to pump at least $100 million through their network of independent groups” which include Americans for Prosperity and the American Energy Alliance.

Ad spending this cycle has skyrocketed 1600 percent compared to the 2008 race, partly due to oil and gas’s serious money to elect a candidate committed to putting oil’s profits first.

Climate Progress

American Petroleum Institute, Chevron Secretly Funded 2010 Attack Ads

By Rebecca Leber on Mar 30, 2012 at 4:05 pm

2010 outside spending from non-disclosing groups, according to the Center for Responsive Politics

Chevron contributed $500,000 to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the American Petroleum Institute gave $25,500 to the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, both of which ran vicious right-wing attack ads in the 2010 midterm elections:

The American Petroleum Institute, which advocates for the oil and gas industry, gave $25,500 to Americans for Prosperity, IRS disclosures show. Americans for Prosperity, based in Arlington, Virginia, spent more than $1.2 million in 2010 to help elect Republicans to Congress, according to FEC records.

The petroleum institute also gave $25,000 to the Alexandria, Virginia-based 60 Plus Association, which favors privatizing Social Security and spent more than $7 million in 2010 in support of Republicans, IRS and FEC records show.

Of course, Republicans picked up seats in both the House and Senate in 2010, when spending from these groups favored Republicans 10-to-1.

Groups like Chevron have seen billions in returns for their 2010 contributions. Chevron’s profits jumped 23.3 percent since 2010, and the company earned $3 million every hour last year. However, the company only paid an effective 19 percent income tax in 2011. Exxon, the most profitable oil company, paid a lowly 13 percent.

In 2012, undisclosed donations will play an even larger role, since interest group spending is up 1600 percent from the 2008 cycle.

Climate Progress

U.S. Chamber Of Commerce: ‘We’re The Old School Super PAC’

By Rebecca Leber on Mar 23, 2012 at 4:35 pm

Outside group spending is up 1600 percent this election cycle, given the rise of Super PACs. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claims it still peddles the most influence in politics, as the radical right-wing industry group plans to spend a record amount of more than $50 million for 2012 this campaign cycle.

U.S. Chamber Political Director Rob Engstrom dubbed the Chamber’s role in elections as an “old-school Super PAC“:

We’re the old school Super PAC. Brand matters and message matters, but messenger matters as much or more in my opinion… at some point relatively soon people are going to turn off if it says “Concerned Citizens for Change.”

“Engstrom maintains that the Chamber’s donor base — largely big business corporations —that fund the political operation are ‘very motivated’ and that having enough funds to get the job done won’t be an issue,” Politico writes.

Engstrom is right that the Chamber doesn’t lack in cash, and it has already committed to spending a record amount of over $50 million in federal races this year. For instance, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has faced almost $2.5 million in ads against him for voting to end Big Oil tax breaks. The Chamber is the largest lobbyist, spending over $132 million in 2010.

Super PACs have been funneling money to often-nasty attack ads, and as an “old school Super PAC,” itself, the Chamber doesn’t mind flaunting how it is trying to drive the election.

Climate Progress

US Chamber Gets Its ‘Scopes Monkey Trial Of The 21st Century’ Against Climate Science

By Brad Johnson on Feb 29, 2012 at 4:37 pm

In 2009, the US Chamber of Commerce — funded by top corporations from Google to JP Morgan Chase — called for the “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century” on the science of climate change. “It would be the science of climate change on trial,” said a top Chamber official.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, lawyers representing the Chamber of Commerce put the science of climate change on trial before the United States Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. The Chamber is represented by Robin S. Conrad and Sheldon Gilbert of the National Chamber Litigation Center, the organization’s in-house trial-lawyer shop, as well as Jeffrey A. Rosen, Robert R. Gasaway, Jeffrey Bossert Clark, and William H. Burgess IV of the corporate legal firm Kirkland & Ellis.

In its filings, made jointly with a cavalcade of polluter interests and Republican politicians, the Chamber makes absurd global-cooling arguments and cites the work of the Heartland Institute’s Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC).

“It is arbitrary for EPA to rely on 21 years of twentieth-century warming as near-conclusive proof of human warming but then claim that the preceding 31 years of cooling and the following 13 years of no warming prove nothing”

“Over the last 65 years, temperatures have mostly been steady or declining, while CO2 levels have steadily increased”

“empirical data from independently derived temperature records show the pattern demanded by this theory and predicted by models does not exist”

“2009 Report of the NIPCC, Climate Change Reconsidered

The Chamber’s anti-science claims are the fever dreams of conspiracy theorists and hacks for hire.

When the Chamber of Commerce stood with climate deniers instead of scientific reality, corporations like Apple, PG&E Corp., Exelon Corp. and PNM Resources quit the group. However, many corporations that supposedly value science and the challenge of climate change have decided to endorse the chamber with their stockholders’ money.

Sum Of Us has launched a campaign to challenge Google to leave the Chamber. Google CEO Eric Schmidt laughed off the campaign, saying the right-wing lobbying group represents “good American values.”

Health

Denver Post: Chamber Of Commerce’s Anti-Health Reform Ad ‘Leans Deceptive’

By Igor Volsky on Feb 21, 2012 at 12:07 pm

The Denver Post is calling out the Chamber of Commerce for running an on behalf of Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) that falsely claims that the Affordable Care Act will undermine job growth. Opponents often cite the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office report from August 2010, which does estimate that on net, the law “will reduce the amount of labor used in the economy by a small amount — roughly half a percent.” But as the Post points out, the analysis also found that the law does so “primarily by reducing the amount of labor that workers choose to supply,” not by reducing the number of jobs created. Watch the ad:

In other words, CBO believes that increasing access to health insurance could lead some people who are working to maintain access to health coverage to retire early or “take jobs that better match their skills, because they would not have to stay in less desirable jobs solely to maintain their health insurance.” Under the law, those individuals would be able to find coverage through the exchange or Medicaid.

What percentage of Americans would actually choose to do this, is of course unclear (Medicaid, after all, has only a 65 percent participation rate and CBO admits “overall impact on labor markets, however, is difficult to predict“), but leaving a job that you’re at simply because of the health coverage it provides is certainly different than businesses closing shop as a result of the law. Other studies have also estimated that modernizing the health care system would create hundreds of thousands of jobs each year.

Politics

Chamber Of Commerce Supports Government Spending, But Runs Pro-GOP Ads Attacking ‘Big Government’

By Josh Israel on Feb 13, 2012 at 3:45 pm

Chamber of Commerce ad attacking "Big Government"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced a multi-state voter “education” ad blitz late last week. Tom Donohue, the group’s president and CEO, says the ads focus on a simple question: “Is big government or free enterprise the solution to our country’s economic problems?”

The blitz features an array of 30-second TV spots aimed at bucking up vulnerable Republican incumbents, supporting GOP House and Senate hopefuls, and criticizing Democrats. One spot supports Blue Dog Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT).

But there is a large element of hypocrisy and contradiction in the spots. One typical ad praises former Sen. George Allen (R-VA), who was defeated in 2006 following his infamous bullying of an Indian-American campaign tracker who he called “macaca” and is seeking his party’s nomination for the same senate seat this November. The narrator says:

Big government isn’t going to help the American recovery. We need to focus on jobs to get our economy back on track. In the Senate, George Allen supported tax cuts that spurred economic growth. He supports a Balanced Budget Amendment. And as Virginia’s governor, Allen cut spending and waste with bipartisan support. Call George Allen. Tell him to keep fighting to promote Virginia jobs.

Watch the ad:

But the Chamber has a selective memory. It was a leading proponent of President Obama’s 2009 stimulus legislation promising that the tax cuts and even many of law’s spending provisions would “provide stimulus and get Americans back to work.” Allen has called the law a “jobless stimulus.”

Though the measure passed almost entirely along party lines, the Chamber spent millions in 2010 to defeat the Democrats who backed the bill — and some of that money may have come from foreign businesses. The $789 billion law has been the largest increase in spending in the Obama presidency.

A constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget would have rendered this stimulus bill — and the preservation of the Allen-backed tax cuts that the Chamber claims spurred growth — impossible.

But even if three years is too long ago for the Chamber to remember, one would think they could remember back to last week. For just as the group blitzed Americans with messages that a smaller government was a panacea to solve the woes of a demonstrably improving economy, its own “Americans for Transportation Mobility Coalition” launched an ad last week calling for more federal government spending on transportation. With clips of President Ronald Reagan, the spot demands “new investments in transportation to keep America moving and jobs growing.” That would likely mean more “big government.”

Health

Chamber Of Commerce Drops Call For Health Care Repeal From Annual Policy Address

By Igor Volsky on Jan 13, 2012 at 12:05 pm

Tom Donohue signaled that the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce may be softening its attacks against President Obama’s signature accomplishments like the Affordable Care Act and the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Kevin Hall reports that Donohue is pledging a “wait-and-see approach” towards the new agency and has not decided if the organization will challenge the recess appointment of Richard Cordray as its director.

During his annual State of the Business address yesterday, Donohue also adopted a more moderate tone towards health care reform. “The health care law established 159 new agencies, panels, commissions, and regulatory bodies,” Donohue said, but did not echo his 2011 call for repealing the law in its entirety. Consider the contrast:

DONOHUE IN 2011: By mid-December, HHS had already granted 222 waivers to the law—a revealing acknowledgement that the law is unworkable. And, with key provisions under challenge in the courts by states and others, it’s time to go back to the drawing board.

Last year, while strongly advocating health care reform, the Chamber was a leader in the fight against this particular bill—and thus we support legislation in the House to repeal it. We see the upcoming House vote as an opportunity for everyone to take a fresh look at health care reform—and to replace unworkable approaches with more effective measures that will lower costs, expand access, and improve quality.

Indeed, the Chamber of Commerce spent millions opposing the legislation in 2010 and its rather light criticism of the measure may signal a growing acceptance of reform among the health care industry. The Obama administration has worked hard to accomodate the concerns of health care stakeholders in the implementation process and the industry has partnered with the government in developing some of the law’s regulatory structure.

Health care groups may also be opposed to the politics of repeal. While the GOP presidential candidates have pledged to eliminate the law “on day one,” unless Republicans win a 60 seat majority in the Senate, a president will not be able to get rid of the measure in its entirety. The Senate could pursue repeal through the reconciliation process, but that piecemeal approach would likely create great uncertainty for the industry and is unlikely to attract significant support.

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