An Executive Order to Provide Some Sunlight on Contributions to Political Groups

Today’s fun has been to watch some of the reaction to the news that there is circulating around the Obama Administration that would ask Federal contractors to disclose how much money they’ve contributed to organizations involved in political activity. The Huffington Post has a copy of the draft Executive Order (pdf), and they got it from Pajamas Media who has been howling about this.

What is interesting about this approach is that it is disclosure ONLY. They haven’t prohibited the funding, they’ve just asked firms who are getting contracts from the Feds to disclose the money ($5K threshold) the send to politicians and third-party political groups AND they will post that information in a publicly available database. Even more fun is that this Order specifically references state-level pay-to-play rules as the basis for the Order — an innovation in transparency that the Feds should adopt.

This only would apply to government contractors, so these disclosure rules only go part way. And there is no ban or restriction on the contributions. But it does get some of the funders of places like the Chamber of Commerce and their various political arms out in the open. It also applies to those Federal contractors who might be contributing to Democratic political groups, too. But so would the Disclosure Act, which the GOP find to be *too* much transparent government.

Unfortunately, corporations who have been given “personhood” have not been given a normal person’s restrictions on and requirements for political contributions. But an EO that just tells taxpayers where their money gets spent in the political process seems like a step in the right direction.