Shameless Chamber of Commerce

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Large Donations Aid U.S. Chamber in Election Drive,” shows an inexcusable political partisanship of the organization that goes far beyond its charter and reason for existence.

With impeccable research, the writers of the article show that half of its contributions — based on a total membership of three million businesses and 300,000 members — came from just 45 donors in 2008. I’m sure the figures are even more skewed this year, but the Chamber is protected from releasing them. 90 percent of the donations are used to support Republican candidates. Large million dollar donations from Dow Chemical, Prudential Financial and Texaco coincided with consideration of legislation by Congress essential to each. And the Chamber of Commerce has now become the largest lobbyist on Capitol Hill.

Now, I’m pretty sure that 90 percent of the Chamber’s members are not Republican, so for the Chamber to spend that proportion of its funds to support Republican candidates represents a misappropriation of their membership dues. This is just one step short of fraud.

I run a business, too, Cut-It-Out Communications, and I am saddened to see an organization formed to provide support for me acting against my wishes. Whatever the status of campaign finance reform, we need internal reform by the Chamber of Commerce.