This is great news that will help limit corporations from buying elections in the future!

Quote :

"Obama proposal could shed light on campaign cash By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY A watchdog group committed to open government just gave a big thumbs-up to a draft executive order by President Obama that would require campaign finance disclosures from government contractors. The Sunlight Foundation said the proposal "would radically change the ability to follow the money during the upcoming elections." Under the draft order, writes Sunlight's Paul Blumenthal, any organization bidding on a federal contract would have to disclose contributions made to any third-party group that plans to use the money in elections. That would bring to light many contributions to groups that don't have to disclose their donors under the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling. Writes Blumenthal: "Thirty-three of the 41 companies listed in the top 100 campaign contributors over the past two decades are recipients of federal contracts. According to USASpending.gov, there are 129,083 recipients of federal contracts, although many of these may be duplicates. "While the order would certainly not apply retroactively, these companies would have to disclose their political giving for the two previous years if they sought a new contract from the government." No word yet on whether Obama will sign off on the executive order. But it seems to achieve much of the what Congress, with his support, failed to do last year to reverse the effects of the Supreme Court ruling. "

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/04/obama-proposal-could-shed-light-on-campaign-cash-/1

4/23/2011 10:21:57 AM

set em up

4/23/2011 10:36:10 AM

Obama's already lost his base, the youth vote, and civil libertarians. No point trying to pretend now. Might as well just embrace his corporate puppeteers.

4/23/2011 10:51:28 AM

I am stunned to hear Obama is thinking of enacting an executive order that is both constitutional and probably legal. I can't think of a single instance before.

4/23/2011 11:46:14 AM

Obama will lose in 2012

4/23/2011 11:50:36 AM

Quote :

"Obama will lose in 2012 "

I'll take that bet.

4/23/2011 12:19:49 PM

Unions not required to disclose, but businesses are.

Wow, I can't see how the Admin would use THAT info to make decisions on contracts.

4/23/2011 12:45:01 PM

Perfectly legal as the President. I don't see any problem with this. As for those who think that this is somehow a swipe aimed at Republicans, I would suggest that political contributions by government contracts are much more driven by geography than ideology. Say for example, a Lockheed Martin, is going to have a track record of supporting senators in Georgia, California, Florida, Michigan, etc. where their major manufacturing facilities and engineering shops are located; this makes perfectly rational sense given that those congressmen are going to be interested in protecting jobs in their districts. You're not going to see any surprises: you can already clearly tell which people are getting their support because those Congressmen typically are the loudest activists for them when an issue involving the company pops up.

4/25/2011 3:06:40 PM

Quote :

"12 of the 20 biggest political contributors over the last two decades have been unions; in last year's election the single biggest political donor was public-sector union AFSCME which spent $87.5 million and actually bragged about it to the Wall Street Journal; and unions collectively spent over $400 million during Obama's 2008 election. Nearly all of that money went to Democrats."

Attribution: The Weekly Standard.

Data for claim: http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php

What you can get from website: Executive Order is irrelevant.

What you can get from article: Democrats don't know what to do with the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United. So, as usual, they will rely on the President's uncanny ability to subvert the other two branches of the Federal Government.

Well done, Mr. President.

Always the Constitutional scholar.

I guess when people say he was a Constitutional lawyer, we expect him to follow the Constitution, not go around it.

4/25/2011 7:39:17 PM