If the White House were to flex its muscle and force federal government contractors to reveal their political spending, 70 percent of the largest companies in the United States would be affected, according to a non-profit research group that has long called on President Obama to force such a chain of events.
Seven in 10 Fortune 100 companies over the last year have won contracts from Uncle Sam worth at least $100,000, according to Public Citizen. And if they were forced to disclose what sort of cash they spend on influence peddling, the progressive organization said that a post-Citizens United America would learn more about how the likes of Google, Chevron, Bank of America, Exxon Mobil, and other massive multinationals are working to impact the outcome of elections.
“This dark money spending is particularly insidious when it comes from government contractors, because they are helping those who stand to help them win more contracts,” Public Citizen president Robert Weissman said in a press release issued Monday. “President Obama can and should issue an executive order to help fix this corrupt pay-to-play system.”
In its report, Public Citizen found that over the past year, 11 of the 12 largest Fortune 100 companies received business from the US government above the $100,000 threshold, with all companies purportedly affected by its proposed order ranging in industries “from defense to technology, energy to finance, [and] entertainment to chemicals.”
“Because the federal government buys everything from toothbrushes to nuclear missiles, it is no surprise that most large companies are significant government contractors,” Weissman remarked.
The investigation also found that the largest companies without six figures in deals with the feds over the past 12 months “come disproportionately from the insurance industry.”
The report’s authors warned that they could have very well systematically underestimated the percentage of top multinationals an order on major contractor disclosures would effect, given the vast complex network of subsidiaries typically maintained by large corporations. They said, however, that the “limitations [to the report] should not materially affect our findings.”
Earlier in the month, Public Citizen spearheaded an initiative–alongside a broad coalition of non-profits, labor unions, liberal activists, and public interest groups–that culminated in the delivering of 550,000 petition signatures calling on President Obama to require “corporations that bid for government contracts to disclose their campaign spending.”
In 2011, the Obama Administration drafted an executive order that would have forced contractors to make such disclosures, but dropped any effort to see it through to fruition by April 2012—as political donors on both sides of the aisle geared up to make record gifts to their favorite candidates.
Republicans responded to the proposal with criticism, claiming that the move would raise questions about the federal contracting system and meritocracy, according to The Hill.
In a letter to the White House, a group of Republican legislators led by current House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) also noted that contractors’ “political speech” was financed “to protect their livelihoods.”
