CREW Congratulates July’s Scoundrel of the Month: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington issued the following news release:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce still does whatever it takes to keep voters and corporate shareholders from learning who funds its political activities. But hard as the group may try to pull the wool over the public's eyes, CREW's voters saw right through its latest sneaky maneuver, and rewarded the Chamber with the title of July's Scoundrel of the Month.

Shareholders across the country are demanding greater transparency from corporate leadership, floating proposals that would require companies to disclose their political contributions. In response, the Chamber quietly submitted a petition (http://www.citizensforethics.org/legal-filings/entry/crew-comments-chamber-of-commerce-self-serving-rulemaking-petition) to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for new rules to make it more difficult for shareholders to seek votes on these proposals. The anti-transparency rulemaking petition is a blatant attempt by the Chamber to preserve the ability of America's biggest corporations to use the Chamber as a conduit to secretly influence elections.

"Not only does the Chamber believe it can buy the Congress it wants, it apparently thinks the SEC is a wholly owned subsidiary that exists to do its bidding. If corporations will stand by while the Chamber rides roughshod over the rights of their shareholders, you have to wonder what exactly they're so eager to hide," CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said.

Shareholders have good reason to believe that corporations aren't living up to their promises of transparency. As CREW reported (http://www.citizensforethics.org/legal-filings/entry/report-voluntary-corporate-political-spending-disclosure-does-not-work) earlier this year, current corporate policies for disclosing political spending -- all adopted voluntarily -- are inconsistent and ridden with loopholes. In 2012, because of a filing error made by the health insurance giant Aetna, CREW discovered that the company contributed nearly $8 million (http://www.citizensforethics.org/press/entry/aetna-political-spending-american-action-network-chamber-of-commerce) in dark money to the Chamber and the American Action Network. Aetna made false and misleading statements to shareholders about its political contributions to beat back a pro-transparency proposal, leading CREW to file suit (http://www.citizensforethics.org/press/entry/crew-files-lawsuit-against-aetna-for-misleading-proxy-statements) against the company on behalf of an Aetna shareholder.

Nominations are already being accepted (http://www.citizensforethics.org/page/s/nominate-a-scoundrel) for August's Scoundrel of the Month. People, entities, and agencies are all eligible. Submit your choices by Friday, August 22nd. Voting will begin the following week.

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