Is the US Chamber of Commerce Abusing the Political Process?

The United States Chamber has always been a political organization, but this year’s ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United case allowed organizations like the Chamber to go further by getting directly involved in the advocacy of candidates.  The Chamber has jumped into the fray in a big way and is spending $75 million to elect candidates, most of whom are Republicans, to Congress.

John Ruan, III is serving as vice chairman of the United States Chamber of Commerce and will be its next chairman.  He used his clout with the organization to convince Tom Donohue, the Chamber’s president and C.E.O., to come to Ruan’s hometown of Des Moines and address the Rotary Club.  It was a timely presentation.

On Tuesday the left leaning Center for American Progress released a report detailing how the United States Chamber of Commerce was getting “dues” payments of tens of thousands of dollars from foreign companies in countries such as Bahrain, India and Egypt and mingling the money with funds from U.S. members to advocate for or against candidates in the midterm races.  The report was summarized in the Center’s online blog, Think Progress. The New York Times offered an opinion on the matter as well.

I am a Rotarian and I took the opportunity to ask Mr. Donohue about this matter at lunch Thursday during the question period.  Specifically, I asked,“The recent Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case allowed corporations and organizations like the U.S. Chamber to participate in the political process by funding ads. And, I don’t know the facts in particular in this case, but I think the U.S. Chamber is running some ads and it collects money from foreign nationals and corporations into their 501(c)(6).  Does the perception bother you that foreign nationals are participating in the political process and, if so, what would the U.S. Chamber do to correct that perception or practice?”

If you want to save some time, Mr. Donohue’s answer to my question appeared to be that the U.S. Chamber was not going to do anything different to change the perception that the Chamber is mingling foriegn with domestic political funds, nor change its actual practices.  He just talked about how liberals are out to sink the Chamber.  That is my take, for what it is worth.

But, if you wish to read Mr. Donohue’s entire response, here it is: “It is against the law for foreign nationals to participate in the political process. And, that thing appeared first on a blog supported by George Soros and followed by an irresponsible editorial in the New York Times and then jumped into all the blogs driven by people who are very, very upset about what is going to happen in this election.

So, we don’t bring any money…they claim we did it through our American Chambers of Commerce Abroad.  They’ve been going on for a hundred years.  That’s absolute rubbish.

The second thing is the Citizens United thing.  That rule didn’t say we could run ads.  We’ve been running ads for years.  What it said is if we wanted to, we could say instead of educate – go call up your Congressman and ask him where he stands on this issue – that we could say actually elected him or defeat him.  Which, we’re not doing, by the way.  It’s much easier to do it the other way.

But, what we have here – and then they tried to pass legislation keeping us out of the political process.  I mean, you know, we’re going to spend, I don’t know, $50 to 75 million in this election.  The unions alone are going to spend 200 or so million dollars.  But, they would like to have an uneven playing field even more.  They would like to keep us out.

So that it is very unfortunate that somebody, you know, a bright person out here this far away from the New York Times gets the impression that we’re doing stuff like that.  It’s just simply political hogwash trying to get us off the field.  And, I just got our guys together and said ‘OK, we’re going to put more money in.’

And, so, we’re out trying to…when I sat down to speak to you they were picketing our building in Washington and I like it because it is a clear indication that what we are doing is working.”

I wish Mr. Donohue would have said the Chamber would not mingle funds from those outside the United States with those within when running the Chamber’s political efforts.  He did not and that is troubling.

(Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com)

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.

The Quran Burner and a Presidential Phone Call

The White House is considering calling Terry Jones, the Florida preacher who is set to burn a stack of holy Qurans on Saturday. Jones said today he might reconsider if the White House called him. They areconsidering making the call. My gut instinct is they should not. The White House should never negotiate with terrorists and fanatics.

I recognize there is more at stake here than making some sort of testosterone laden statement about not being pushed into a corner by bullies. This is precisely why President Obama is better suited for the job than I am. If somebody can stop this unproductive and destructive event from occurring with a single a phone call, it probably should be made. However, Terry Jones and those who back him are no better than any other fanatical group that spews hate and tries to force the U.S. into a corner.

Terry Jones has a right to free speech, but he needs to be held accountable for what he says and does. A man of faith should know better. The fact he doesn’t makes him no better than the extremists he supposedly is out to stop. If you call, Mr. President, make sure you don’t negotiate. That would set a bad precedent.

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.

Religion and the Political Power of Insinuation

Publisher Steve Forbes came to Des Moines last week to promote his latest book, appear at events for the Iowa Christian Alliance and to raise a little money for Republicans. When asked if he would be running for president in 2012, Forbes said, “No, I’m an agitator.” I’m not sure we need another one of those. The television news-tainment channels are chock-full of talking heads screaming the provocative. There are too many people engaged in agitation these days.

Kim Lehman is one of three people representing Iowa on the Republican National Committee. She is also an agitator. Lehman stirred up controversy with comments that President Obama isn’t a Christian, but secretly a practicing Muslim. It does not matter that Lehman’s comments were unfounded. They were inflammatory and blew in a firestorm of words and accusations – a masterwork of an agitator.

Republicans here and nationally found themselves having to respond to questions about Lehman’s remarks. The most irritating of the responses came from Terry Branstad, Chuck Grassley and others who said they would “take the president at his word that he was a Christian.”

When asked to respond to questions about her comments, Lehman said the media should not focus on her, but should instead call the White House and ask the president about his faith. In turn, Branstad and Grassley did not address the appropriateness of one of their party officials making faith a condition of public service, but said all they could do was take Obama’s word about his Christianity.

Of all the great things written by Thomas Jefferson, he chose the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom as his epitaph. It says, in part, that “proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence, by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages, to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right…”

Jefferson was right. It is not whether we take a president’s word on his faith, but whether his fellow Americans have the right to make him profess or renounce a religious doctrine before we allow him to do his job.

An agitator may incite uproar by making crass insinuations about the president’s faith and suggesting being a Muslim makes one somehow less American. However, the greatness of our country rests on our vigilant defense of freedom. Patriots come in every faith. It is the commitment to our country that matters.

Agitation has its time and place, but we will only prevail by focusing on what unites us, our freedom.

This entry was first published as a guest column in the Sunday Des Moines Register.

Government is Overstepping with Electronic Snooping

Today, arguments will be made in a federal appeals court in Philadelphia regarding the government’s ability to collect and use information from cell phones without having to ask anyone for permission. When I say anyone I mean anyone – not you, not the courts, not anyone. The government (let me be clear, I mean the Obama appointed Department of Justice) is arguing it should be able to gather “locational” information, without a search warrant. This is a serious intrusion into your right to privacy and you should be nervous, if not outraged about what they are seeking.

Americans should be aware how much information their cell phones can provide a Big Brother government. Your cell phone sends a signal to the phone company making it possible to track the phone’s whereabouts at all times – even when the phone is not in use. The Justice Department wants police to be able to ask phone companies to monitor the movements of individuals and to collect logs of past movements over weeks and years of use. To be precise, these historical records are the center of today’s court proceedings.

The Court should tell the government “No.” The Fourth Amendment requires government to obtain a search warrant for this type of information requiring the government to show probable cause of criminal activity before it can spy on people. Make no mistake, our freedom is being challenged. This tracking data would allow the government to determine what church you attend, what meetings you go to, where you buy your groceries and who your friends are. The government has no right and little constructive need to have free and open access to this information.

The Justice Department is arguing that warrantless tracking is permitted because Americans enjoy no “reasonable expectation of privacy” in their whereabouts. This is outrageous. Americans have the right to move freely. I am greatly troubled by the continued attack on our freedom. Couple the court proceeding in Philadelphia today with the FBI’s continued efforts to force Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years and you get the feeling that our individual liberties are under an unprecedented and frightening assault. It is time for the Obama Administration to change course.

How the Obama Justice Department feels about your right to privacy can be summed up with this line from their brief in today’s case, “one who does not wish to disclose his movements to the government need not use a cellular telephone.” Wrong. Using a cell phone does cancel one’s right to privacy.

I know we live in a world where bad guys want to harm the good and I want my government to have the tools they need to apprehend these criminals. However, protecting individual liberty is paramount. The government should have to seek a court’s permission for sensitive information regarding a person’s whereabouts and what they are reading or viewing on the Internet. Allowing government to gather information and go on unjustified fishing missions by trolling electronic records is just flat out wrong.

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.

Individual Rights Must Come Before Protecting Religious Institutions

The Obama Administration has changed the way the United States relates to the world. I tend to think this is good on many levels, but change can be nerve-racking. An example of this is the recent United Nations Human Rights Council resolution regarding freedom of opinion and expression co-authored by the U.S. and Egypt. (You read that right. Egypt, who has demonstrated little interest or understanding of freedom of speech, was our co-author.) The diplomatic importance of reaching out and demonstrating goodwill to our neighbors in the world is obvious, but this resolution makes even some strident Obama supporters a little nervous.

If this resolution, Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, Including the Right to Development, is anything, it is another humdrum example of why diplomatic documents accomplish so little. Wait, don’t leave. Before all three of my readers bolt due to a fear of another boring, wonky policy talk; I will step this up.

Some get to Section 4 and begin to hyperventilate. In it, the Council expresses concern “that incidents of racial and religious intolerance, discrimination and related violence, as well as of negative racial and religious stereotyping continue to rise around the world, and condemns, in this context, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence, and urges States to take effective measures, consistent with their obligations under international human rights law, to address and combat such incidents.”

Anne Bayefsky at the Weekly Standard wrote that this troubling paragraph gives license to countries to squash free speech in order to protect religion. She says the resolution shows, “threatening freedom of expression is a price for engagement with the Islamic world that (the Obama Administration) is evidently prepared to pay.”

USAToday contributor Jonathan Turley described the action this way, “Whether defined as hate speech, discrimination or simple blasphemy, governments are declaring unlimited free speech as the enemy of freedom of religion. This growing movement has reached the United Nations, where religiously conservative countries received a boost in their campaign to pass an international blasphemy law.”

I cannot say whether they are right or not. What I can say is that we live in world where diplomacy is anything but clear cut. In these troubling times it is important for the United States to make a gesture of friendship, but it cannot give even the appearance that it accepts a compromise on human rights in the process.

The Egyptian ambassador to the U.N. Hisham Badr said upon passage of the Human Rights Council resolution that “freedom of expression has been sometimes misused” and the “true nature of this right” must yield government limitations. Yikes.

At the same time, U.S. Diplomat Douglas Griffiths said that this resolution “is a manifestation of the Obama administration’s commitment to multilateral engagement throughout the United Nations and of our genuine desire to seek and build cooperation based upon mutual interest and mutual respect in pursuit of our shared common principles of tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.” OK, but I would suggest he and his other U.S. colleagues make it clear we do not agree with those who think this document gives even tacit approval of placing church before individual freedom.

Individual rights can never be allowed to be subservient to those granted a religious institution. If the US allows that, 233 years of struggle will have been for naught. U.S. officials need to make this clear when they stand smiling at news conferences with foreign dignitaries and when they face them across a negotiating table.

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.